ICEwall

The game has potential to be good, but is missing the content to actually be good. There are only a few actual possible builds and you have to start off building a certain way unless you want to be screwed over. For example, if you take split and fan too early or not enough damage early on. You could find yourself needing to hit a enemy 5-20 times to kill them instead of 1-5. So it will quickly get repetitive and you will be forced into too many runs where you just are not getting the upgrades you need and downward spiral until you lose if you cannot get the upgrades you need quickly enough. Not only that, but you have to rush healing and if it isn't given to you early, you will be stuck with significantly less health for the end game. The different ships offer some variance, but it does not impact how you build your character. Like if you pick a carrier ship, you still need to get the same damage upgrades and rush a way to heal early before you get drones. Not only that but the enemy variety is lacking. There are also only a few types of enemies that follow basic rules and a few variants in each type. Green that shoots in a straight line like a rifle every once in a while, purple which spams bullets in various ways depending on the variant, red that fires homing projectiles and yellow which fires off a bunch of projectiles when it dies. And worse yet, outside of one exception (the trojan horse), each phase only has one enemy per type. So you might quickly get bored of the game as you will only ever see the same four enemies over and over and over and over again in the first few phases as you try to get good enough to reach the later sequences. And worse worse yet, the game has a very ♥♥♥♥♥♥ way of scaling the difficulty in a stage. The more enemies you kill, the more frequently the remaining enemies shoot. So the last enemy left usually has a stupidly annoying fire rate that can just leave you sitting there waiting for a very small window to attack for an extended period of time. Like if you have one green enemy left. It will just fire out the bullets in a line like a machine gun. You have to wait until it stops firing and quickly move a little over to hit it or wait until it runs into your bullets. Which can take more time then the rest of the stage. It can get really bad if a purple enemy is the last one left. They just give you such a small window to hit them that it just leaves you frustrated as it is not respecting your time. You could try a more riskier way to kill them to end the stage quicker...but that just puts you at risk of taking damage in a game where health is sparce. The enemies should have been made better instead of relying on such a bandaid fix to cover up how poorly made the individual enemies are. They need more complicated behaviors or more enemy diversity to keep things interesting. The first sequence is the worst offender of this and will make many quit the game before they ever get to the second sequence. There is a blue variant enemy, but I only ever saw it endless mode. Which confuses me as the game desperately needs more enemy variety. Most people probably will quit the game without realizing this enemy type even exists. And that is sad. Not to mention the difficulty can be incredibly unfair. It tries to be bullet heavy, but the randomness can frequently put you in situations where you cannot dodge and are forced to take a hit. Like if a red enemy launches a projectile at a certain angle at you while you are being pressured into a corner making it physically impossible to dodge. Or if a bullet wave comes at you with a certain spread that does not leave any physical gaps to slip through. This is unlike good bullet hells which rely on complicated patterns that do not put you in impossible to dodge situations. You can learn the in and outs to avoid putting yourself in these situations as often, but the game lacks the variety to make learning the game worth it. You will get bored before that point. This is a 2 to 5 dollar game really, it is good but is not worth the 10 dollar price tag. Wait for a sale and then get it.

I like it :)

Not what you might expect. Maybe bullet-hell for your opponents, but if you play that way, its game over. Going in guns ablaze will trigger things that just screw you over. Holding your shots for just the right moment to pull the trigger makes this more of a sniper game than shoot-em-up which was disappointing. Other issues - Later levels are far to extreme in their design. You either have just the right build or you die. No healing between rounds is a real buzz-kill. Not enough build options. You mainly have bullet-hell or sniper. Random overpowered upgrades can rob you of a sense of satisfaction as they progress. I REALLY wanted to like this game but it just didn't come together.

The only positive I can find about this game is the music.

This game is not fun. Considering the cost, there are much better options available. I do not recommend purchasing it.

The game is fun. It's intoxicating. You'll pour hours into it in a blink. So kind of the devs to make the game pause for a moment when a boss dies, then start again with you not moving but the bullets still doing so, killing you after you won. Kind, because the only way I ever put this down is in sheer rage from those moments piling up, it's how half my runs end. Seriously, the game is fun, I recommend it because it's quite nice. controls feel good, upgrades are nice, it feels like every death is my fault just like it should (outside the ones from the boss pausing/unpausing the game). Still well worth the cash, at least it was for the sale I'm sure you're getting it on too, since this is Steam and all. But I figured I'd be remiss not to bring up what I find to be the only real issue.