There’s no question that if you’re a fan of pretty well any type of arcade shooter, the Switch library has you more than covered with a wide variety of well-made titles both big and small. While that’s terrific news for genre fans, it does unfortunately make for a pretty high bar for new entrants to the field, even on the low-budget end of the spectrum. 

In the case of Viral Reload EX, what it does at least have on its side is a pretty silly and odd set of characters literally being injected into a more unusual circumstance. For at least portions of this adventure, you’ll be flying through the bloodstream, taking on some menacing viral bosses who can sometimes pack more interesting challenges. The pity is that if you were envisioning something pretty crazy along the lines of the classic Salamander, you’ll likely be disappointed by the relative lack of creativity and ambition to be found here.

The biggest obstacle to this being a better game is just that it’s honestly quite simple. Outside of a dash you’ll have at your disposal for getting through tough spots with some brief invulnerability, on the whole most of the elements at play here feel pretty ordinary. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be challenging, but in a subgenre full of great titles that push the limit, and possess their own elements that help to set them apart, this mostly just feels adequate. It still may be a nice diversion to pick up on a sale, but purely in terms of core gameplay this comes up short of the bar its peers have set for success.