Alien Path (iOS) Review

Sometimes nothing beats a neat little puzzle game to just pick up and play whenever the desire strikes, and Alien Path is here to help satisfy this need with a deft space adventure touch. A cute alien race has lost their home to evil robots, and now it must be reclaimed by sliding into them at high speed and shooting them in a circuit-styled puzzle title.

The goal is simply to pass by as many power-ups as possible towards the enemy by turning directional pads to create a great path to receive more attack power to kill them, and health to survive their counterattacks. It is a simple, yet extremely addictive formula that is difficult to grow tired of.

The gameplay is very enjoyable, but Alien Path suffers somewhat from poorly executed gacha mechanics. The most questionable part is the extremely low energy cap for most levels at this point. Having an energy cap of 10 at a stage of the game where each course costs three to four energy to run, while a full recovery takes less than a couple of hours, is very poor design for a gacha title, which is meant by nature to be played in bursts once every four or so hours during lunch breaks or on the bus home.

The energy does eventually get a little better when levelled up, but it takes quite a while for it to even be at tolerable levels of recovery, and it would be very much preferred if the energy bar was double the size, even at the current recovery pace of one energy every eight minutes, which is actually pretty good considering that even in the last current main story world, the stages cost just three to four energy to run.

Other than the somewhat low energy count that takes under two hours to fully recharge, Alien Path is a very enjoyable and on-point puzzle title. For fans of the genre, it will be an experience that is truly out of this world.