Project X: Light Years

OVERVIEW The first time I played the original in 1992 it seemed ahead of the competition by several miles. One of my best friends owned the Amiga 1200 and we went to his place with a cousin, who also was a classmate, over here in Madeira Island, Portugal. We played other titles that were very pretty like Apidya, Swiv and Xenon… but Project X always held the edge to my eyes. Back then youngsters had a less digital world, so when we came home from street football, these moments playing the scarce titles available were special. Heavily inspired by Team17 original work and now developed by MK Games with the blessing of the original creators, it bridges the gap between "euro-shmup" nostalgia and modern bullet-hell sensibilities. Just between the two of us, it does it with true style and charm! UNIQUE TRAITS Pedigree: The game’s most striking trait is its refreshed legacy, unlike many indie shmups that merely mimic the past, this features the return of the Brimble Brothers (Allister and Chris) for the soundtrack, ensuring the iconic Amiga audio DNA remained intact… not to mention major gameplay and graphics tweaks. The Power-Up Gamble: A standout mechanic is the inclusion of over 40 randomized power-ups. Crucially, not all are beneficial; some are "negative" drops that can sabotage your run, forcing players to make split-second decisions about what to grab—a rarity in a genre usually focused on "collect everything." Hybrid Visuals: It utilizes a 2.5D aesthetic (3D models on a 2D plane) that manages to capture the cold, metallic atmosphere of 90s sci-fi while providing smooth, modern frame rates. Multi-weapon loadout system: Instead of locking players into one weapon, you can carry and swap multiple weapons mid-run, adding tactical depth uncommon in classic shmups. GAMEPLAY Ship Variety: Players choose from three distinct spacecraft, each with varying speeds and weapon compatibility. The Armory: Mid-stage "Warp Portals" lead to a shop where you can spend collected letters (A-R-M-O-U-R-Y) to upgrade your ship. Weapon Swapping: the original punished you for losing a life by stripping your weapons, Light Years features a forgiving death system and allows you to cycle through multiple weapons on the fly, adding a layer of tactical depth to how you approach specific enemy formations. Responsive controls: no inertia issues, tight handling Score-focused design: accuracy and consistency matter for high scores toggling a gameplay that is fast, precise, and feels arcade’ pure. BOSSES They pay homage to the "industrial alien" design of the original. Expect rotating turrets, vulnerable glowing cores, and multi-phase transformations with distinct attack patterns, which often rely on "evade-and-chip" tactics. This is undoubtadely a good title to practice reactions speed. Overall they feel classic but refined. DIFFICULTY Scaling Modes: There are five difficulty tiers. "Rookie" provides a Casual Mode with 99 credits for those who just want to see the art, while the higher tiers introduce Bullet Hell patterns that will challenge even genre veterans. Modern Touches: Features like auto-fire and a more lenient checkpoint system ensure that while the game is "masochistically tough" on high settings, it never feels unfair or broken like its 30-year-old predecessor. REPLAYABILITY For a genre often criticized for being short, Light Years offers significant longevity! Modes: It includes a "Story Mode" (roughly 10 stages) plus a free DLC contente area, a "Season Mode" with rotating levels, Arena and an "Original 1992 Mode" for purists. Score Chasing: Refined online leaderboards [with specific rankings for each deifficulty] tracking accuracy and time to clear stages. SCORE: 10/10 This is a masterclass on how to revive a dead IP, full stop! Bonus Notes: 1-If you are into trying this title out, consider having a look at my Project X Light Years 101 guide at: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3698695178 @iaspis (top shmup player, and a good friend of mine) quote on the developer(s): "... in the first couple of months he was releasing several updates EVERY DAY!"

[b]This is not an ordinary shmup.[/b] this is a worthy version of projectX from the Amiga :-) The author (ONE person) made a miracle that made sense in 2025, and not "just" was ported! Music - mastery! gameplay like in the old days. And ofcoz, full of improvements is here: from game modes to levels to seasons and online highscore. superb 👌 I recommend

I see what they tried here, but it doesn't work for me. It says that it is not for everybody, but as a fan of the original I expected it to hit closer to that. This is punishing, but maybe the fair and rewarding part needs a rework.

A decent tribute to the Amiga classic. Various modes with offline & online leaderboards are available. Also, very frequently updated by the dedicated developer. (7.5/10)

I stumbled across this game by accident and, being a fan of the 1992 Amiga 2D shoot 'em up which inspired it, I downloaded the demo to have a look. I had expected it to be a faithful remake of the original but it's not: it's better than that. This version has five different game modes, including one which closely follows the 1992 original's traditional game mechanics (shoot aliens, collect power-ups, beat end-of-level boss, proceed to next level, lose a life when your ship is hit by anything). The other game modes introduce a few new complexities and variations to make things a bit more interesting. The graphics, levels, game play, sound, music and menus all either borrow a lot directly from the original game or are inspired by it, which is a good thing and I think Amiga fans will be pleased. One other feature from the 1992 original that is also retained is that it's not an easy game. However, with Project X: Light Years there are six difficulty levels, from Tiny Wings (fairly easy) to Impossible (almost impossible). So even if you don't have the reflexes of a fly and a 500Hz refresh rate monitor you should still be able to have a good blast. If you're finding an area or a boss/mini-boss impossibly hard then you're either playing on too hard a difficulty or you haven't yet worked out the right strategy. Places where I initially thought "That's ridiculously hard, nobody can reasonably be expected to do that!" were soon a walk in the park. The game does reward practice. I should warn that there are a few things that will almost certainly kill you the first time you meet them even though they're not actually very tricky (moving scenery, for example). You do need to recognise them and act appropriately next time. The main game does have a "continue" system so when you get to a new area, and inevitably die, you can have some more goes to familiarise yourself with the new zone. Also, once you have completed a level you can start play from there in the future which helps a lot. As well as the main 10-level game which takes just over an hour to complete (if you're good enough) there are two other shorter games. Battle Arena is a special single-level challenge where you have to survive 30 waves of aliens. You can choose the game mode, difficulty level and which ship you fly (there are three types) but it's game over after one hit. Season is also a special single-level challenge. The game mode and difficulty are fixed and you get multiple lives. You may or may not be able to choose your ship type, depending on which Season you play. Currently there are ten Season slots of which three are already filled. The remaining seven (or maybe more?) will be added later and each Season is completely different. A nice feature is that there is an online all-time greatest high score board which your personal best can be uploaded to. Every game, mode and difficulty combination has its own high score table. I don't know if this is handled by Steam or the dev's own server so I can't say whether or not it will be forever. There is also a local high score board which can store all of your good scores. You have to choose local or online high scores and you can't mix them, e.g. if you beat your all-time greatest score it would only appear in one high score table, online or local, and not both. At the moment (February 2026) the game is still getting frequent updates. Everything works and the game plays perfectly but there is still a bit of polishing going on. The dev is active in the discussions and usually fixes things that people report very quickly. In well over 100 hours of play time over the past three months the only serious bugs I have encountered were one that stopped the game launching on Linux (Windows was fine) and one where doing a specific thing in a menu caused a crash. Both were fixed within 24 hours. The frequent small patches seem to annoy a few people but I'm happy with them. You're probably reading this review long after I wrote it so I expect the polishing is now complete and the game is a gleaming masterpiece. Executive summary: If you like shoot 'em ups this is fantastic fun and well worth the money.

truly fun time. until today. all of a sudden constantly getting hit by projectiles covered by pickups. edit: two weeks later. devs are updating at a frantic pace. fixed said bug, made tons of balancing adjustments & added new mode. game was recommended before. even more so now.

Assolutamente stupendo e fedele all'originale. (potevate mettere l'originale per amiga 500 dentro al gioco però) Shoot em up vecchia scuola per palati fini, per chi apprezzò il capitolo originale per amiga 500 ai tempi, nel 1992 per la precisione. Project x nel 1992 umiliò qualsiasi sparatutto su amiga presente all'epoca e deliziò gli occhi e polpastrelli di ogni amighista sfegatato di sparatutto e platform game della mitica team 17. Software house di assoluto livello che rivaleggiava con pochi, solo i bitmap brothers potevano tenergli testa sotto il profilo tecnico/grafico e di art design. Questo seguito è curato in ogni particolare e cosa più importante, possiede l'anima dell'originale. Musiche, stile grafico e gameplay hanno la stessa anima del gioco originale del 1992, senza farsi mancare vari abbellimenti e una più oculata e intelligente calibrazione della difficoltà. (se siete nabbi come me giocatelo a rookie senza farvi problemi) Fatelo vostro e non ve ne pentirete e con la versione enhanced rilasciata poche ore fa il gioco è migliorato ancora sotto diversi aspetti. Si vede che l'autore del gioco ha messo anima e cuore nel progetto, come scrive lui stesso sotto ai commenti. A dir poco consigliato.

Don't do many reviews, I'm a man of few words but this game...... If you loved the original on the Amiga this is an awesome 'homage' to both the game and the original coder so just buy it. That thumping soundtrack on mordern hardware is immense such a boss nostalgia trip. The dev has been more than awesome with getting this running on the OS of the future Linux.

Ein Amiga Klassiker im neuem Gewand. Macht Laune

Great remake.