Vanguard Knights

Really cool game, nice graphics, and the guy who made this also makes the BEST Blender and Unity Tutorials.

(Disclaimer: I bought this game full price day 1. I did not receive this game for free.) On with the review... To start... A brief description of Vanguard Knights can be summarized with the following statement… A bullet-hell game in a Star Fox style 3D rail-shooter environment. I bought this game because I am a huge fan of Star Fox style games. However, after playing through the game for the first time, I quickly realized that it was more than I could handle. Because of this, I had to have a skilled friend play through the game in front of me. I made sure that I played through as far as I could go before having my friend play it for me. This review is based on both experiences. First of all, this is a very ambitious game. It tries to be a 3D rail-shooter while mixing it up with bullet-hell elements, plus a color swapping system. The color swap system is pretty easy to understand. This player’s ship/fighter can change colors between red and blue. Based off of what color you are determines how effective you are in certain situations. How you may ask? Because all enemies will also be either red or blue or can swap colors just like you can. Why does swapping colors matter? When you are a certain color, let’s say red for example, all weapon fire from your ship/fighter will be red colored. Here’s how this works. All weapons in the game, whether it be fired from enemies or yourself, will have a color tint of red or blue. If you take enemy fire from weapons that are the same color as you, you take no damage and your missile energy will increase. If you take enemy fire from weapons that are the opposite color as you are, then you take damage. On the flipside, if you shoot enemies that are the same color as you, you will do average damage. However, if you shoot enemies who are the opposite color, they will take double damage. This system however isn’t limited to just weaponry. It also effects barriers. There are barriers that you fly through in the game that will be either red or blue. If you change your ship’s color to be the same color as the barrier, you can fly through it without taking damage. However, if you fly through it while being the opposite color, you will take damage. This doesn’t mean that you can’t take damage from non-colored things. If you fly into a physical object, you will take damage regardless of your color. I mentioned that you have energy for your missiles. Well, that’s partially true. Your missiles have 2 modes of fire. Homing and non-homing. The non-homing mode is fired by taping the missile button/trigger. This mode fires the missile in a straight line and travels faster than the homing mode. The homing mode is fired by holding down the missile button/trigger and releasing it when it reaches your desired charge amount. After you fire the missile in this manor, your missile energy will be depleted. You can recharge this energy by taking enemy fire from enemies that are the same color as you. Also, note that the amount of energy you decide to use when firing your missile will affect how much damage it deals on impact. The more energy used to fire, the more damage it deals. The other weapon you have is your gun. It’s basically fires like an energy gatling-gun. All weapons do not use ammo. They are infinite use. However, don’t think for a second that this makes the game easy. The reason I say that is due to how you aim your weapons in this game. During gameplay, your targeting reticle (crosshairs) do not move with the player’s ship movement. The ship and the aiming crosshairs are moved independently from each other. If you are playing this game with a controller, and I highly recommend you do so, one joystick will control your ship and the other will move the crosshairs around the screen. The crosshairs in this game are larger than some games. But it’s still small enough that if you don’t move it around, you will still miss most of your targets. Now on to movement. In the on-rail parts of the game, you only need to move the ship in 4 directions. Up, down, left and right. In the off-rail parts, you can also move forward, back, and rotate in a 360-degree sphere. You have an ability that’s like an instant side-dash. It uses energy but that energy recharges automatically over time. This ability can be used in both on-rail parts and off-rail parts. In off-rail sections, you also get a booster that uses the same energy but propels you forward faster for a short period. Ok. Now that the mechanics are explained, let’s move on to overall gameplay. This game is difficult. Very difficult. If you are not a person who is comfortable with high to extreme levels of multitasking mid-combat, you will not enjoy this game. This game is not for the casual player. It will challenge you. And it will do so without mercy. However, if you’re the kind of gamer who enjoys a good challenge, then this game was practically made for you. Next, here’s my opinion on the level design. I have no complaints with the levels themselves. I do have one complaint about the bosses. I didn’t like how every boss was virtually 2 boss fights in one. You would always fight the boss as normal. Then, when it looks like it’s about to kick the bucket, it turns around and resets the boss fight. At this point the fight is virtually the same, only this time the boss’s colors are swapped. The boss battle doesn’t stop until you have defeated both forms. Now that’s not to say that other bosses don’t do more than just change colors for their 2nd forms. It’s just that those kinds of bosses are too few and far between. It feels like the fight gets dragged on. Almost for no reason. But the game is kind of short. So, I guess they felt this added to the overall gameplay and difficulty by doing it this way. Now here’s my thoughts on the Story. It’s fun, but not much depth to it. There’s a funny line said here and there. But not much is explained about the background of the characters. Just the overall situation is addressed. But that’s not to say the story isn’t good. It’s just not super great. Now for my thoughts on the game’s settings. The menu is a bit basic, but it does its job well. You can customize every function for your controller. It has settings that allow you to basically change anything on the controller to do whatever you want. It’s actually quite amazing. As for the graphics settings, the settings are controlled by giving each category a number value of 1 through 10. This goes for resolution and graphical detail. I personally don’t like the fact that the resolution settings don’t show you what resolutions your setting it to. All it shows is a single number and your just expected to know what resolution that number translates to. Outside of that, the interface is just alright. It’s nothing to fancy but it gets the job done. For my closing thoughts, I’ll say this… This game is unique in its concept of mixing a bullet-hell game with a 3D environment by giving it an on-rail shooter twist. It’s personally not a game that I enjoy playing. However, for more capable players, there is a lot of fun to be had here. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this game a 7. That’s my 2 cents.

So you wanna bring down the forces of a rogue AI, not a problem. Shoot your way through multiple levels of bullet-hell. Enjoy the fantastic art style for a one man project. Bathe in the quality music. You're done!

Full Disclosure: I was given this product for free because my brother, Dr. Wolf, is one of the voice actors in this game. It is clear that Kevin Higuchi wanted to write a love letter to the Star Fox games of old. For the most part, he has succeeded! The Good: -As a game developer myself (programmer for Bethesda), I am VERY impressed that this is the work of a single dev. Way to go! -Much of the mechanics and fun of Star Fox are here. Star Fox lovers rejoice! -Shooter-on-rail sections interspersed with free-roaming sections. -Plenty of enemies to shoot. -Lock-on missile mechanic is VERY satisfying when you can take out whole squadrons of enemies with a single shot. -Missiles can be dumb-fired without lock--NICE. -Interesting color switch (red/blue) mechanic--absorb same-color shots from enemies, but take damage from the opposite color. You are encouraged to switch back and forth between the two in order to be effective. -"Bullet Storm" style moments where you have to switch colors quickly and take out enemies fast in order to survive. -Multi-stage bosses. The Bad: -Voice acting is hit or miss. Some characters feel alive and compelling, while others simply feel flat. It is as if some of the voice actors were simply bored while recording their lines. -Story takes a clear back-seat to the gameplay (but the Star Fox games had similarly thin story development, so this isn't such a big deal). -Arbitrary fly-through sections with no enemies present at all, but loads of obstacles coming at you at break-neck speeds. While these sections are exciting and adrenaline-pumping at first, they quickly become a slog-fest of desperately trying to see around obstacles to see where the next are coming from, giving you less-than-split-second reaction times to try to stay alive. These sections feel like they last too long in some places. They feel less like tests of skill than a test of memorizing the sequence of obstacles so that after dying enough times you can stumble your way through them and reach the next checkpoint. There didn't seem to be any compelling reason for these sections to be there, other than a game-design decision that had little to do with the actual game story. I found myself just wanting to get through these sections so I could return to the fun parts of the game. -Missiles take far too long to successfully lock on. While a good lock allows you to take out huge swaths of enemies at a time, I found that in the time required to achieve a good lock, I could destroy most of an enemy squadron using my main guns. In Star Fox, lock on is immediate when you move the reticle over the enemy. Here, you have to maintain the reticle over the moving enemy for a few seconds in order for the lock to engage. Granted, the reticle in this game is much larger than in Star Fox, making it easier to maintain the lock-on process, but it still feels like it detracts from the fast-action gameplay that this game tries to achieve.

I think I remember seeing a comment by the developer awhile back saying that they worked on this for a few years. I decided to give a try. In the 2nd mission I could rotate but I couldn't move forward as far as I'm aware. Either a major bug, or a very confusing design. Most of this feels very...bland. The UI, the music, the voice-acting, the beginning of the story, and shooting at enemies in the first level that are so far away you barely even see them. They also almost never damage you? The 'options' are one of the most bizarre I've ever seen. Instead of telling you what resolution you're selecting, it just gives you a single-digit number to indicate...quality of resolution? Even though I didn't like this, I like good 'on-rails' games and if this developer wants to make a better one in the future, I genuinely encourage that. It's an under-developed genre.

The game has an interesting concept, the villains have a lot of personality and deserved their own campaign. So what are the two things holding this game back from achieving its full potential? 1. The game is too easy. Multiple difficulties could have fixed this problem, the only boss that felt truly took the mechanics to their extremes was the Citadel boss. 2. The soundtrack. I think there were only 3 tracks playing, more music would have improved the game. Overall it's a very good starting point, would love to see a sequel expanding on the idea!

I streamed it all the way through on twitch.tv/joshscorcher 8/10. Very impressively good game. $10 well spent. Pros: Super fun Ikaruga/Star Fox merge, tone is very Spec Ops: The Line, terrific boss fights. My hand hurts, lol. Good challenge. Good voice acting. Cons: HUD isn't great, Worldbuilding is sloppy and confusing. Gameplay: Holy crap is this game fun. I loved playing it. The red/blue color swapping took a bit of getting used to, but once I did, it was mostly smooth sailing. The On-rails sections control a little stiff, making some of the obstacle dodging the game expects you to perform a little unfair, but the free flying areas are holy-crap-super-good smooth. Definitely the highlights of the game for me. The boss fights were beyond terrific, even though they are a little padded with the color swapping. Also, THANK YOU FOR THE RED ARROWS INDICATING WHERE FOES ARE. PERFECT DESIGN CHOICE AND I LOVE YOU FOR IT. Story: Definitely the weakest area. I like the Spec Ops: The Line-esque tone that you gave when you let us hear the last words of those we shot down and let us hear how the enemy sounded... mostly normal. They weren't mustache-twirling villains. This was like British vs Germans WWI christmas levels of "Made me wonder if I was the good guy." Unfortunately, I wish that went somewhere in the story. The characters are interesting, however, I don't think the characters are that well developed (Granted, it's only a two-hour game, but still). It was difficult to keep track of a lot of these characters who come and go in a flash and it was difficult to pay attention to location names. Also, who are these organizations? What do they want? What are their values? These are fundamental questions that didn't get answered or weren't conveyed very clearly. We're just dropped into the middle of a war and told GO. Imagery: I like the attempt to make everything high contrast. Lots of bright whites, blacks, reds, blues, and yellows. It really helps identifying what is what. When it goes full bullet hell, it's pretty beautiful. However, Your HUD really needs work. It can be hard to read the shield meter or how many lives you have. Also, SPELLING ERRORS ABOUND lol. Many of the voice actors you picked were surprisingly good, even though the amount of different accents was pretty silly, and I can easily tell that you intentionally made everyone have that radio sound in order to disguise some of the lower quality audio (Don't take that as a knock. I only noticed it because I was looking for it. :) ) The music reminded me a lot of Sonic Rush. Not terribly standout, but catchy enough. I'm also very disappointed the antagonist's last words weren't "For The Alliance." HUGE missed opportunity there :)

a poor mans version of StarFox 64, with rail style shooting and semi open roaming stages.. oh and the story.. or lack of.. or something.. I still don't acutally know whats going on .. A lot of time you actually forget what your doing becuase your trying to focus too much on whats going on at any given time.. After 30 mins and 4 stages later, I wish there was a meh button but theres so far not enough here to recommend to others, and I was expect a little more then what I so far blowen through.. on a possitive note.. It dose run on first attempt.. So yay for that. Side Note : check the video section to see my first time play to get a better idea..

So I was made aware of this game by a youtuber named Dr. Wolf (who just so happens to voice the head antagonist) and after watching the trailer and getting flashbacks to Lylat Wars (Star Fox 64 for you americans), I decided I'd have a look at how it held up. (Also, as of this review, I'm up to the final boss) GAMEPLAY: 8/10 Much like Lylat Wars, this is a shoot 'em up split into on-rails and free range modes. The action is much faster paced, however. There are other notable differences, like how in the on-rails mode, the fighter craft and the target reticule are controled separately. This opens up a lot more possibilities trying to dodge attacks while firing back, though the main downside (at least from my persepctive) was this made the reticule a bit harder to control. I'll touch on that in a moment. Also different is the colour mechanic. You can shift your craft's colour between either red or blue, and this plays into the combat as enemies are also either red and blue. Being the same colour means you can absorb their attacks to make your missiles stronger, but being the opposite colour makes your laser attacks stronger. This makes it a big risk v reward equation when it comes to moments in the game when you're under heavy fire and you need to balance damage against defence. The free range mode is pretty similar, though rather than independantly moving the reticule, it's now connected to where you want the camera to face, while the main movement control is now dedicated to up or down and a boost button is responsible for forward movement. This makes for fast paced combat, but sometimes the camera can get turned upside down and become disorienting. In regards to the controls themselves, both keyboard and controller are supported, but you'll definitely want a controller to enjoy this game to its fullest. Specifically an Xbox controller. It can be played with a steam controller, as I have been doing, though rather than a second stick to control the targeting reticule, you have to use one of the two touchpads, which made it a little harder for me. As for the bosses, they are difficult, but it's the kind of difficulty that drives you to get back in there and shove missile after missile down their throats. The boss stages are longer than those from Nintendo's classic, though they are always changing up their attack patterns, keeping you on your toes. The levels are also longer than Lylat Wars stages as well, though that might be because they're not as intrenched in my nostalgia as the other game is. GRAPHICS: 6.5/10 Considering it's an indie game, the graphics aren't that bad. The visual style is unique (though I imagine some might dispute that) and each environment is utilised quite well, especially in the free range mode sections. In the on-rails mode, however, there were a few instances where the environment seemed overly complicated (such as a series of rapid-fire obsticles in the fourth stage). There was also one other problem when you can see through things in certain cutscenes you shouldn't, like the asteroids in the first stage intro cutscene. But again, indie production that's just recently released. Can't complain too much. Other than that, not much else to say. VOICE ACTING: 7/10 The voice acting's a bit hit and miss here. Some characters sound like they're not trying or trying too hard, but others feel just right. The youtuber I mentioned earlier, Dr Wolf, is one of the examples of the better VAs. Having heard him rp in D&D sessions before, I knew it was going to be good but damn he kills it! STORY: 3/10 This is by a wide margin the weakest part of the game for me. We're given a brief outline that we're fighting a newly-declared war against another space-based nation and that they're the bad guys, but other than that, not very much info is offered. We don't know anything about what set this conflict off, the build up to said conflict, the overall goal of the enemies other than "destroy the good guys!" I understand that this game is following the same blueprint as Lylat Wars, but despite that game being 22 years old this year, it still managed a brief backstory to show what was at stake. Now this doesn't take away from the intensity of the games action, but it would be nice to have a little more world-building (or at least an establishing monologue) to help the player get more invested in what and why they're fighting. MUSIC: 6 The music's alright. Soft electro music definitely fits the aesthetic of this fast-paced space shump, but I feel they could've done with maybe one or two more songs. Just a little nitpick. Otherwise, it does the job without overachieving. OVERALL: 7.5/10 This game does have its flaws and I'm still slightly bummed that I have to buy an Xbox controller to fully appreciate the reticule mechanic, but despite that I am enjoying this game. It's like a rough but more challenging version of Lylat Wars that is good to play in short bursts. With updates and patches to iron out some of the wrinkles I've listed, this would be an amazing game, but as it stands now it's still good enough to play. There's not much story but the action is more than enough to hold your attention.

3D Bullet Hell Space Shooter with linear rail levels or open arena levels like Star Fox and an Ikaruga color switch system which lets you absorb enemy projectiles that match your current ship's color. Much like Ikaruga it starts off easy but it will quickly have you scrambling as some fights involve needing to dodge enemy projectiles, color coded walls and objects, and needing to balance a crosshair on constantly moving enemy weak points, it makes for some very intense boss fights and it's where the game truly shines the most, especially if one is fond of over the top shmup bosses. Despite the difficulty the game has a generous checkpoint system so dying to a rough pattern or section won't set you back too far, the main difficulty comes from learning the game and improving on boss fights and levels and getting good rankings on levels. Anyone that grew up with arcade titles should find it easy to settle in. For 10 dollars you can't go wrong, pick it up on a lazy afternoon and you're in a for a fun ride.