STURMWIND EX

This is more of a neutral than thumbs down, as I don't really like Sturmwind Ex, but I don't think it is a bad game. The gimmick with Sturmwind EX is the player has 3 different weapons. Each can be upgraded by juggling the power ups to appropriate color with that weapon is equipped. Which can be tricky as one of the weapons cycles through the options quickly and another cycles through them slowly. And the fast one is second and slow one is forth. Since there's also a points option as well. In addition, when the player's ship is hit, they lose access to that weapon until they grab a power of the same color. Once all the player weapons are destroyed, their ship is as well. In my initial hour of play I have yet to master this fairly straight forward mechanic. Because it you grab the power up with the wrong color it's wasted. Sometimes, it's tough to fend off the enemies, juggle the power up to the correct color and pick it up. What I don't really like about Sturmwind EX is many of the stages have transparency filters concealing what's going on. Fortunately, the game doesn't really hide the enemies' shots. However, it will camouflage the enemies themselves. There's a forge/lava stage where one of the enemies is this fire thing. It took me a couple of play throughs to realize that's what I'm hitting or crashing into. And the game loves to add fog, dust storms and even darkness to make it tough to see. While this is cinematic, the game doesn't pull punches while doing this. There's still tons of things to hit or have you ship crash into. Ultimately, Sturmwind Ex leaves me whelmed. I don't find the weapons or the upgrade gimmick particularly interesting. Though, I like the 2 hit before being destroyed with the chance to recover. I'm annoyed with the purposeful lack of visual clarity. But I don't find this game especially interesting otherwise.

Love it, great graphics and sound tracks and gameplay. Can't believe I missed this gem on the Dreamcast.

Really stunning looking game, but the inability to reconfigure the keyboard controls meant I had to request a refund. I play my shmups on an arcade cabinet with a USB encoder - each joystick direction and button is mapped to the keyboard, so it means this game wasn't playable for me. Shame...

Sturmwind is one of those games that desperately needs a neutral recommendation. At its core, Sturmwind is a great Shmup with a lot of "Euroshmup" charm while avoiding many of its trappings. However, Sturmwind has a LOT of fundamental design issues that keeps it from being an outright recommendation. Front and center of it all is visual clarity. While all its pre-rendered assets looks great, visual clarity is not. Certain backgrounds, especially overly bright ones, make enemy shots or even your own barely visible. This, paired with the fact that enemies can come from all sides means that getting shot out out of the blue without even seeing it happens more often than it should. It is also often difficult to discern what is background art and what is an obstacle. All in all, its great visuals also create a lot of visual noise. Another aspect i'm not entirely sold on is the power up system. On the surface, it's nothing out of the ordinary. Certain enemies drop point pick ups that, when shot at, cycle through shot power ups that add up to two options (drones) to their respective shot type. The issue comes from the speed they move across the screen. Cycling through them takes an uncomfortable amount of time, making it rather difficult to reach the desired power up before they scroll off screen. Certainly not game breaking, just a design quirk that could imho been a bit better. All in all, Sturmwind is a fun but flawed game.

BBB. Boring, Badly designed and Buggy euro-shooter. Stay away

o jogo é bom e divertido mas infelizmente quando chega no desafio que inverte os comandos, acaba travando e fecha, espero que os desenvolvedores consertem logo esse bug

Très bon shoot'them'up bonne prise en main Pour casual ou hard'core'gamer