Skyfire Legends

Bockschwer Pluspunkt: Standardmäßig Sound aus und Sound-Einstellungen direkt im Hauptmenü verfügbar.

Lots of fun You can do quick runs, and its challenging 10/10

First, you pick one of the five pilots, each with a unique plane and three offensive options. The main trigger is tied to standard bullets that can be fired without any restrictions. One interesting perk is that your bullets destroy enemy bullets, but you need to be precise and cannot always rely on it. If you want to make things less strenuous on your fingers, there is an auto fire option. Although the main fire is the only one that can be upgraded by collecting power ups, you lose this boost at the start of each new stage, but not when you get destroyed. The power is also temporary and fades after a while. This is shown by three letter P icons next to your image, with level three being the maximum. The good news is that power ups are common, and the game even generates them after a while during boss fights, so you are not left with just basic firepower. The other two weapons depend on the character. While the secondary fire is usually some sort of missile, the pilot’s ultimate ability is what makes each one unique. One, for instance, removes all bullets around the plane, while another increases attack speed and refills missiles. Both the secondary and ultimate weapons recharge on their own and by destroying enemies, and the recharge speed is decent enough that you never feel truly disadvantaged. The game has only four stages, but they can be tricky during the first few runs. Progress through a stage is tied to waves, and you only move on when you defeat the current one. The faster you eliminate enemies, the faster you complete a stage. After all waves are cleared, you still need to face a boss. The bosses are very easy once you learn their attack patterns, but they suffer from a flawed design. They sometimes keep firing even after their health is depleted and the explosion animations play, which means you can still get hit and lose a stage despite having already defeated the boss. The stages also continuously throw obstacles at you, which you must dodge while avoiding enemies and their projectiles. There are no shields or limited weak points, and you are destroyed the moment you touch anything lethal. This means that trying to weave between bullets is often a very quick route to death. The difficulty rarely comes from the stages themselves, but rather from certain enemy wave patterns. While normal enemies fly into the stage at a predictable speed, there are several waves that include fast flying enemies that appear out of nowhere. There is no clear indication of where they will come from, and they can arrive from behind, the left or right, or straight from the front. This design choice feels like a cheap way to prolong the game, because you will not know what is coming the first time you encounter such a wave, and you will probably die quite often if you are unlucky and keep your plane in the wrong position. On the other hand, stage patterns are always the same, so what you need to do is memorize them and prepare accordingly. These surprise waves only show up during the first two stages. You also have three lives to beat each stage, and they recharge at the start of every new stage, so you do not have to complete the entire game with only three lives. The game might feel overwhelming at first due to all the questionable design choices, but once you play through one or two runs, it becomes quite manageable. It is possible to beat all four stages in less than ten minutes. Although you can stop there, you are encouraged to finish the game with all five characters. Each completed stage unlocks a story entry for the selected character. They are a surprisingly decent read, and if you want to see the full story, you will need to play through the game with all of them.

The game is really hard at the beginning, but after some time you start to understand how it works. Once it clicks, it becomes very addictive. The controls feel very direct and precise. Every mistake feels fair and clearly your own fault, which makes improving really satisfying. Each run pushes you to play better and faster. The boss fights are intense and beating them feels great. I am really looking forward to future updates and new levels.