Thank you Osarion for sending us a review code!

Spear Master was originally released on Steam in 2020 and has gotten a console release four years later. The Switch version supports local multiplayer and PC users recently got an update giving them the same capabilities. Although up to four players can play locally, I have played this game by myself.

The story in Spear Master is pretty simple. You play the descendant of a local town hero whose father protected the village from life sucking balls called Tarr. These entities can only be defeated with a magical spear which is bestowed upon you by your father. With the spear in your possession you must now travel the world map and clear out sections throughout four islands to rid them of the Tarr threat.

In the beginning, the hero has three hearts which are shared throughout the three levels in each section. Each time you are hit by a Tarr, bomb, falling platform, fire, or any other threat, a heart will be consumed and you will restart on the level you left off at. After all of your hearts are depleted, you’ll be kicked back to the world map and will have to restart that section from the beginning. At the end of a level, you’ll be shown the statistics for how long it took, how many spears you’ve thrown, your accuracy, and the number of gems you have collected.

At first, the enemies are black balls that often split apart into two smaller ones. When defeated, the opponents will often drop a gem which is used as currency at the shops. At the shop you can purchase the ability for helper items to drop like one-time use shields and potions that make you temporarily invisible/invincible. Buying the extra life heart and charm to increase the drop percentage by 10% are highly recommended! Alternatively, you can purchase other outfits to change the appearance of your character.

As your arsenal of helpful item drops increases, the harmful objects will as well. Some of the negative item drops include bombs, ice that freezes your character for several seconds, and pacifiers that temporarily turns your character into a crawling infant that doesn’t move as fast as their adult form. The baby is also defenseless. The last island has acid, but you can deflect i with your spear if you're fast enough.

Each island has a puzzle level. If you successfully solve it, a treasure chest full of gems becomes available. One of the puzzles featured Egyptian hieroglyphics. On the final island your character may come in contact with mushrooms that will intoxicate them. The only other moral concern worth noting is that there is some cartoon violence and a character does die in the game. No blood is shown though.

At the end of each island is a boss battle. Bosses are even bigger blobs that break apart more often than your typical foe. As an added challenge, you don’t have any life hearts so you only have one hit point. Item drops like shields and invisibility potions are a huge blessing in these battles! There are Switch/Steam achievements for defeating each island’s general.

The graphics are colorful and charming in this title. Each island has a different set of enemies and environmental challenges to overcome. Throughout the game you’ll see some cut scenes, but there is no voice acting in them.

The background music is calming which is nice since some of the levels can be frustrating. The enemies bounce around and don’t go lower than grazing the hairs on your head. This is good since you can only attack vertically. Whenever you get hit by an enemy, the same sound effect is used no matter its size. I would have used different sound effects for bigger foes.

Maneuvering around the world map can be confusing as your character doesn’t go the way you intend at times. Thankfully, the controls are solid when fighting enemies. Though I experienced some slowdowns during my stream, the game ran fine offline and I didn’t have any issues afterward.

Overall, Spear Master is a cute game that’s not very relaxing. If you like vertical shooting games like Bubble Bobble, Spear Master is worth looking into. It’s available on Steam and Switch for $9.99.