ASTROLANCER

Hmmm six bucks. Yeah I recommend it. It's pretty fun and has enough content. I enjoyed the raw gameplay itself, though I found the ground segments significantly easier than the SHMUP segments and more enjoyable too. I also found that I didn't enjoy any of the secondary weapons particularly well and felt like the mini-black hole one was the most useful one. The secondary weapons simply felt too... sidegradey save for the black hole one which often felt like it had a fair breadth of uses and worked well as an introduction. The thrust mechanic being an on demand, invincible damage dealer with a small bit of risk of positioning works very well. For the tertiary abilities the melee attack felt far too niche to be useful unless you're an expert (I am not nor do I plan to be), and most of the ones I used during the playthrough also felt a bit pointless. Your main weapon simply performed it's job too well and the black hole gun covered most of the gaps. Though I DID find the mine ability very useful on a damage to energy usage basis. Most of the others though... Anyway, it was still quite a fun romp. I enjoyed that there were some secrets and I greatly appreciate that you're given a sensor to find them. I really don't like how old games often hid secrets and this game does a lovely job of solving it without just smacking you in the face with the answer. Wonderful idea. In terms of the art, I like pixel art a lot. The vast majority of the art in this game is just fab. There are a few tiles I really didn't like though. The stream tiles in the final mission for example just look bad since they're limited to 2 frame animations. The color palette choice is very good though, but I think that 2 frames wasn't sufficient for those particular tiles and animating. They look like a constant wave weapon in action. I also found a few small set pieces to look off due to having them look a bit Escher esq where the sand tiles are placed directly next to a platform then there are some pillars protruding from beneath them into the water with no indicated elevation. (Stairs) Though I did say vast majority right? Yeah. Everything else is pretty damn fantastic. [spoiler]I want to make weird fetish art of the main character.[/spoiler] I should mention but I got a little bit of slowdown while using fullscreen at one point. I'm not sure if it's just an issue with my rig though as it's getting on in it's years. Maybe if your pc is 10+ years old you might experience issues. I'm not sure. Though just keep it in mind is all. For me, the story is a miss. I think for general audiences it will be good enough though. So you, the person reading this review, will likely find it fine. Don't bother to read the spoilers as tempting as it may be as I am quite the cynic. Generally I tend to like stories which attempt some grey morality, but here the necessary complexity is missing. It's easy to ask sympathy by explaining the villain's motives as inalienable, but by doing so you also remove their agency and thus the player's satisfaction. Worse, the trope of [spoiler]it was all because of a lack of communication[/spoiler] is genuinely one of the worst. Building an entire conflict off of such a thing is to direct one to literal barbarism with knives of critique as though we don't live in the modern era. You expect me to believe that a highly advanced civilization of [spoiler]legos[/spoiler] sent out [spoiler]colonization fleets[/spoiler] [spoiler]without express orders to first check that the planets weren't inhabited before initiating colonization protocols[/spoiler]? [spoiler](Or that they wouldn't at least assess the combat prowess of said inhabitants first?)[/spoiler] And how about home base? Surely [spoiler]refusing to take prisoners to study them[/spoiler] is a common practice. And certainly the protagonist is [spoiler]also a victim of 'orders are orders'. (I cringed so hard when the you and I are not so different meme popped up) It is, most definite, that agencies worried about insubordination would not discharge the main character from any potential previous missions they may or may not have had issues with. Most definitely skill is the imperative and not the outlier for organizations of questionable ethics. Definitely. It is pointless this whole personality thing. Neither the villain nor the protagonist would be suffered self awareness were this their use of it.[/spoiler] And all of this bundled in a sci-fantasy package. Well sure! Because the more technology advances, the more civilization regresses. But we're not going to talk about that. Instead, feel bad for the [spoiler]talking cube.[/spoiler][spoiler] :3[/spoiler] I would recommend trying again, but instead using the [spoiler]'it was all a miscommunication'[/spoiler] trope instead as that has the potential for humor and humor oft salvages an otherwise [spoiler]laughable[/spoiler] story. There's a reason the villains in old games rarely went beyond moustache twirling. Building a good motive requires more than a few paragraphs. Thank god for everything else about this game.

A neat shoot-em-up. The bosses were especially fun to fight against, as they all have distinct and interesting attack patterns. The presentation is also great, nailing the feel of an NES game while also doing a lot more than would have been possible on the original hardware. Definitely worth checking out!

+Cute, fun, short and sweet +Lots of neat weapons +Fun lore and writing +Just difficult enough ...Also it's dirt cheap

i am by no means a bullet hell veteran or familiar with game which inspired this, but picked it up and enjoyed it for a good evening. a great 1-2 sitting game. i'm loving the retro era we're in. the freely available secondary weapons are a great addition, and i was surprised at the consistency of the weapons between the top-down and shmup modes. played on "challenging" difficulty with modern controls and found it well-suited. my favorite weapons were the napalm and the homing missile. choice of arms were lance+ and the fireball. this is a simple game, not deep, but honest to what it presents itself as. if the game interests you from concept and preview, you will get what you want from it. i have few enough nitpicks about the game to list them all: - in the top down mode, i would occasionally get 'stuck' in a doorway or on a corner trying to dodge bullets witht he fluidity of the rest of the game-- sliding along collision would go a long way - in a couple cases, checkpoints before shmup bosses didnt trigger for me for a while. bug? feature? idk but it gave me trust issues - perhaps due to the above thing, i found the red/blue twins boss to be an inordinate difficulty spike - this is a personal problem, but the purple-circular bullets look like just metroid series health pick-ups and my monkey brain kept trying to grab them. ow. ...and that's basically it! nice work!

An 8-bit shmup inspired I am told by an NES title called The Guardian Legend, Astrolancer is a bite-sized hybrid shooter that features both on-foot stages with eight-way movement and shooting, as well as vertical shooting flight stages. It's got quite nice pixel art and cute robot girls, and a surprisingly heavy plot for its short runtime. The player is cast as Lancer Two, a combat robot capable of transforming into a small, FTL-capable spacecraft. You've been dispatched to a planet on the edge of known space that has been invaded by shapeshifting geometric beings known as the Formatroids. The galactic council has decreed that under no circumstances can the Formatroids expand off-world, and have armed your built-in black hole bomb as a heavy-handed failsafe. You have a choice of four difficulty levels and two control schemes, Retro or Modern. Modern allows you to lock your shots in one direction while moving in the on-foot segments, but increases enemies' health by 20% to compensate. I went with Modern since only being able to shoot in the direction I'm moving in sounded not fun. You begin the game with a basic shot weapon that is always equipped and has a wider field of fire then most starting shots in the genre, and you can choose one of six different other weapons, can switch between the two at will and swap out your selected second weapon at any checkpoint. I mostly used the Napalm weapon for the fire damage over time it can inflict. You also begin with one secondary weapon, or ARMS as the game calls them, called the Lance, which fires a damaging wave a short distance forward. You can obtain one of three new ARMS in most stages by accessing the Armory rooms, which must be opened with a simple puzzle. The other two get added to the between-level shop. ARMS require energy to fire. You also have a dash attack that gives you I-Frames and runs off a cooldown meter shown on the left side of the screen along with your health bar, while the right side shows your energy and available weapons. I highly recommend the Seeker weapon, it does great boss damage. In one of the early side-rooms you can obtain an item that beeps whenever there is as secret in the room you're in. You can find the secret's exact position by shooting walls with your basic shot, which will make a different noise when you shoot the correct spot, and you can then use the Lance, your jet dash or some other hard-hitting attack to break that secret open. These usually contain Energy Cells or ECs, which are spent at the aforementioned shop to upgrade your max health, energy, damage, buy new ARMs or a handful of specialized upgrades. Some of these are mutually exclusive. I bought one that lets you get a little health back when damaging enemies with your jet dash, very useful. There are seven stages in Astrolancer in total, consisting mostly of the on-foot sections. When you defeat the boss at the end of those sections, they try to flee and you pursue your ship mode for the vertical shooting sections. Notably, all weapons and upgrades are usable in both stage types. Astrolancer is a neat little game, very affordable, and much more accessible to casual players then most NES-throwbacks. There's a poignant message at the end, claiming that if this was the only game the developer finishes that they thank the player for giving it a try. You are welcome, Hexeye!

This was absolutely awesome! It wears its inspiration well but even if you have never heard of The Guardian Legend and just like good retro games or shmups in general you owe it to yourself to give this one a shot. It exceeds in every area and I can't recommend it enough! Hopefully sequel?

not always sold on "the guardian legend (1988) by way of more formalistic game design", but the top-down levels nonetheless absolutely shred anything its spiritual predecessor was doing in that regard and the scrollers, while pretty humdrum, end with bosses that heavily invoke modern bullet-hell while still feeling somewhat distinct from the CAVEs and touhous of the world. the more direct inspirations, as well as some niche incidental interactions, really sell it as the successor to a strange, oddball NES adventure stg. really sweet little thing

That was a pleasant surprise! This is basically a game similar to compile's The guardian legend, meaning it play like a mix between a shmup and a top down action game like zelda, in more linear, each stage alternating between a more exploratory overhead section, and a more traditional vertical shmup section. It embrace the 8-bit look and sounds fully, and excel at it. It also plays well, and there's a good balance between the difficulty level, making it suitable for both begginer and hardcore shmup players. The upgrades are fun to find and have some impact without being a balance breaker too much. All in all, a very fun shmup, that both works well as a colleague to the guardian legend, as well as standing on it's own. Great job!

Great old school top-down shooter/shmup

Interesting game, but a bit generic and repetitive. Don´t get me wrong is a good guardian legend clone, but the enemyes are always the same and the shmup levels are boring. Still i recommend but not at full price.