Review: Breakout Beyond for Nintendo Switch

Breakout Beyond, man, it kinda flips that old-school brick-breaking vibe on its head. Longer playfields, more bricks to smash. Fun way to kill time, though, gotta admit, lots of stuff’s locked at first. Some might get bored, others? They’ll keep paddling, especially with a buddy.

Two-player co-op is where it’s at. Honestly, flying solo got kinda meh, but when my wife jumped in with her paddle, it was a game-changer. I mean, maybe I’m just a weirdo—looking at you, leaderboards—but I’ll rant about that later. First, gotta talk about “voyage.”

So, voyage mode… it’s about unlocking bombs and powering things up. You can slow down the game, but it costs points. Early levels are easy-peasy, then boom, real challenge. Feels like you just wanna try “one more time.” Mess around with paddle sensitivity, though—too fast or too slow and you’re toast. There are 72 levels. Yeah, I got obsessed, wanted to beat ’em all, didn’t have to, but, well, you know.

The game looks like the classic, sounds kinda wild when you’re rocking combos. Choice Provisions knows their stuff. You play better, game gets all flashy. Love how you can tweak music and sounds individually.

Oh, the content locking thing? Man, what a mess. Infinite mode, original arcade—locked at the start. Just why? Would’ve been smarter to have ’em ready from the get-go for extra fun. At least leaderboards are split into global, friends, modes. My wife and I? Top of the co-op board, but maybe solo’s where everyone else is?

Breakout’s a timeless classic, hard to mess it up. Choice Provisions almost did with that content lock silliness. Still, they pulled it off. Shows how good they are, and how great the original game was.