Dragenas

Dragenas is a fun, challenging game. The controls feel great, which is good because the action gets pretty heated. The level designs evoke classics like Joust, but with modern discoverability. I've already found a few secret areas. The art and music are gorgeous, and co-op is particularly fun.

I want to be this game when I grow up. This one is really special, the graphics, the 'nes hard' difficulty, the amazing soundtrack, this game deserves your attention. Highly recommended! Considering going back for more punishment on hard mode 'dragonfly'.

Very fun and unique game! I've been playing this game entirely on a steam deck, it is fantastic. The challenge to reward balance is nice. Each area has unique terrain and enemies that intensify as you figure out strategies to survive. The enemies are very creative with a lot of character. The sounds and music are my favorite part of this game. I'm still trying to beat the game on medium difficulty just to learn more about the lore and secret areas of the game.

A fun and challenging game! I love the art and soundtrack. It's clear that a lot of love went into its creation.

I knew I was gonna love it cus of the demo but God is it really good!!! The way you fly around and shoot bugs feels incredibly smooth, like it was crafted with a lot of care. And it's so easy to get cornered without bullets but the dragenas move like Samus with a rocket pack upgrade. Speaking of Samus the girls got all these really badass animations and I love all of em, specially the hairflip thing they do before the transporter takes them away. It's been awesome so far and I can't wait to dive deeper into this world.

Super jeu très charmant avec un feel arcade dans une atmosphère proche des jeux Amiga, J'y ai joué avec un ami , j'ai adoré le challenge et chercher les petits secrets dissimulé partout dans le LD. J'y reviendrai pour le 100% !

I'm not terrible at games, but man the normal difficulty whooped me. This game was fun to play and I could feel the love that went into it. The animations were smooth and the visuals were crisp. The gameplay feels like a metroidvania trapped in a mario brothers 1983 wave system which is pretty unique. It did feel a little repetitive at points, but as soon as I started feeling it a new monster was introduced to spice it up or the next wave that spawned was chaotic. --EDIT-- Some of my opinions from below have changed after unlocking a few more characters. The gameplay feels a lot better with the non base characters so that was a nice change of pace. The ammo can still be a problem at times, but it's not as bad playing with other characters since they have more utility than the base characters. Maybe the base characters need something else going for them? Besides that though I had a blast! --END EDIT--- I have some opinions about the way the game plays after around an hour of play, maybe they don't flow well with the choice of design or maybe they are there and I haven't experienced them yet. Opinions: 1. The tutorial: I found the tutorial after doing the first 2 stages and by then I more or less figured everything out. It probably would have been ideal for the tutorial to be more in my face at the start or an option to start in the tutorial room. The tutorial itself is pretty well laid out, the only thing that felt lacking with it compared to other games is giving you an actual example of when it would be good to do a dash attack for instance, which I still haven't used in the game because it felt underwhelming and easy to get hit. So something to practice the moves with endless ammo, health, and enemies might be fun to do as a last portion of the tutorial. 2. Ammo: The ammo feels super punishing, punishing enough to feel more like pain than fun. I think if the maximum capacity on ammo was raised by like 2 or 3 fold and the bugs restored a few shots at a time, it would instantly be more fun. I kept running out of ammo quickly and was running away from the monsters in the room more than I would like to feeling helpless. To be honest, it may just be cool for the ammo to be weaker and limitless while having the bugs give you charges to shoot a more powerful shot. Just an alternative way of handling things. Another consideration I thought about for ammo would be that it automatically recharges and picking up bugs makes it recharge faster for a limited time. I feel like any of these 2 changes to ammo would make the game way more fun and make the waves feel less cumbersome. 3. Attack direction: I would panic when a tadpole approached my from the top and that's because I had no way to attack anything above me. Having no wings and nothing to jump on panic set it and it drew closer. As it delivered the final blow, I wished that I could retaliate in an upwards or downwards direction. I know the shield exists, but it feels weird to defend instead of fight back. I thought it would be cool if there was something like a short range attack you could employ upwards or downwards, a little like hollow knight but it does a very insignificant amount of damage. It would be enough to deflect enemies away from you or some projectiles and add a kind of skilled self defensive attack aspect to the game. It would be cool if this could also be the side attack if you ran out of ammo. 4. Powerups: I found a single powerup for my blast after an hour of play, and I wasn't even sure what gave it to me. I may be dumb and missed that information somewhere, but it would be nice if that was thrown in the tutorial too so that I know what to expect if I get a powerup and how to get them.