I joined the first game with an immediate thought that is likely quite common; this game was made for multiplayer, yet it doesn't seem to have it. I secured my first win rather quickly, yet each subsequent battle would come to an excruciating halt due to the removal of the way-finder UI after only one opponent remained. This did give me the chance to notice the sets of "Dragoon" pieces and discover how they work, but I was never able to have that scavenge result in any combat. Eventually I found the AI slider and turned it up to max, which prompts more retreats depending on what weapon the opponent has. The framerate got tragically slow with upwards of three enemies on screen, and between that and one too many runarounds looking for my final foe, I decided to bow out for the final time.
The game has several clear points of reference that are inevitably drawn short by the exclusion of competitive play. Several weapons act more as hazards than targeted shots, a design that lends itself to being another player's nuisance mid-battle; the AI, however, reduces most patterns of attack into kite-shoot-backwards. This sets a clear hierarchy of weapons as ones that have direct fire, yet there are plenty of interesting varieties that would be fun to test validity with in a "higher stakes" environment.
For the 3DS "Smash Run" or Kirby Air Ride's "City Trial," a large portion of their appeal is their status as a liminal space with self-motivated discoveries; the "official game" can be played and players can easily accumulate power boosts, but it seems discordant with this mostly "Land" based design; Subspace Emissary was the foremost attempt to claim this appeal, so much so that it was retrospectively isolated as the redeeming quality of the game.