Steredenn: Binary Stars

Genre: Bullet Hell Shmup / Roguelike

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local), Online Leaderboards

.

Review:

(Note: This game is included in Indie Gems Bundle: Explosions Edition along with NeuroVoider and Transcripted.)

Steredenn is a Bullet Hell Shmup with Roguelike elements, where players progress through levels with a rotating roster of bosses, power-ups, and ship upgrades.

The Binary Stars version of the game includes an expanded roster of weapons and power-ups you’ll randomly find throughout the game, as well as three game modes not present in the original version game – a boss rush mode, a daily challenge that has players competing for the best score on the same level loadout, and a new 2-player co-op mode.

The game features some really fantastic pixel art graphics with some really nice explosion and weapons fire animations. This is paired with a really rockin’ 80s-style soundtrack. As pixel art games go, this is definitely one of the better ones, with the main flaw I can point to being that the ships themselves are all kinda’ samey-looking, just in different sizes.

As for the gameplay, I will say that firing those cool-looking weapons feels absolutely great in this game, and the visceral feel of releasing an onslaught that downs a fleet of smaller enemies is something special. However, while the game does have a variety of randomized weapon power-ups that you can pick up, when I played, none of them ever felt quite as good as the simple machine gun you start with in the ships I tried (there are five ships you gradually unlock through playing the game).

What’s more, while you get upgrades to your ship’s stats and abilities for defeating bosses, none of these ever truly felt like they changed the game, and since you can only ever fire one of your two weapons at once, and will likely find yourself gravitating toward some favorites, it kinda’ defeats the two-weapon system in the first place. I really wish this game’s secondary weapon augmented or added on to your weapon rather than serving as an alternate. Yet this causes a problem with another element of the game, a strength/weakness system where different enemies are susceptible to different weapons, which itself is problematic because the visual effect showing this is often hard to distinguish.

Then there’s the other issue here – the difficulty. Like most classic Bullet Hell Shmups, this game is damn hard. However, unlike most of those games, you have to restart from the beginning of the game whenever you die (although, to be fair, this game’s health system could be considered comparable to earlier games’ lives system). What’s more, the randomized power-ups and enemies detract from the one thing fans of the genre frequently depend on to offset that difficulty – memorization. No two runs through the game will be quite the same, which for this genre can be as much a flaw as it is a selling point.

This frustratingly high challenge level gets even worse in the 2-player co-op mode, where players share a life bar, meaning that unless both players are at the top of their game, one of the two will inevitably be a drag on the other, rather than helping.

Despite its many flaws, there’s still a lot to like about Steredenn, especially if you’re a fan of the Shmup genre who doesn’t mind a high challenge level. The game’s presentation is fantastic, and the randomized elements, while interfering in the memorization that’s standard for the genre, also helps to keep things fresh and encourages players not to depend too much on any one weapon (other than the one you start with, anyway). However, if you’re not an old pro with this sort of game, be warned that you may find the steep learning curve to be a bit too much for you.

tl;dr – Steredenn is a Bullet Hell Shmup that incorporates elements of Roguelikes into its game progression. The presentation here is phenomenal, with fantastic pixel art graphics and a great soundtrack, however, the randomized elements and some questionable design choices make for a game that’s even more difficult than the usual Shmup, making this a game mostly only the biggest fans of the genre will have the patience for.

Grade: B

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}