As a person that has dedicated themselves to giving games of all genres and styles an honest shot, trying to focus as little as possible on my own personal preferences, and instead leveraging the thousands of games I’ve played on the Switch to establish the bar that must be met, I’ll admit that there are still sometimes those titles that baffle me. Hextreme Void is one such game, initially giving the impression that it would be some sort of variation of Breakout but then revealing itself as something very different. I suppose you could call it Breakout without paddles… and if you’re a bit confused by that statement, you now know how I feel.

Each stage is filled with various hexagonal tiles, and in order to proceed to the next level you’ll need to slowly knock them all out with one of your balls. You’ll at least get some help in the form of power-ups that will get released on occasion, all providing some sort of temporary benefit that will typically speed up the process of eliminating tiles, as well as a choice of perks each time you level up. These range from obvious options like adding additional balls or increasing their power (though honestly most of the time that seems to have limited effect) to more critically adding time to the clock, though with so little added on at a time, that often feels like a waste as well.

The twist is that aside from choosing your periodic perks the vast majority of the game is merely enjoyed as a spectator sport. You won’t have a paddle to try to keep balls in play, and you won’t even have the ability to give the playfield a nudge or something to create the illusion of player engagement. Nope, you’ll just sit there, watching the balls bounce around and hoping for the best. Literally that’s all. After each run you’ll then have points you can spend to improve your base stats, increasing the odds that you’ll get further next time, but this is the sort of title where I really don’t even know who it is for. The action simply isn’t that visually exciting, there’s quickly nothing that could qualify as a pleasant surprise, and for the most part you’ll just sit there twiddling your thumbs and watching the clock tick away. Perhaps there are a few people out there who this may appeal to, but I’d imagine they’re a rarity as this quickly gets to be a snore.