Vanguard Knights

Ikaruga by way of Star Fox. It's cool!

Definitely needs another polish pass. I had difficulty telling when I was getting hit, and there are a LOT of spelling and grammar errors.

The game has very weird controls, but they're *correct* - as in, they make sense, but they definitely take adjusting. The 3D arenas, I don't love, but the boss fights are all stellar. The Regalia is easily the highlight for me.

PLEASE release the soundtrack, it rocks.

Very happy with this!

Great game, clearly made by a passionate team. Well worth a quick play through, think star fox ships with some more complex aspects and faster reflex tests.

What is this game?
Ikaruga Star fox with shades of ace combat and lots, LOTS of cheese in the dialog and plot.
Its fun.

Triggered some nostalgia on me I didn't even know I had. Pretty nice bullet hell game— the mechanics are pretty straight forward, some dialogues made me laugh a bit here and there, and the music was a blast. The game supports mixed gamepad and mouse inputs, so it plays really nicely on my Steam Controller too; that leads me to believe it shall also be a solid experience on the Steam Deck.

This game is not particularly difficult, but I do believe it may prove challenging to some players who are not used to employing their peripheral vision a lot; big part of the difficulty curve of the game—specially with bossed—seem to rely a lot on splitting the player's attention between aiming and the color-shifting mechanics.

Basically, you can switch your ship's color between red and blue with the press of a button. All enemies are also colored either blue or red, and so do their projectiles— if you get hit by a projectile of the same color as your ship, you absorb the impact; otherwise, you take damage. So far so good, but things start to get crazy as some bosses are capable of switching projectile colors themselves, spawn energy barriers with variety of patterns that you have go trough in the right color whiles not loosing attention to aiming and shooting, and big-d cruise ships with mixed color weaponry.

Although it may look repetitive at first, the game does a pretty good job on throwing new challenges at you to give your progression through its plot proper variance. Controls feel responsive enough so nothing really feels unfair, an so far I haven't bumped across game-breaking bugs or glitches. Some scenarios in the game are pretty complex when you have the chance to stop to take a look. Of course, the visual direction will click much better with you if you also come from the era of early 3D games like the ones on the N64 and PS1.

Now, on the flip side of the coin, some things I believe are weak points of the experience: the color palette of the game lacks some contrast, specially in regards of separating the enemies clearly from the background and all the other stuff happening on screen. Particularly on the free-flight segments of the game, you may find yourself loosely flying around trying to spot the enemies you haven't taken down just yet; there is a prompt on screen—presented in the form of red arrows around your ship—that helps with this a lot, yet you may still struggle to spot some enemies right in front of you. Something else that can improve is how the whole tutorial is presented, as all mechanics are explained trough in-game dialogues you can miss easily within all the action.

In general, I think it is a really fun game. Its shortcomings are negligible when put in the context of the whole experience, in my opinion.

Initially bought this game only to support the creator, because he made cool Blender tutorials on Youtube. I didn't go in expecting a good game, rather, I wanted some "motivation" to some day try gamedev myself.

This game did provide that, but it was also a fun game. Well, at first I thought it was awful, while playing with a controller as I assumed would be the best experience. Tried mouse and keyboard, and suddenly it became genuinely fun to the point I finished the game in one sitting. Even got S rank on some levels! The game was not too hard, but that's good because I wouldn't want to grind a game like this. It's smooth sailing and that's a good thing here. You feel like you're really good at it.

If I was to give the dev suggestions, I'd say just do the same thing but with more polish and it'll be great. Flesh out the story (I saw some hints of intrigue that could have been further developed), have better graphics and voice acting / sound work. Just polish, because the bones are all on the right places, it just needs more meat.

Definitely recommend this and reminded me of old PS1 games I loved like Einhänder and Omega Boost.

So far Id recommend it
Good:
- Humor
- Design (in general)
- Corridor sections (It has a few issues with the way the control works tho)

Bad:
- Music, well Audio in general (no audio queue when healing or taking dmg among other stuff), except for the Voice acting which goes from ok to really good (specially the conversations between the wingman and the his superior)
- free flying stages, mostly because the camera goes brrrrrr and it is hard to chase enemies

IMO
It is a fun game, and the exp is better IF you have your own BGM and you get use to the camera control.
The game play is basically Ikaruga but 3D, which is a good thing imo

So you liked Star Fox 64 as a kid?

So you flirted with Ikaruga?

So you want a game that marries the best gameplay ideas of both while maintaining its own unique identity? Not a problem! Vanguard Knights is a short game, maybe 2 and a half, 3 hours, but in those 3 hours are a ton of really great gameplay ideas. The writing could have been stronger, but it largely serves its purpose as a vehicle to bridge the gaps between levels- all of which are outstanding (save for the deeply frustrating difficulty spike of the final boss).

Vanguard Knights is a super independent space fighter SHMUP a la Star Fox that includes similar color swapping mechanics to Ikaruga- attacks of the same color as your ship won't hurt you, but you deal twice as much damage to ships that aren't of your own color. I played the whole game with a controller and it felt largely great the whole time- my only complaints would be that the third person perspective makes targets a little difficult to track in the levels that aren't on rails. There is a target indicator, one that conveniently specifies the color of the enemies each arrow points to, but it often isn't enough just due to the nature of it being a 3d tracker. It's not enough to really hamper the experience, but it was a slight hiccup each time I came from one of the flawless on-rails sections or one of the boss fights that doesn't take place in a free arena. I also consistently found myself wishing there were just a little more feedback when you were firing your weapons. No muzzle flashes, you just kind of have to trust that you're actually firing when you hold down the button (and you can't fire missiles or charge a bomb while firing, which more feedback would have helped with understanding). Make no mistake though, this game is worth the $5 full price, and it's an absolute steal for the typical on-sale price of $2.50.

Even if the Knights themselves are a little morally grey (I'm still not entirely certain that we're the good guys...), the gameplay exceeds expectations and manages, for the most part, to be tough without becoming unfair. It's a one-man project, so toss the dude a fiver and have some old-school fun.

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!

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

This is a great high octane space shooter with plenty of tongue in cheek references to old school gaming. Feels like I'm playing starfox for the first time all over again. Just in your face fun, stuff going kaboom, lasers and snarky back-and-forth dialogue. Straight up gold.

Starts off rather easy as you learn the ropes. Then it gets CRAZY!!! It a spike, but one you will be ready for.

Not Star Fox. But what does that matter? This game stands on it's own, as its own game. It provides some level of challenge, right from the start to any Star Fox game fan who maybe looking for a higher difficulty in something similar.

Sadly for me, the controls where not easy to get use to. it sure don't play like Star Fox. But is close, though much harder to play than Star Fox, in my opinion. I managed to rig the game so I can move with a game pad using a thumb stick, and target with the mouse.

Yes, that can be done, and is great that it can. I am so glad that when a controller is used, it doesn't cut out the keyboard and mouse, during game play as some games do. It is so nice being able to use a thumb stick with the mouse. ^.^

Some parts of the game I wish was made more obvious or clear right from the start. Mostly to do with the controls itself.

After getting through the first part, and starting the second part, I found myself not moving. I didn't know I had to use a thruster to get moving.

I actually managed to finish the second level, fight off and win against that boss of sorts without doing any flying around. I finish it wile staying in my start location. The third area made me see I had to do some flying around, and figure out how to.

I also didn't know what the DEFAULT was for in the controller setting. I later found out and had it set to GO. Made playing so much better.

Also after playing the game for a wile, I still have no idea what the FOCUS FIRE or SET TARGET does. I figured the naming would self enplane them, but when I use those buttons in the game, they don't seem to do anything, not from what I can tell. O.o

There is also an odd sound during the PAUSE screen in game. I was not sure if it was the game making that noise, or my PC. I found it is the game.

The naming for the TURN set are not named right. Made it hard to set them at first. The STRAFE set naming are correct though.

The STRAFE set are in this order- UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT.

But the TURN set is in this order- LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN. They should, by name, match the same naming order for the STRAFE set, for the controller binding for the TURN set is the same as the STRAFE set controller binding order. Not in the order the TURN set naming is in. I feel that should be fixed.

My personal verdict:

It was not easy for me to just pick up and play. Though part of that is in setting the controls to a way that is comfortable (love that can be done, for not all games let you), and getting use to how the game plays. Going from playing Star Fox to this, has been a bit disorienting. O.o

The color shifting to match the color of things in the game, to me, adds a lot of extra difficulty. With that added, to me is like going form F-Zero, a game I love, to playing FAST RMX, a version of the same game, with an added twist. One I felt was a bit twisted. O.o But didn't detract from the fun of playing it. ^.^ It was just something extra to get use to is all. Not unlike with this game here.

This game has visuals up the ass. It may not have over the top graphics as some AAA games do, but what this game has is more than enough to enjoy it. I have seen some games add far less than this, visually. Yeah, some work and thought was put into this one.

Story, is a little hard to follow at first. I didn't know those i was playing as is not from the earth alliance, but instead those from the Union that broke off from earth to follow the AI Exa. It took me a wile to figure that out. Wish that was made a bit more clear, right from the start. O.o

Also the start text ran a little bit too fast for me. I would like to have been able to hit the Spacebar or any key to advance to the next set of text, to give me time to read it. If a game has a story, I wish to be able to see it.

The Game is funny. I very much like that about this game. The humor in it, is just right for me. ^.^ It also makes me want to press on to see more of it.

Now if only I can gain better control over this game, I should be able to get through it. It's far from the near cake walk that Star Fox 64 is to me.

Star Fox Zero, is another matter. But still way fun to play. And this will be also, once I get better adjusted to it, as I did with Star Fox Zero. Not many seemed to enjoy that game for how the controls in it are, but I did.

So, do I recommend this game? O.o Yes. ^.^

Allow me to preface this by saying that I'm not too familiar with games like this, but this one has been an enjoyable experience thus far and I think it's worth the money.

I do feel there are a lot of areas for improvement, in fact there's this one section of the game about 2 hours in that just highlighted all the little issues with one half of the gameplay. To start, the game has two modes of gameplay which switch around at certain missions: Mission 1 introduces you with a nice, simple, Starfox-Style on-rails shooter, then Mission 2 introduces you to the more exciting Dogfighting style.

In On-Rails missions you can not only move around a certain areas, but also control where your guns aim with the right stick (or mouse I assume, I used a controller so all reference to control will be in that format), the game starts you off with a decently paced tutorial, and everything is explained to a good standard, you'll know generally how everything works by the end. There's not that much wrong with the On-Rails sections apart from when the screen becomes really busy with bullets and lasers and stuff in later missions, you can very easily lose your reticle and sometimes even yourself when the visuals get a little overwhelming, I feel the game allows you and your reticle to go a bit far out of the screen boundaries and as such you can sometimes miss or lose track of a lot of things.

Dogfighting is where I had most of my issues I think, it's very fun but also has a lot of little set backs that begin to rear their heads in later missions. The movement scheme is fine, it works the way it's supposed to and once you get the hang of things you can start zipping around and blasting things into the next galaxy, however I do find that it's extremely easy to lose track of your targets and even get totally blindsided by projectiles with little warning. There is a sphere around your fighter that shows where enemies are, strong enemies, and even projectiles by polarity, the issue with this though is that half the time this sphere is completely ignored due to the impossibility of keeping track of it during combat, your fighter zips around the screen at such high speeds and there's so much going on and so much environment to take in that the nav-sphere just gets completely smothered by everything else, it only ever really comes in handy when things are moderately calm and you can take a moment to re-orient yourself and check where your remaining enemies are. I feel this element of the gameplay would've served far better as a little compass on the HUD where it was always in your view and couldn't be smothered by everything else, it needn't be too large either as long as it conveys generally where things are coming from, as a general idea of what's happening is better than no idea at all.

The HUD design is nothing unique but it works well for what the game is, however there are a few improvements I feel could be made to it. The Shields bar, your health basically, is tucked up in the top right and blends in with the rest of the HUD and sometimes the background, this is kind of an issue as sometimes you miss the fact you've even lost health as you take damage, I think the Shields should have been a different colour to the rest of the HUD or at least been larger so as to be easier to track, perhaps even switching its position with the Energy Bar (the bar on the right that shows when you can fire a locked missile) So that it's more in your face and you know when to get the heck out of dodge, there's also an "Emergency Shield" bar which I think would've been better named as "Shield Recharge" or something as it gradually fills and maxes your shields once done, and it might've been better to pack it a little bit closer to the shields bar so that it's crystal clear that it's directly tied to the shields' percentage.

I feel dodging was a little bit too limited (this goes for the On-Rails sections too, but at a lesser extent) as it was tied to the charge amount of the "Hyperdrive Power" bar, this UI element is a nice visual touch to let you know when you can dodge, but in later Missions when things get busy and hectic, I fear the dodge just doesn't feel like it's as useful as it should be, it feels like the frequency should be greater knowing how busy things get, not to say it should allow super fast consecutive dodges, just enough of a frequency where you need to be mindful, but can also get the heck out of dodge easily as merely flying away often isn't quite enough and there is no forward dash to my knowledge which makes escapes tricky, a little too tricky in my opinion. In the rest of the HUD I feel the text could've also used some more contrast, but it's not that big a deal, the text does it's job fine as it is now.

Despite how I bash certain aspects of the gameplay, perhaps being a little nitpicky at points, I do honestly love the gameplay, it is very fun when things go the way they should go and you know that any mistakes are your own, there are just tiny things that take matters out of your own hands and leave you feeling just a little bit cheated at certain points.

On a lighter note, I personally loved the soundtrack, it included tracks with a nice beat to them that really got you pumped for the action and sound pretty cool. The tracks are nothing amazing or unique, but they don't have to be, they're just snappy enough to give you a nice tune to blow peeps up to and aren't so in your face that they distract from the action.

The game's sfx is a bit of a mixed bag, none of the sounds are bad, but some of them do kind of underwhelm and sometimes there's a lack of aural cues for certain things entirely such as crashing into the environment in the On-Rails sections. Enemies blowing up sound like splashes of water for some reason, I don't know if that's just me, but the explosions when enemies die do sound more like splashes than explosions due to lacking any boom.

The Voice Acting ain't terrible, but like sfx it's a mixed bag, most of the lines sound decent, especially for an indie game, and the major characters do have well-conveyed personalities, however sometimes the lines of enemy grunts fall flat, and some lines are delivered awkwardly, this isn't too much of an issue to me as I know VAs are expensive and voice direction comes into it too.

The script shines most when the two main characters and other major side characters interact with each other, the personalities are well-written and synergise really damn well, the first few lines had me impressed at how characteristic everything sounds. The overall plot is pretty cool, nothing super unique, but still very charming with the story being that an AI grew so knowledgeable that humans feared it and it sent itself into space to start its own colonies under the name of the Union, whereas the humans formed the Alliance and the two oppose each other, you as the main character fight for the Union as a war between the two factions breaks out. I do feel things are a little oddly paced at points, however that could just be the Voice Acting not quite hitting home the way it's supposed to sometimes, I also feel the Alliance are portrayed almost comically evil, but I'll let that slide as it's quite charming in a way.

Overall, despite all my little gripes and all the improvements I can think of, this game is pretty good, it's nothing super special, nothing groundbreaking, and has its fair share of flaws, but I think it's definitely worth a buy as it doesn't cost too much and has solid foundations of something pretty amazing, it just has a few jagged edges here and there that can easily be ground away with a little work.

In conclusion, if I were to give the game a rating out of 10, I would give it a solid 6.5/10. It's a decent game, plenty of fun, got a charming low-poly visual style, and cheap to boot, I recommend it!

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!

(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.

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 :)

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.

At the time of this review, I have only gotten 3 missions completed, but I plan to update it as I progress

ATTENTION DEVELOPER: There seems to be an issue where if I play a free mission, it deletes all of my completed missions and sets my new starting point to where the free mission was. To clarify, I had 3 completed missions, but wanted to replay the first mission. After replaying and finishing the first mission, all my other missions were deleted and now I have to replay missions two and three.

The mechanics of this game can be quite a bit to take in at first, but it's very rewarding once you get used to it. Weaving around and shooting enemies is my favorite thing to do, and considering how that's the entire point of the game, it must be doing something right. However, it's much more enjoyable in the missions following the first. The game kind of just throws you into a hectic mess of a first mission. I also don't particularly enjoy the fact that sometimes crosshairs can lock on to enemies through walls. I understand that it helps locate the general area of enemies within a compartment, but maybe there is a better way of doing that? Partly my fault for being dumb, but I've sat around spamming a wall with ally npcs for quite a while before realizing that the enemies were actually inside.

Graphically, the game is quite superb. I enjoy the sci-fi models and cleanness of it all.

My exposure to the story element of the game has been limited considering how far I am in the game, but you can tell that the developer put a lot of effort into it.

Overall, I think that the game is very well made and really shows the commitment that the developer has to it. I hope this game racks up a larger following because it truly deserves it.