Solar Shifter EX

Solar Shifter EX is yet another of literally hundreds of retro arcade bullet hell/shoot 'em ups infesting Steam and lowering the average quality of all video games everywhere. This one has almost passable graphics which is nice to see, and there's a shifting mechanism that doesn't add all that much to the game.

This is an old and dead genre, and while some professional production quality went into making this, it still ends up having less than average quality gameplay, with some rather janky collisions and what ultimately is a less than enjoyable look and feel. It's also 9 years old, and while Unity does give it 4K support, it's not really enough. I'm not even sure this is a "maybe".

From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.

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, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts.

PC gamers will furthermore be insulted by the presence of console peasant children's toy controller prompts, despite this being on PC. Developers should try to be aware which platform they're developing for.

This looks a lot like it was designed for consoles, but released on Steam instead by mistake. While this is on PC, it has all the hallmarks and deficiencies of a console game, from the clunkier than needed control scheme to the less than cutting edge graphics. There's 10's of thousands of PC games on Steam, and PC gamers deserve only the best. This might not appeal to many gamers due to the lack of PC-centric design. It's unclear why this never made it to the video game console appliances it seems to have been designed for.

These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

You don't have to take my word about how bad the game is, we can measure the interest in a game by how much people bothered to play it. Solar Shifter EX has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game absolutely failed to capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is "Welcome to Bullet Hell!", starting the game, trivial to achieve, but less than 10 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game. That's a tiny, tiny proportion of gamers who even bothered with this. Ouch.

Reviewing SteamDB to check how popular this game was with players reveals a surprise... there's a modest spike in player counts for the game. But this only happened once, and isn't consistent with the achievement stats, that show less than 10 percent of players bothered playing the game for any reasonable amount of time. How is it possible for this game to have so many concurrent players who didn't bother engaging with this game? Trading cards. People will use card idling software to collect the cards and sell them, but this won't trigger any achievements in-game.

That tells us people only really bought this game for trading cards, and that's a damning indictment of the woeful quality. A closer look at the numbers shows the game just has a couple of players every week running up the game and idling it for cards, then deleting it. We must ask how it benefits gamers for there to be so many games like this, with little merit as a serious game, that only generate sales from people idling and selling the trading cards.

So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?

Solar Shifter EX has the almost unethical 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.

For comparison, the $5 asking price for this game could get you games like "Don't Starve Together", "This War of Mine" or "Battlefield V". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.

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Solar Shifter EX
pros:
//fast game with modern day graphics with easy controls that moves from location A to B to C and so on
//good amount of action and special effects
cons:
//a lot of difficult battles
//sometimes bad camera angles

//good game
Personal Suggested Purchase Price: $0.49 Or Less During Sale

I've grown to like this game. At first, I was willing to uninstall it, but I decided to give it another go. I wish I didn't have to look at the opening screen each time I fail the level. It would be nice if that was changed. overall I would recommend this game to new, rookie or novice players like myself who's just looking for something to shoot up. Oh, and I would prefer NOT having the auto shoot feature. Let me kill things at my own pace. :)

This game does not deserve all the hate it is getting. It has a unique concept that is worth a try. Execution has some flaws. Art style and graphics are nice. Upgrade progression is simple but there. Finishing a level feels like an accomplishment, and once you get the hang of the shifting system, its a fun challenging game. The patterns repeat so you can memorize them and master each level. HINT, dont use the right stick. Instead hold X and use the target system to shift. Much less chaotic and easier to keep track of your ship. That is my advice. I paid $1 and I would be an @$$#0le if I gave it a down vote.

This game is a bit mediocre but it's not bad and doesn't deserve the hate it's getting on Steam. I paid 99 cents for the game today on sale and I have already gotten my moneys worth and then some. For the 4.99 standard price, I still don't think it's a bad game and it definitely doesn't deserve the hate and negative reviews.

The graphics aren't going to blow anyone away but it's meant to have old-school vibes and it does in my opinion and does a decent job of being challenging but doable and fun as well. Don't get me wrong though, you will die again and again, I just got to the shadow hub on my first playthrough and even that was quite the challenge as I must have died around 100 times or so!

I love the trading cards and the achievements are what makes the game worth going through for me as I like beating games that not many are able to and this is one of them.

There's a decent variety of levels and enemies I have seen already and the shifting ability actually does make the game different than other shoot em ups that are a bit similar.

I will definitely be going back to the game to see if I can make it to the finish and if you like classic old-school shoot em ups i will go ahead and give the nod and recommend the game, especially at the 99 cent 80 percent off sale price. By the way, I've looked at the negative reviews and they are mostly either outdated or just blatant lies. I have been playing in 4k at 60fps with no drops in frames at all and no problems with an xbox controller as you can play with right stick for shifting and right trigger for shooting or A for shooting and X for shifting and it works great. Also there's no problem with collisions or hit detection, the reviewers just have to git gud.

I went going into this game expecting the worst based on the reviews from the Steam community and was pleasantly surprised as it is not bad and just mediocre which is not a bad thing for 99 cents. I might have trouble recommending it for anywhere near the 5 dollars confidently but for the sale price I think it's worth it.

Some people say the game has an automatic fire feature
But I didn't find this feature
Was it removed?
This game is difficult for me, but graphics are great

Not nearly as bad as you may expect from a game with Mostly Negative reviews in Steam. Seriously, for a $4.99 game that is often on sale for, like, $1? It's not even that bad of a deal. First of all, the game looks surprisingly good. Not in high tech way, of course, but everything here shines and explodes, so, it looks pretty impressive. In a way, it reminds me of 3dfx days and games like INCOMING. If you know what I mean. There are just so many basic effects that... well, it's spectacular. Music is also surprisingly rich and satisfying. So, you get this game for a buck? It can actually entertain you for an hour or two. It's totally playable and, like I said, presentation is quite fine. So, what's wrong with this game? Why everybody's hating it so much?

Well, it's not like people are hating the game. There's nothing here to make you hate it. It's just... it's so dull that... it's impossible to give it a thumb up. See, Solar Shifter EX? Even though you won't find it on mobiles, it does feel like a dumb mobile shovelware. No different ships (well, technically you'll switch to the other ships for certain levels, but you won't be able to properly purchase them and use in a proper way), no different weapons to pick up, not enough variety (most of the time you'll just shoot the same exact enemies flying in the same exact patterns), no special powers (you can either shoot or not shoot here, there's nothing else), no difficulty selection, no unlockables, nothing. No two players mode either. The game feels like it was supposed to be played on touchscreen, not something you're supposed to play with gamepad. The only interesting thing about this game is a pretty cute little dodging system, but honestly, it's hardly worth mentioning.

Another bad thing about this game is that your skill doesn't really matter here. I mean, it's not like you need much skill to win (the game is laughably easy, so, if you've played games like IKARUGA before, you'll literally fall asleep in Solar Shifter EX), but the thing is – the game would try to simulate 3D environment. Up to the point where it'll feel a bit like an on-rail shooter. Remember NOVASTORM? AKA Scavenger 4 from FM Towns? Reminds me a little bit of what we had there. And, of course, such stuff never feels good. Pretty spectacular, sure, but with all that moving environment you just don't feel in control. At least, not all the time. Which is, like, the worst thing you can ever do in the genre. Again, it doesn't ruin this exact game completely, since, like I said, it's very easy, but still, it doesn't feel good. Especially since I have a couple of questions about hitboxes here too.

So... ye-a-a-a-ah... Even though Solar Shifter EX is far from being the worst thing you can get in Steam for a single buck (at least it isn't a scam, right?), it also isn't something I can recommend. Solar Shifter EX is one of those games that you can ignore without risking to lose anything. Literally. Anything. As a mobile game it'll totally have more value. I mean this kind of stuff? It's exactly what I like having on go. Really can't understand people who enjoy playing all those games with deep gameplay and complicated stories while they're out. With so much distractions, why ruining the experience for yourself? Games like this, that's what I like having on me while I'm drinking my morning coffee. But since there's no mobile option here, thumb down is the only way to rate Solar Shifter EX. It's just way, way too dumb and limited for PC game. And with so many games to choose from? Like I said, it's one of those games that feel like a complete waste of time. Dixi.

Hi there!

I cannot recommend this game. Basically it's idea of shifting mechanic is unique, new and entertaining for me but..I put all the pro's and con's in comparison, so you see, it's not so a good idea to buy/ play it.

Pro:

- decent, perhaps good graphics, even by todays standards
- good, moody music
- unique basic gameplay of 'shifting'
- upgrade system
- achievements to, uhm, achieve
- trading cards
- 2 different perspectives in the campaign (Aliens and good space cowboy)
- it's a game

CONTRA:

- graphical bugs, cannot set detail level higher then 'high', else massive texture bugs/ flickering (used newest drivers on Radeon 290x and else components)
- in some levels there are massive framedrops and strong stuttering for no reason, so game gets nearly unplayable (I got a 2500K @ 4,5 Ghz, 16 GB of Ram, a Radeon 290X, and so on, kind of overpowered for this one :-)
- super stupid and silly 'story'
- senseless, buggy, weird and ultra simple upgrade mechanic
- no leaderbords, no score mechanic, really nothing and never ever a drop of a replay value
- all the time same enemies, all the time the same attack patterns
- no real skill needed, learning perfectly the attacking patterns you will win!
- not many levels, so no general long playtime
- annoyingly small field in which you can move your space ship flying saucer kind-o-thing
- no multiplayer
- no secrets, no surprise, no thrill


So don't get me too wrong- the dev put kind of some real effort in this game. If your are willing to see something different in the shmup sector- give it a try.

But if you're looking for a good, polished shmup with replay value, this is definitley not yours.
Really sad, with more polishing, better and even more real content it had been gone to 'good', maybe to 'great'.

Thanks for reading. Leave a Comment if I forget something you want to discuss. You're all welcome!

HolyMoly1984

Just not that good.

The only good thing about this game is visuals (in static) and music

Small enemy ships move with some kind of weird stuttering, despite the fact that game runs somewhat consistently with a high framerate. Enemy patterns are very repetitive and static, while small ships quite often have A LOT of health and won't die unless you hit them with both missiles. Which means in most cases you just eyeball a safe spot on the screen, and just stay there for a minute while holding fire. Game has health system but there's no visible indication that you're being hit, so while you stay in your safe spot you watch the health bar instead of the screen. There's no scoring system or anything, enemy ships drop credits for weapon upgrades, small enemies drop the same amount of credits as the large ones do, so there's no point in killing larger enemies.

Bosses aren't fun either, they're just huge potatoes floating on the screen, shotting in fixed directions. It feels like they just don't see you/don't care about you, and the only challenge is not getting squished by the aforementioned space potato.

Player controls have some small inertia, it wouldn't be much of a big deal if not for the gimmicky Shifter mechanics this game has. Basically, you can teleport to one of the four fixed points on the screen by pressing shift and corresponding movement key. Except that if your ship is moving while you press shift, it'll teleport instantly based on your ship's movement direction, even if you released all movement keys and ship is moved by intertia. Because of that, it often makes you teleport into enemy fire or ships and die, so there's no reason to use it, unless you really have to.

Camera keeps chaning angle, messing with your perception of where the enemies and their shots are. Your ship is confined to a 2D rectangle in space, so most of the time you can't even use the whole screen to dodge/move because camera angle tricks you into thinking that you have more space.

Overall it's just not fun, I can't be bothered finishing the whole thing, but I assume it's also very short. There's no replayability or challenge since there's no scoring and game is generous with checkpoints. One could try and do the achievements for no-damage runs, but it's basically fighting game's camera and controls instead of actual challenge.

Horrible game - skip it

Damn these gameplay mechanics are poor. The shifting thing is kind of a neat twist, but as a bullet hell game, this one is pretty bad. Very simplistic, with frequently confusing camera perspectives.

Ez ennyi pénzt se ér,ha magyar,ha nem...egyszerű buta mint a faék,fejfájdító követhetetlen 3D-be helyezett 2D,semmi egértámogatás,csak azért markold,mert azon kell lőni,és a shiftes teleport is ökörség,nem ez hozza meg a shootemup reformját,mi vagyok én,polip???Baromság volt betenni,hogy tökre nem számít a Shmup tudás,de itt még nyomjál jókor shiftet,mikor elengedsz minden mást,majd ugorj más pozícióba,mert olyan sugár jön,ami RÖGTÖN megöl,ha hozzád ér,de közben manőverezni is kellene a lövedékek elől...Neem,vegyetek szépen egy Ikarugát,az is olcsó.És KICSIT kidolgozottabb,azt már Dreamcaston is nyomtam sokat,de ez csak egy ALT+F4-re jó,mikor csak frusztráló ugrálgatós részek adják a nehezét,a többi pedig egy vicc,androidos mobiljátékban is 10x ennyi ellenfél van,egyebek...javasolt mobilon az Abyss Attack,ha már cím kell,ami szép,jó grafika,vihető szépen ingyen,és 100 óránál tartok vele.

Not a bad game, ok storyline, ok voice overs, ok sound tracks. Graphics are pretty good, not a bad price regularly, but definitely worth taking a look if on sale. 6/10

Old school shoot em up, nostalgics of firsts game should like it
7/10

The idea and some game element implementation is quite good, however the gameplay itself is horrible. Also I am greatly dissatisfied with the controls in the game. The ship you drive has a "teleport" ability. So far this is good, howevr, it is quite buggy.
So overall as a gaming experience I would not recommend it.

too easy to die. i dided on first attack, everytime

Sound doesn't work, gameplay is boring, camera animation is just simply bad and the developer clearly doesn't know what makes a shoot 'em up game good. Also, can't control the ship with the mouse.

Avoid.

This is one of the games where I wish Steam had a thums-sideways. To summarize:

Pro:
- nice and colorful visuals
- fast-paced gameplay
- 'shifting' mechanics adds a very unique twist

Con:
- enemies and their formations are kinda repetitive, little variation
- success is heavily tied to quickly finding a sweet-spot on the screen and just sitting still
- constantly shifting camera angle does not work out all that well for gameplay
- collision box of your primary ship seems a bit too small, kinda confusing as you have to discover you actually have more room to maneuver as it appears, maybe the model is scaled a bit too large

Since it quickly turns into "repeat last checkpoint until you found the perfect spot to sit for every formation until reaching the next checkpoint", I'll have to give it a thumbs-down.

Not a bad game, but when it comes to arcade shooters, gfx is not my primary concern and the gameplay didn't blow me out of my chair.

Maybe just ignore my ramblings and give it a try since it isn't expensive anyways.