This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format.

At first glance, one might groan at the notion of yet another space shmup on the indie marketplace, but Stellar Interface manages to set itself apart by offering a variable experience using roguelike elements to stand alone. The game encourages adaptability, perseverance, and repetition to create an engagingly addictive experience.

As a roguelike, Stellar Interface's gameplay likely won’t be everyone’s cup of tea; there’s nothing worse than embarking on a successful run with the best gear, only to be thrust back to square one. Each run begins with the selection of your ship and left and right guns, with the options of a few variables, sub-categorised by type, such as machine guns, blasters, lasers and so on. Once selected, you’ll be thrust into randomly generated stages to survive, though you crucially don’t have to clear the enemies to progress.

You’re then able to allocate further upgrades to your ship, usually taking the form of a passive bonus, gun upgrade, or ally to assist you. While the former two have obvious effects, the naming and descriptions of allies – via memes and jokes – is more annoying than it is amusing, as their benefit is not made clear.

Still, these upgrades are great when stacked and give the potential for your tiny ship to turn into an absolute monster. It’ll need to be to take on the many bosses, too, which, while tough, don’t feel unfair on normal difficulty. The addictive quality — failing and telling yourself just ‘one more run’ — is really what generates most of this game's appeal.

Graphically, Stellar Interface is fine, but it’s the least impressive aspect of the experience. It’s your standard 16-bit style shoot 'em up, but with the slightly generic enemy design; they have a tendency to blend into the background, which can be frustrating. The soundtrack, however, is great, with a blood-pumping dubstep influence that perfectly blends with the action.

Overall, Stellar Interface is the lovechild of the shmup and roguelike RPG genres and stands above the crowd as an addictively simple, replayable shooter.