Sunrise 7

This game is tough but rewarding! Need quick reflexes and good timing to beat the game. Interesting story, great music, cool artwork. You’ve got a time limit to beat each level, and the level re-generates differently each time you play. There’s a mystery and I NEED to know how it ends. Thanks to coronavirus lockdown I’ve got plenty of time and will keep working my way through. RECOMMEND!!

Having beaten it in its entirety, this game was far more enjoyable than most of the new releases I've played. I want to say, before going further, that this game is hard and suffers from a lack of player base. Nobody understands what they're getting into and nobody wants to put in the effort to find out. I understand the reasonable skepticism with the game's difficulty and lack of initial hit, but I want to clear a few of those things up in this review, as it surprises me that this game has not even slightly caught on yet with some audience. The game has a free trial you should probably check out before buying it. If the free trial piques your interest in the game, I'd be very surprised if the rest of the game didn't. Also, the soundtrack, while listed as DLC here, is also available for free viewing on YouTube. A quick "Sunrise 7 Ryan Wheeler" search'll get you there. The soundtrack is one of the strengths of this game, so I'd recommend checking it out if you're on the fence. [hr][/hr] [b]Difficulty[/b] 5/5 Sunrise 7 takes a good amount of investment to get going. The game is long, especially your first time going through it. If you quit before making it to the end of the first area, you'll certainly be disappointed. However, the game is exceedingly challenging, so unless you are either tenacious or exceptionally skilled at bullet hells it may be better to suggest the game to a more tenacious / skilled individual and watch them play it instead. It's a bit harsh, but that's how the game is. [b]This game is a challenge in the truest sense, and is specifically designed and meant to be that way[/b]. Personally, overcoming the challenges the game threw at me felt very satisfying, both in terms of story and personal accomplishment. You get honest bragging rights after beating this game, hahaha. [b]Content[/b] 3/5 (minor gameplay spoilers) There are 7 areas, 7 towers, and one trial for each tower for a total of 7 trials. Area 1 is good, areas 2&3 are meh, areas 4&5 are good and visually pleasing, and areas 6&7 are great and really snap your attention to the story if you've given it little thought so far. Every one of the boss fights in the 7 towers was fun in my experience. Each trial was also fun in my experience, but the third trial was very much the hardest. The trials, while implied to be optional in the game's dialogue, are required to get the game's true ending, which clears up a good amount of the game's story, so I'd recommend you face each trial if you plan on getting through all the areas in the game. This was a good amount of content for the game's $5 value, in my opinion. [b]Story[/b] 5/5 (no spoilers) The game does a great job of not throwing the story at you while still keeping it relevant and drawing your interest. The lore is implied mainly through the murals and etc on the walls of the game's towers. Even so, after having completed the game for some time, I still find myself thinking back on the murals and coming up with new theories about the history of Sunrise 7's world (I have a folder for my theories and clues about the lore, lol). The story is also fairly emotional, in both the current and past events of the game's world. Each trial also provides an important 2nd opinion on what the tower murals portray. As stated in the Content section, the trials are also required for the game's true ending, which gives crucial information to the world's story, so those interested in the lore should consider it mandatory to complete the trials. However, the true ending does not clear up everything with perfect detail, so be prepared to get theorizing! This is the best description I can give without any spoilers (and spoilers should be avoided here, imho), but while the story is very great and enjoyable in my opinion, the game's difficulty curve is still hard enough so a simple interest in discovering the story may not enough motivation to complete it. You may find it fun to watch someone else you know play it to completion, however. It's best to think of the game's difficulty as a defining aspect of its story, and the best thing I can compare it to is Dark Souls I. [b]Soundtrack[/b] 5/5 Very good, as stated above I'd recommend checking it out on YouTube. [hr][/hr] [b]Conclusion/TL;DR[/b] This game's strengths are its soundtrack and story. In gameplay, it's an honest, intended challenge. At the very least give the free trial a good effort before crossing it off for good. I highly recommend this game to those who seek a challenge, and also for those interested in its story which I personally loved. Those only interested in the story might be better off getting a more experienced gamer to play it for them, however.

Good story, good art, and great music! Fun and difficult game. Hoping to beat it one of these days lol

Sunrise 7 is yet another of literally thousands of 2D retro pixel platformers infesting Steam and lowering the average quality of all video games everywhere. This shovelware platformer is a simple "timed" shooter where you need to blast an array of enemies and progress through each level as a timer counts down. You can progress/advance by upgrading your abilities (eg, the speed at which you can shoot). From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result (but at least this one has background parallaxing which most amateur developers don't bother with, too lazy, so that's something). While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic low quality art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, it's not possible for gamers to improve the mediocre 2D visuals. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. Sunrise 7 didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the game, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for completing the first trial, and only around 16 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game, less than half the players. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the game. The poor quality of this game is reflected in the general public reception. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the game only ever reached a peak player count of only 3 players. That's right, only 3. This is a pitiful enough number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam, the overwhelming lack of interest in the game is remarkable, but also to be expected. This complete and utter rejection of the game from gamers should be a keen information point for anyone considering buying shovelware like this. Gamers just didn't take this seriously, and for good reason. Sunrise 7 has an overly optimistic price of around $5 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.