An Oath to the Stars

I would recommend Oath to the Stars primarily to dedicated bullet hell fans - those who like to replay these games over and over, chasing high scores or a 1CC on the highest difficulty. It's not really that hard to simply finish the game (I managed it on my third attempt on normal), but you will die plenty and burn a lot of continues until you take the time to learn the enemy and bullet patterns. Oath is very tough. It's probably the toughest shmup out of the several dozen others I've played on Steam so far. Unlocking any of the higher-level achievements would be a major accomplishment. But it's also fair, and the design is sound enough that I felt I could always avoid death, with enough practice and better reflexes. If you're not the type of shmup player that craves a stiff challenge, then it may not appeal to you much. I bought this game for $4 during the summer sale, which is a good deal, but I wish the developer would flesh it out a little more, like by adding more story illustrations because the ones that are there now get repeated too often (and sometimes there's just a black screen with text). A bigger problem is that the enemy patterns are also recycled frequently, especially in the latter stages, so a little more vairiety overall would be nice. Since it's pretty short even by shmup standards (around 10 to 15 minutes), I think it's important for the whole game to feel unique and memorable, and that quality is what's lacking here more than anything else. Overall though, Oath to the Stars is solid. It's satisfying to play, with well-designed boss fights. And there's enough replayability to make it worth a buy for the type of player it was created for.

[h1]Overview:[/h1] '[i]An Oath to the Stars[/i]' is a top down bullet hell shoot'em up where you play as Hoshiko, a mech fighter that gets betrayed by a comrade by the name of Chiyoko. There are also cutscenes that give the player more substance to the story and what happened to Hoshiko but despite this, no [i]real[/i] explanation as to why the betrayal took place is given. Fight through 5 levels where you attempt to track down and exert your revenge on your traitor, each with their own unique boss. I love bullet hell games and am I huge fan of the [i]Touhou[/i] series but '[i]An Oath to the Stars[/i]' feels inconsistent and unfair on many planes. Imagine playing through this just to receive a half-assed cliffhanger ending. [h1]Gameplay:[/h1] By no means is '[i]An Oath to the Stars[/i]' easy nor is it meant to be. Difficulty can be good [i]when[/i] done right but it isn't here. There's a difference between something being hard and something being impossible. '[i]An Oath to the Stars[/i]' adopts many bullet hell elements but does not use these elements correctly. Bullet hell games for one have patterns that the player can learn and adapt to even if it's difficult. However over half of the enemy bullets in the game don't have a pattern and are for the most part scattered and give no room or information for the player to squeeze through or dodge. More times than one I die then come back to a barrage of bullets I can't dodge because there's no conceivable pattern for me to read and possibly dodge as there are bullets going in literally every direction. There's also a secondary attack in the form of a laser that supposedly does exponentially more damage than your regular attack but I honestly see little to no difference between the two besides the fact that the laser is limited. The game states that the laser does more damage point blank but when I think about it, there's almost no instances where you'd ever be in the position to take advantage of that. The only useful time I can imagine using the laser is on a laser enemy or a boss, but the issue lies in being able to close the distance with all the random bullets flying every which way, it's just a death wish and makes more sense to kill them the traditional way. Another feature tossed out the window. Another thing is how the bullets are implemented. Fast, swerving bullets are one thing. But if you throw hundreds of them at the player along with clusters of bullets from other enemies, no human can realistically dodge them unless they position and move themselves in a very specific pattern beforehand (assuming they know exactly what's coming). It's not intuitive and is just a cheap death after another. There are other times where there is literally no time for the player to react to the incoming stream of bullets or lasers before they inevitably explode. This happens in both regular combat as well as some boss battles. There's just [b]no[/b] room to vacate time to react to any attacks sometimes because the boss is too big or the onslaught of bullets make no viable sense. In addition, there are no last resort mega bombs, shields, or movement slowing features either. Just raw move and shoot. For bullet hell games, this is ludicrous. The inability to have even the slightest bit of defensive or agile help in a game all about dodging bullets is truly hardcore and I commend anyone able to feasibly beat these levels on the harder difficulties without help on top of ridiculously impossible to dodge bullets that have no pattern. The overall level design is just terrible and done poorly for what bullet hell games are supposed to be and I honestly never thought 5 levels would be such a nightmare to play through (but for the wrong reasons). [h1]Controls:[/h1] All it is is move and shoot. Again, extremely lacking for a game in this genre. This is definitely a game where people deserve medals if they can beat it. [h1]Graphics:[/h1] Meh at most. Colourful sure but the vibrant colours can sometimes obscure the bullets coming towards you. Despite them only being one of two colours, it doesn't help that both the background and bullets can blend well together. The rest of the game has a more cartoon-ish take and isn't bad but could be better. Enemies including bosses all resemble a specific art style as well and get old quickly. There's no enemy variety and many enemies end up repeating in later levels making gameplay repetitive, but we're not talking about that here. [h1]Audio:[/h1] Also limited. As mentioned, you're fighting the same types of enemies so you end up only hearing a specific few sound effects. The music is your typical mix of high hype shoot'em up music and is nothing memorable or unique. [h1]Conclusion/TL;DR:[/h1] '[i]An Oath to the Stars[/i]' is a top down bullet hell shoot'em up with terrible level and boss design that proves difficult to play but for the wrong reasons. Lacking features that normal bullet hell games have (movement slowing, defensive abilities), '[i]An Oath to the Stars[/i]' is truly a game for the most hardcore of hardcore bullet hell gamers, those looking for games that offer little to no avoidable patterns to overcome and want an unfair shooting game to play that has death around every corner.

怒首領蜂シリーズっぽいレーザーとコンボシステムが気になって遊んでみましたが、 ノーマルの１面から、気軽に遊ぶにはあまりにも高すぎる難易度に閉口。 （一応、ＰＶの難易度がノーマルです） 自機の武装は貧弱なショットと時間制限のあるレーザー（オーラ無し）だけで、 弾幕ＳＴＧにしては珍しく、低速移動やボムなどの救済処置も一切ありません。 敵の攻撃は１面から激しく、ケツイを上回る変則的な弾幕が襲ってきます。 マゾゲーに挑むのが好きな方はどうぞ・・・という感じ。

[h1]初めてゲームを作ったような粗末さ[/h1] ＜昔買ってレビューを書いていなかった作品。通常のレビューより簡素＞ 日本語対応となっている割にはストーリーのテキストはなぜかすべて英語で人名だけ日本語。 オプションで振動をオフにしたのにゲーム中で振動する。 日本語箇所はすべて機械翻訳レベル。 まるで魅力のないキャラクタデザイン。 チープで印象に残らない背景と雑魚デザイン。 防御手段がないのにステージ1からやたらと殺意の高い弾幕を放たれる。 など初めてゲームを作った人にありがちな「自分が面白いと思ったからそのまま出した」ような「プレイヤーの視点」が失われた作品。 何一つ評価する要素はなく、オリジナリティもなく、すべてにおいて質が低い。 無料なのも納得な品質。

STUck, Stuck. THis nonsense is STUCK!

the game is good really but 1 bug that really annoy me is can't turn off the vibration, even u off it, it'll turned back on..

An Oath to the Stars is a free shmup made by Italians with fairly sadistic design and a "kill enemies to charge up your super laser" gimmick that doesn't actually help you with most of the things that kill you in the game. While I beat it on the hardest difficulty via blatant quarter-feeding, it left me with the impression this game is just kind of a frustrating joke, and no wish to look at it again. Not recommended, too hard and not in a particularly fun way.