Rogue Star Rescue

This game is real close to being a game that can compare to games like Enter the Gungeon, or Binding of Isaac. I think the only thing this game needs to add are QoL features. Things like a weapon wheel, not getting caught on environmental items against the wall, companions not being able to be hit by bullets (There have been many times where I get damaged because they tend to follow you but enemies can shoot exploding shots so if they get hit you get hit by the blast radius), and the camera not being centered around your character except in the really big rooms. I have around 1000 hours on EtG and BoI combined, and these little details are not helping me learn this game in a fun way. Roughly 70% of the time I take damage, I'm thinking "If this were EtG, I would have been able to bypass that because I could have just dodge through that object/enemy" or "I could have swapped to this gun so much faster." That said, everything else about this game is really nice and fun. If you love EtG, you will most likely love this game as well. If the devs ever add the feature I mentioned, this game would be just as fun as Enter the Gungeon. Edit: This edit is being made on Feb 12th. Huge shoutout to the devs for listening to the community. They have addressed my biggest issues, and the game feels much better to play now. Since then, I have beaten the game on Insane, and am having fun playing it with friends.

I'm looking at the reviews of the game (which are 100% positive right now) and I'm seeing everyone rave about this game, wanting to compared it to Enter the Gungeon and Binding of Isaac, even. Everyone is in love. And I want to believe them. I really do. But when I try to play this again, few minutes into the run I'm already dreadfully bored. Disclaimer - I played this game on normal, about half the time played is solo, other half in 2-player coop. We managed to beat the game in coop once. Keep that in mind. [h1]towers.[/h1] I'm super into tower defences. When I saw the pitch for the game (as well as the fact that it has online coop), I was sold. If the tower defence portion of this game interests you, [b]I don't think you'll like it[/b]. The TD mechanic is incredibly barebones and underutilized, to the point where I don't think it even warrants being called a 'gimmick'. Basically, you have 5 types of placeable traps/weapons: [list][*] spike traps (deal damage to enemies who walk over them) [*] slow traps (enemies move slower through these) [*] turrets (put it down and it shoots at thing in range) [*] wall turrets (similar, but it's mounted on a wall and only shoots in a line in front of it) [*] barriers (they block bullets and enemies and can be destroyed)[/list] Also they can be upgraded. Upgrade system? You can level up something twice, and both upgrades just bump stats up. That's it. No customizable loadouts, no cool upgrades, no interesting choices. Five basic structures with boring linear stat boosts. [h1]epic boss battles.[/h1] To add insult to injury, even though the game wears the tower defence tag proudly on its chest, it's not even the focus of the game. Most of the time you'll be walking through rooms, blasting everything inside, and finding the final room. Final rooms are a bit bigger, have portals for enemies to spawn and a defence target - that's where the tower action happens. You put down defences till you feel you're OK, you call the enemies, a single wave comes in, and ends with a small miniboss type enemy. You can tell because they're larger than normal enemies, have a ton of HP (as well as an HP bar, how nice), and have more than a single attack pattern - these can generally be summed up in 'a lot of bullets in general direction' and 'a lot of bullets around me'. No cool patterns, no interesting gimmicks. That's it. And that goes for every boss encounter in the game, including the final one. Funnily enough, the final boss got stuck trying to shoot at me, but I was standing behind a wall (not a wall I placed myself, a wall that's part of the level). So he basically died to turrets placed around that kept pummeling at him while he stood still shooting a single attack at me nonstop with no hope of ever hitting me through a solid wall. Kind of a buzzkill. I guess designing the bosses in such a simple way is easier when you need them to take a walk through a long room instead of simply plopping them down in an arena, but doing simple bosses with boring patterns in a game that advertises itself as a 'bullet hell' feels completely backwards. It also makes the game much less satysfying, with every level done feeling less like 'hell yeah, we did it', and more like 'yeah, that happened, i guess'. And I'd like to reiterate, the final stage is pretty much identical, you don't even get a super-powered boss. He's the same, boring, spongy marionette like on every other stage. [h1]variety.[/h1] Speaking of things feeling samey, that's honestly my critique for the whole game. The levels have different colors, and maybe slightly different layouts of rooms, but that's about it. I can't even tell if there are any meaningful differences between enemies, since the only ones I remember are flamethrower penguins - because they're cool, and also they spam out a ton of projectiles in a cone, way more than any enemy I've encounted, so it's easy to spot them. I don't recall any unique level hazards or hidden minibosses or anything, all levels play out pretty much the same. One more thing: the items and synergies also don't feel meaningful - the only ones I felt like made a difference were delivery-type items that gave bonus towers/grenades at level starts. Most of them are small passive bonuses, stuff like 5% more damage. [h1]concluding.[/h1] That's more or less everything on my mind. I wish the game leaned more into the tower defence part, but given it takes a small portion of the screentime, is present only at the most basic level, and probably is the reason for bosses being the way it is, it feels like it hurts the game more than helps. And if we take away the tower defence aspects, we're left with what looks like a bootleg version of Enter the Gungeon - except you don't get cool bosses. There are some cool things in the game (teleportating anywhere on the level out of combat and the route choice/ending system), but they don't really make the core game more fun - so it doesn't change my verdict. It's not a [i]bad[/i] game, but it doesn't really have anything unique going for it (again, the TD mechanics are too irrelevant to count), and it's not super good at what it's already doing, so... why bother with this, if you can get literally anything else at a similar or lower price and have a better time? There are better TDs (Gemcraft, Kingdom Rush, Bloons TD, Immortal Defense, Plants vs Zombies). There are better top-down roguelite shooters (Enter the Gungeon, Nuclear Throne). There are better experiments at merging TDs and other genres (Sanctum, Dungeon Defenders, Orcs Must Die). Don't bother with RSR unless it's super cheap.

I'm impressed, seriously! At first glance it's a simple arcade shooter... but there is much more delicious stuff inside :) Even at the Early Access stage, the game has lots of fun 1) Movement \ jumps \ teleportation - set high dynamics 2) weapon options \ limited ammo \ reloading guns - add complexity and game becomes like a challenge 3) Defense mode with traps - adds strategically diverse game style 4) Power-ups \ upgrades \ in-game money - I love it :) I like Rogue Star Rescue precisely for this combination of dynamics and strategy. Keep up good work and looking forward to a full release!

This is a great multiplayer game. I had plenty of fun with friends on this one. It can be challenging but not alright unforgiving. A good game to pickup for professionals looking for a slightly more relaxed time and some laughs, or for a new player to this genre to pick up this style of game. There is multiple routes, a few characters, unlockables, and difficulty selector for one to want to replay the game multiple times. There was some quirky moments like somehow I'm inside a room and my friend will teleport into the room and land right into enemy fire, or on rare occasions where the door won't open for them at all causing me to have to clear the room by self. Overall, no too devastating bugs that is a deal breaker. I am sure they will be smoothed out over time. Some weapons feel a bit underwhelming, but some are completely awesome (the sound of a potato gun ~). I do think some character's starting weapon is superior to another's. Character unlocks requirements and other game aspects are not outright explained (I don't know if they are in single player) so one will have to play around and experiment with everything, which has it's own charm. One feature of this game that I really like is the ability to teleport between cleared rooms. I do not have to walk across map of empty rooms to that one room I passed on 5 mins ago on the other end is greatly appreciated! Patches been happening quite frequently thus far, but mind you it is still an early access game so this review may not hold later until I update it.

after completing apocalypse and 9 hours of gameplay, there is no such thing as a build. usually in roguelikes, there would be builds that so happen to synergize with another item without saying it, but the game tells you to use another item to get a buff. even then, the upgrades range from decent to placeabo values or feels like they are there as a theme. an upgrade of +8% companion damage for having a cat and a dog related item with half of them being unrelated to companion damage is ridiculous. the weapons are hugely unbalanced and feel the same. the weapons are normal guns with bullet travel, guns that charge, guns that frag on collision, guns that pierce (good), guns with aoe (must have), and cricket. it then feels like they slapped minimum and maximum values on a gun and then let rng decide on it with that range. the dps ranges from 2-4 dps. the item descriptions are uninformative at times. dog is a dog. getting a bone upgrades dog. how much? I have no clue what the base damage or the upgrade is after 2 runs. the game doesn't show damage values so you can't value something consistently because of this. even the upgrades are arbitrary numbers. +4% bullet damage? +17% damage and +115% bullet size? the gameplay consists of jet-packing as much as you can than dodging. your hitbox and enemy bullets are abnormally large for a bullet hell game and using the jetpack makes you immune to bullets. there's no cooldown to the jetpack. the tower defense only happens during the boss part. even then, it's the same every time. you place blocks to funnel their path finding to 1 area and then you use some piercing/aoe weapon to clear it. if you try anything else, it's unrealistic to clear it unless you have cricket. even then, it turns the tower defense section into a wave survival. the game has multiplayer. that's the only reason to get this game. if you want a dungeon roguelike shooter with multiplayer, I recommend checking the games with more plays in the same category. this the bottom of the barrel of that genre.

I LOVE THIS GAME. If you're a fan of enter the gungeon, nuclear throne, binding of isaac or any games like that, you will love this game as I do. It does a great service to the bullet-hell roguelike genre. The variety of guns and items is fantastic, the level layouts are rad. The dev is also super chill and very active in the discord and very receptive to input and ideas! Please check this game out!

[h1] Just A Nice Review of "Rogue Star Rescue" [/h1] [b]General Summary (as of 8.8hrs) ★★★★✩ [/b] -My initial reaction to the game was it felt very much on par with Enter The Gungeon's gunplay and Binding of Isaac's item synergy, mixed nicely with a sort of "tower defense" vibe. Looking into the item list I was very excited by the number of items alone, but to see a category titled "synergies" was a treat in its own when it comes to that completionist drive. I mostly played the story mode using the core three characters given, only dipped my toes into the survival mode a bit. But as far as I have seen, the story mode actually adds a nice sense of player choice with the random procedural generated maps. The shop being in between each "floor" is a really nice touch. I like being able to take my time, level my character, sell items that don't flow with the build, pick and choose weapons OR upgrading the "trap systems." Overall it's a solid buy, smooth controls, fun progression system and leveling system tossed in allows longevity to the game. [b] Replay Value ★★★★✩ [/b] -The game sports a few different long term progressions in the form of item unlocking, character unlocking, individually levels for the characters, and MAYBE unlocks for the different ending... haven't gotten one JUST yet. With all of the different things to grab I'd say this game has a pretty high replay value. [b] Graphics ★★★✩✩ [/b] -Huge fan of the style they chose for the overall appearance of the game. At times though I feel there is a lot of visual clutter and makes SOME of the bullet hell a bit more hellish. The STERLING white style of the first level feels borderline like flashbang in itself, but every level has their own shade and tone so that only applies to that setting. With the game have a pixel art appearance nothing seems too hard to differentiate and tell objects apart from one another. [b] Difficulty/Learning Curve ★★★★✩ [/b] -With a game that houses a lot of different moving parts such as the tower defense mechanics, item management, and balancing all of them in a fluid way so nothing seems initially too OP. A little under 8 hours in and I haven't beaten a full playthrough YET, but I haven't seemed to mind in the slightest. I've come close a few runs, but it does seem to hamper a lot on personal skill as well as decent RNG with item drops and how you use them. Final Thoughts: Overall I say this a pretty solid addition to anyone's collection especially for avid rogue-like/lite gamers. The developers seem to be very active on twitter, and I am excited to see what all comes out in the future! {Disclaimer} Will likely update the review as more hours are put into it~

Basically enter the gungeon with online co op, tower defense elements and a leveling system. The levels certainly make it easier but you don't need to grind. There is an overall level of strategy to the game that I really don't feel like you get in a lot of games as well. You start with a bit of money with which to buy traps and buy upgrades or weapons and have to manage that with what you earn, what you use, etc. All of the towers have their uses, managing your money matters, the guns you use matter, the grenade upgrades you use matter, and your level matters. There is a surprising amount of endings and paths you can go through the game. It has a level layout like old school starfox 64 where you go out to branching environments and things change each time and you can rescue people and buy knowledge and change the outcome of events as well as complete challenge rooms. Aside from the story mode, I found the tower defense survival mode to be really fun as well. It scales infinitely from what I can tell and on later levels it gets super crazy and hard.

Ok...i had an initial taste of the kind of game..i love roguelites and i have to admit, this is very well done. On one side don't let you get fooled from the simple Unity engine, the way they programmed the game is actually entertaining...i hope to find a friend to coop soon. The story is nice, you'll have to do it all in one run as there are no savepoints apparently, this is part of the roguelite gameplay. Shop on the ship at each level has attractive gears and opens to strategy. Ammo's and traps are NOT TO WASTE at all and this is the main element that adds strategy to this roguelite. Is not an easy game, but for me is a thumbs up!

Boring Roguelike with even worse tower defense.