Just Shapes & Beats Review

Just Shapes & Beats is a game that lives up to its title, in essence being a rhythmic dance of dodging shapes to infectious beats. This unique blend creates a rhythm-based bullet-hell experience that, despite its simplicity, manages to captivate players with its imaginative and creative presentation.

Each player commands a small shape armed with only two actions: Move and dash. The mission is clear – navigate through each stage, skillfully dodging the onslaught of deadly pink obstacles and hazards. The screen transforms into a captivating bullet-hell, with timed hazards seamlessly syncing with the pulsating rhythm of the musical track. These telegraphed attacks demand timely reactions amidst the chaos on-screen.

And that’s pretty much it. There are no means of retaliation, no way to rush the process: The only way to win is to survive long enough to reach the end of the stage.

Now, the order in which the hazards and harmful shapes appear on-screen is fixed, but for most of them, their position and trajectory are not. On the one hand, this means that perfecting a stage in Just Shapes & Beats is not a matter of memorization; instead, it demands continuous attention and fast spontaneous reactions to navigate a stage unscathed. This design choice has a drawback, though, as it often leads to sections where attacks concentrate on one part of the screen alone. This may create a sense of emptiness based on your positioning, and where there isn’t much to do other than wait. The randomness in hazard spawns can thus occasionally make success feel reliant on good luck. This is especially true on Hardcore difficulty.

Moreover, players have entire freedom over their positioning, with Just Shapes & Beats being entirely off-rails in nature. This can result in a disconnect when forced to dash independently of the music to avoid hazards, and disrupts the otherwise harmonious flow. A contradiction to the game’s core idea, as it requires players to navigate hazards out of sync with the underlying beat.

Just Shapes & Beats caters to different preferences, offering both coop and single-player modes. There are options for local or online competitive gameplay, the ability to create your own libraries of tracks to play back-to-back, and even a Party Mode, where there is no fail state, and the music never stops — a perfect mode for casual play with guests. And while both competitive and party modes are enjoyable, I personally had the most fun with Story Mode.

Instead of a simple stage select screen, Story Mode unfolds an entire plot in Just Shapes & Beats. The interactive overworld is masterfully used to tell that story. To select the next track, I had to navigate a corrupted world filled with dangerous hazards waiting around each corner. While there is no fail state in the overworld, this design choice and continuation of the story outside the actual stages make Story Mode a really engaging and fun mode to play. It is definitely not lengthy, providing a captivating three-hour experience on Normal difficulty, unlocking chapter select and Hardcore mode upon completion.

On Hardcore difficulty, more obstacles are introduced, certain hazards are resized for increased difficulty and, more significantly, attack telegraph times are heavily reduced.

With a soundtrack predominantly consisting of chiptune tracks, the music is one of the highlights of the game. The clear beats and well-telegraphed attacks are crucial for players to navigate and evade hazards intuitively. The different shapes dance and expand beautifully to the underlying rhythm of the tracks.
For a game like Just Shapes & Beats, where the music needs to take a primary role, the chosen style is very well-suited. Most if not all tracks are exciting, varied, and filled with awesome beat drops and surprises.
Notably, the soundtrack features tracks from well-known artists such as Danimal Cannon, Chipzel or Nitro Fun, to name a few.

Just Shapes & Beats stands strong as an entertaining experience, whether enjoyed in casual coop gamemodes, or while pursuing solo challenges in Hardcore mode. It has a very simple premise which, coupled with minimalistic design and hard-hitting beats, makes it a game worth exploring. While occasional moments of emptiness and frustration exist due to RNG, they are infrequent, allowing the game’s overall charm to shine through.