One Btn Bosses Shows Just How Far A Single Button Can Take You On Nintendo Switch.
How many buttons do you really need?
Just because a game is simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. Loading a game up with dense gameplay mechanics and complicated controls is one way to add challenge, but stripping it down to the very basics can result in something just as tough and just as satisfying. One of the simplest shooters ever proved that last year on PC, and now it’s bringing its surprisingly challenging boss fights to Nintendo Switch.
One Btn Bosses shows just how far a game can get with a single button. Released in August 2024, One Btn Bosses consists solely of a series of boss fights, each of which requires just one button to complete. The tricky part is knowing when to press that button.
One Btn Bosses is as simple as games get, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
In every stage of One Btn Bosses, you control a ship orbiting a boss at a fixed distance. A track laid out around the boss dictates your movement, sometimes setting you on a simple circular path and others drawing more complex patterns for you to follow. Your ship fires at the boss automatically, shooting faster and faster the longer you orbit. Pressing the game’s single button changes your direction but resets your firing speed, meaning you should only press it when you absolutely need to turn to avoid an attack.
On top of that barebones premise, One Btn Bosses builds a compelling shooter with both a campaign and a repeatable roguelike mode. In the game’s campaign mode, which takes around four hours, you work your way through a linear progression of bosses, earning upgrades to your ship along the way. Some of those offer different weapons, like a laser that replaces your usual bullets. The more interesting upgrades affect what your single button does, like an early option that trades the ability to change directions for a quick dash with invulnerability. With steadily increasing difficulty, the campaign is a major challenge no matter what combination of weapons and abilities you use.
One Btn Bosses’ battles are surprisingly varied.
Once the campaign wraps up, there’s still the roguelike mode to get through. In this mode, One Btn Bosses’ bespoke battles are replaced with procedurally generated levels, where every fight you win in succession offers a new way to upgrade your ship.
The most shocking thing about One Btn Bosses is how fresh it feels even after taking on dozens of bosses while doing nothing but pressing the same button over and over. Its stages are sparse, consisting of blank backgrounds with your battle taking place in the middle of the screen, and the bosses themselves are mostly simple geometric shapes hovering in space. But despite their minimalist designs, every level offers a new challenge.
Conquering each of One Btn Bosses’ fights takes patience and skill.
Its clever boss mechanics makes One Btn Bosses feel like a combination of bullet hell games and high-level fights in massively multiplayer RPGs. Bosses launch unceasing barrages of bullets at your ship, and a single moment’s hesitation can spell the end of a run. At the same time, the arena you’re fighting in is often full of hazards, with indicators for upcoming attacks filling the screen like they would in a Final Fantasy XIV raid. The effect of all that danger flying at your ship is dazzling and overwhelming, demanding unbroken concentration and flawless reflexes to overcome. However difficult any boss might appear at first, finding a way through the fight with a single button never fails to feel satisfying.
Now that it’s on Nintendo Switch, One Btn Bosses is open to a bigger audience, and it arguably makes even more sense on Nintendo’s handheld than it does on PC. The Switch’s portable form factor is a perfect fit for One Btn Bosses’ bite-sized stages, and an even more portable version of the game is still planned for mobile platforms, without a release date yet.
