GOLIATH Review

Four Dollars, No Filler, Just Titans

GOLIATH strips the boss-rush genre down to exactly what its name promises: a twin-stick bullet hell where every encounter is a Titan-sized fight, every run is a score chase, and there's essentially no padding between one boss and the next. It's a solo-developed release priced at $3.99, and the review sample it's drawn is a rare, clean sweep — 17 reviews, every single one positive, with a consistency of enthusiasm across the sample that's unusual even for a well-received indie game. There's no overworld to wander, no narrative cutscenes to sit through, and no crafting economy layered on top — just a menu, a character build, and a Titan waiting on the other side of it.

Wearing Its Influences Proudly, and Earning the Comparison

Reviewers immediately reach for genre touchstones to describe it — The Void Rains Upon Her Heart, Tiny Rogues, and Enter the Gungeon all get named as points of comparison, and multiple reviewers frame GOLIATH less as an imitation than a confident, focused distillation of what makes those games work. One reviewer calls it "no BS, arcade-y twin stick bullet hell goodness," which captures the general sentiment: this isn't trying to reinvent the genre, it's trying to deliver its core pleasures as cleanly as possible, and reviewers consistently say it succeeds.

Boss Design That's Simpler Than It Looks, and Harder Too

The Titans themselves draw specific, detailed praise. Reviewers describe boss patterns as simple and stylized on the surface but carrying real depth and difficulty once you're actually dodging them, with one detailed review calling the shooting "dense, very high quality" and praising fair, readable telegraphs on nearly every boss encounter — with one specific exception, a boss nicknamed "the four hands boss," singled out by name as the one fight that doesn't land as well as the rest. Several reviewers describe the same experience of underestimating a pattern only to be punished seconds later, and treat that rhythm of overconfidence-then-consequence as one of the game's sharpest pleasures rather than a frustration. One reviewer puts it bluntly: every run they keep thinking the current bullet pattern looks too easy, right before it kills them a few seconds later — and rather than resenting that whiplash, they call it exactly why the game is worth recommending.

Build Variety and Score Chasing Give It Real Legs

Beyond the boss fights themselves, reviewers repeatedly praise how much build variety the character-upgrade system supports, with several saying they hadn't even explored every option after multiple runs. The leaderboard and score-attack framing gets called out as a strong hook for replayability on its own, and more than one reviewer specifically asks for expanded leaderboard features — individual per-boss rematches with saved best times, and a way to see which weapon a leaderboard entry used — which reads less as a complaint and more as a sign the scoring system has already hooked them enough to want more of it.

The Soundtrack Is a Genuinely Unexpected Standout

An unusually large number of reviewers single out the music by name, crediting composer Quare directly and calling the soundtrack "hype," "peak," and a highlight that "quickly grows on you" even if the pixel art and sound design read as rough at first glance. For a $3.99 solo-developed release, this level of specific, repeated praise for the audio is a strong signal that it's punching well above what the price tag might suggest.

Couch Co-Op Adds Real Chaos, When You Can Find a Partner

The game's local co-op mode draws consistently positive, if lighter, coverage — reviewers who've tried it describe it as a genuinely chaotic, fun way to experience the boss fights with a friend, and more than one recommends it as the better way to play if you have someone available. A couple of reviewers note they haven't tried multiplayer simply for lack of a co-op partner, which speaks to the mode being a genuine bonus rather than the game's main draw — the single-player boss rush holds up entirely on its own.

A Few Rough Edges, All Minor

The negative notes in the sample are notably small in scope. One controller-using reviewer flags the lack of an analog movement-speed option — only binary movement input is available, forcing awkward stick micro-tapping to fine-tune dodges — and suggests the game is currently better suited to mouse and keyboard as a result. Another reviewer's only real complaint is a joking aside about a specific unsettling enemy design. Neither rises to the level of undermining the overall experience, and no reviewer in the sample reports a technical or stability issue of any kind. That absence of bug reports is itself notable for a fresh solo-developed release barely two months old at the time of this review, and it lines up with a steady cadence of small patches in the weeks after launch that reviewers don't mention needing to wait on for anything major.

Verdict

GOLIATH doesn't try to be more than a tightly built, boss-rush bullet hell with real difficulty depth hiding behind simple-looking patterns, a soundtrack that earns its own fanbase, and couch co-op chaos on top — and at $3.99, reviewers are near-unanimous that it delivers far more than its price suggests. The rough edges here are genuinely minor: a controller quirk, one weaker boss fight, nothing that comes close to derailing the experience. For twin-stick and bullet-hell fans looking for a focused few hours (or, based on this sample, considerably more) of high-quality shooting, this is an easy recommendation.