Citadel Stormer 2

I think I just brought this bad boy up to POSITIVE. :) A nice lengthy game and fair game.

Citadel Stormer 2 is an action platformer about fighting an evil AI that is trying to take over the world. The game sticks to the tried and tested formula of "destroy enemies, jump over pits and collect stuff". It sounds basic, but everything is put together really well and that makes a huge difference. The crisp controls, colorful retro-styled pixel graphics, heavy metal synth music and the overall design of the game work together to make the game shine. As the player, you can walk, jump, shoot, switch weapons and interact with various objects. Later in the game, you gain abilities to dash and generate a protective shield, which are useful for overcoming the numerous challenges in each level. The game takes place across several zones or worlds, each with its own unique visual theme. Each world consists of three levels and a boss level at the end, and each regular level is further divided into two areas. Levels are huge and well designed with strategically placed enemies and hazards. The path in a level is mostly straightforward, but meanders about. Every now and then, an obstacle, like a door or a force field or solid blocks, will obstruct your way, forcing you to explore the surroundings to find a way out. Doors can be unlocked by activating a switch; force fields can be deactivated by destroying certain machines and the blocks can be removed by defeating certain enemies. These introduce elements of exploration and break the linearity of the levels. Levels have checkpoints along the way that save your progress and even restore health fully. But beware, you have a limited number of lives. If you lose them all, you will have to restart from the beginning, losing all your progress. Fortunately, the game has a password system that lets you restart from the last level you made it to. Just be sure to note it down! There's a lot going on with regards to weapons and ammunition. Your default weapon is a taser, which emits a short bolt of electricity. But as you progress, you will acquire more efficient weapons like the submachine gun, assault rifle, shotgun etc, each with its own ammo. Make sure you spend ammo wisely, as the supply is limited. Ammo can be collected from destroyed enemies, wooden boxes and storage lockers. In addition to ammo, lockers also contain health and lives, and can be opened with keycards that are hidden in boxes somewhere you might overlook, Seeking, obtaining and managing these keycards adds variety to the gameplay. Enemies consist of different types of robots, drones, and turrets. In the early stages, enemies are weak and can be destroyed with one or two bullets. But, as you advance, they become tougher and deadlier. Defeated enemies explode and shatter into pieces which feels very satisfying to look at. Some enemies are dangerous even when defeated as they burst into a spray of shrapnel or make one last dash at you. The game keeps introducing new enemies and variants as you advance, which keeps things feeling fresh. The bosses at the end of each world are giant anthropomorphic robots that have a variety of ways of attacking. They are well designed and telegraph their moves through their sprite animations, giving you time to react. Defeating a boss grants you a new weapon or a special ability. Defeated bosses also drop special "keys", which according to the story , are required to access the last area, but otherwise have no functionality in terms of gameplay. The game is not extremely hard, but it is not exactly easy either. There are several tough spots with spikes, acid, and other instant-death hazards where one wrong move or mistimed jump can be fatal. Additionally, knockback from enemy hits can push you to your death, if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. This can feel frustrating, but it's all part of how the game challenges you. There's really nothing in the game that cannot be overcome with a bit of patience and practice. A lot of thought and planning appears to have gone into this game, and it shows in the final product. In addition to the solid gameplay, this game has a lot of content in terms of levels, enemies, weapons, graphical assets and music. The password system allows you to replay any level you want. For these reasons, the game offers great value for money.

Update: changing to recommended because the problematic stage has a simple solution. It turns out you can jump on top of the turrets that fire lights - they look like part of the background so there's no indication they act as a platform. The rest of the game is fine and I was able to finish it without any additional problems. All achievements unlock as well. Old-school platformer that walks a fine line between frustration and being bearable. The story involves a classic AI-turned-rogue situation. Scientists created something that developed its own mind and turned against humanity. Now, their only hope is a mystery warrior who appeared out of nowhere. His goal is to defeat the five major robots who control the keys that grant entrance to the Citadel where the main AI resides. The gameplay is heavily influenced by classic platformers so the controls are simple. You can move, jump, and shoot. Later on, you'll acquire a few extra moves from defeated bosses, such as dash and shield. Taser is your most basic weapon. Although it does not require ammo, it has a very short range, making it only helpful when you have no other options. New weapons are obtained as you continue through the game. They do, however, require ammunition, which can be found in crates or obtained by defeating enemies. Each weapon requires its own type of ammunition. There is plenty of ammo if you don't hold down the fire button all the time. There are five worlds, each with three stages and a boss battle. Each stage is divided into two parts, but this doesn't make much of a difference because all stages within a world looks the same. There are no secrets; progress is linear. The only unique items are keycards that unlock doors and provide additional ammo, health, or life. Each stage contains one or two checkpoints, allowing you to avoid having to redo the entire stage if you die. The stages are more or less linear. There is a lot of platforming and avoiding pits and hazards. Sometimes the path is obstructed by a locked door, forcing you to take a different route to find the switch. A frequent obstacle is a force field generator that can only be destroyed using a taser. The game like surprises, so you'll uncover new enemies in previously completed parts every time you push a button. Enemies are different varieties of robots that explode after a few hits. Some shoot and jump around, while others fly or chase you, although the majority do not represent a significant threat provided you are not reckless. Bosses are merely robots with a lot of health points so they don't need any strategy. The main drawback is that there is no invincibility period when you are hit. This is an issue when an enemy shoots multiple quick bullets in a row, as you will suffer damage from all of them. Another source of irritation is knockback, which causes several situations in which you are thrown back by a bullets, resulting in instant death on spikes or pits. Unfortunately, the game is unplayable in the third world. This refers to unfair situations rather than enemies. Near the beginning, you must hop across platforms that drop after a while. To make matters worse, you must avoid enemies, bullets, and rapid lights that drag you toward spikes. You have a shield against bullets, however it stops working when you jump. And if that isn't enough, the descending platforms do not respawn. That means you only get one chance, and a single hit means death. To imitate the classics as closely as possible, the game uses passwords for stages. This means you must write down five numbers at the beginning of each stage. Although you can choose continue from the main menu, this is only applicable if you still have lives. If you lose them all, the button turns gray and you see the "game over" screen. If you forget to record a single password, you will need to restart the game.

Citadel Stormer 2 is a retro style action platformer that plays in the future. You play as Cobalt, the only hope for humanity to defeat a rouge AI that took over the world. The plan is to get the creator of the AI access to its physical location (the citadel) to shut it down. For that, access cards are required which you receive for killing bosses. That sounds like a basic story that has been told many times. It’s not bad, but maybe not quite as original. Where Citadel Stormer really shines are the visuals of the different worlds combined with the variety of weapons and enemies. While platforming remains the focus of the game, combat is an important aspect. For combat you need, weapons and ammunition. The latter is constantly short on supply (it’s a platformer and not a shooter, so it kind of makes sense). What doesn’t make it any easier is the fact that enemies respawn when you die. Meaning that you have to do it all over again, but with less ammunition. That’s maybe where an easier difficulty selection would be nice. However, I was still surprised how far I got in the end, because I am usually not very good at this kind of games. So, I do consider it fair. If you kill enough robots you’ll get a life back, which is probably what kept me in the race for so long. You’ll unlock more weapons and abilities such as dash and shield while you progress which keeps the gameplay interesting. At the start of each level, you get a password in case you run out of lives. I personally love that mechanic and it adds to the 90s retro vibe of the game. Speaking of which, the pixel art looks great, animations are detailed (love the explosions), enemy design and their “unpredictable” movements are infuriatingly good. The music is a repetitive, driving beat that fits the games atmosphere. Overall, I had a lot of fun with Citadel Stormer and I could really feel the passion that the dev put into this project.

Challenging platformer, but it gets better as you progress. I played this a while back pre-release and felt it was too difficult for me, but pushed on and finally beat the first stage. The difficulty honestly can cause a lot of refunds due to frustration. I saw the developer made an update so I played tonight. I've always considered this game very good, but just too difficult for my skill level. I jotted down my code and entered it and began the second stage in which I was now offered a machine gun. The game became much more rewarding, although still challenging. I would say don't give up that the game does get better. https://steamcommunity.com/groups/indieretrogamers

Citadel Stormer 2 feels like a 90s retro shooter - right down to level unlock passwords. The levels are huge and there's a good range of enemies, weapons, and platforming challenges - and the combination makes for a real challenge. Citadel Stormer is an exceptional retro-style shooter. Never mind the cute kiddy graphics, this is a challenging game with ammo management and platforming. Very fun, reminds me of Commander Keen. For more niche curation, follow me at: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/27440015-CSH-Picone/

Hard games come in lots of different categories. Bullet-hell hard. Dark Souls hard. This is 8-bit-era-platform hard. Hard but good, very good. What is a fairly basic platform-shooter design here is also a clever and knowing throwback to the late 80's kind of game, where the exact timing of your jump, your shot, your evasion are all critical to your success and often-time simultaneously. You need to learn the levels, study the enemy patterns, take your time but hurry up. The game's lives system further acknowledges its roots, allowing for a hard fail, although a nice password system (yes, you DO have to write it down!) prevents you from having to start completely from scratch if you dont want to. I find the graphics really appealing, very retro styled but modern, clean, chunky and high-res - a nice juxtaposition, with plenty of little modern-day effects to spice things up. Similarly the sound design and level structures are well thought through, as are boss fights. I got a good deal of satisfaction from beating world 1 and taking my next mission. As you would like to see, progression is offered over time with better weapons and manoeuvres, all supported by an in-world help system. It all just feels like a nicely made retro platformer done 2024-style. I do recommend it and think it should be getting more recognition, but if I'm honest I think it's over-priced for what it is, even given the evident dev care and attention, and a pretty long campaign. But if you see it at $5-7 i'd certainly suggest picking it up for a few hours of nostalgic fun.

The controls are good and most importantly destroying robots feels good too! Not only you get more guns, but you also unlock abilities like a Dash option making the platforming even more fun and dodging bullets more tight. Good stuff!

STORY 10/10 MUSIC 8/10 GAMEPLAY 20/10 REPLAY VALUE 10/10 PERFORMANCE: LOW TEMPS WITH 4HRS OF GAMEPLAY for legion go and steam deck! 60FPS Absolutely addictive master piece can’t wait for part 3!!

Fantastically challenging side scroll game! Not thrilled with having to go through the whole intro each time I restart the game but not a big deal. Wouldn't mind a few more lives to begin with too :P but great bang for the buck! Well done!