Red Siren: Space Defense

Genre: 2-Stick Shooter

Players: 1

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Review:

Red Siren is a 2-Stick Shooter originally released in 2018 on mobile devices under the title Red Siren: Robot and Mecha War, ported to Nintendo Switch in 2019 with the new subtitle Space Defense, then ported to Xbox One in 2022. This game has players flying a heavily-armed helicopter in side-scrolling stages fighting off invading tanks, aircraft, and mechs.

The presentation here almost looks fantastic, with detailed 3D backgrounds and cool-looking futuristic vehicles with nice gunfire, explosions, good lighting effects. Unfortunately, I say “almost” because the performance absolutely destroys any potential this game had to look good. The resolution is terrible, with everything looking like a blurry mess, and the framerates noticeably suffer at points. This is joined by a soundtrack that takes a back seat to the game’s sound effects, and an annoying “AI” woman’s voice always telling you what to do in a way that gets repetitive far too quickly.

As for the gameplay, the core of the experience here is quite good. Players must keep enemy forces from overwhelming their base, using a radar HUD on the top of the screen to indicated where enemies are in relation to your HQ. Fly over there, and rain death down on them while dodging their attacks. In between stages, you can use in-game currency to upgrade your helicopter in various ways. Again, all great stuff.

But once again, it all falls apart in the execution.

You’ll be fighting the same enemies repeatedly, meaning you’ll be doing the same actions repeatedly. Find the group of enemies that’s closest to your base, take out any air support, then fly in a semi-circle above the ground enemies to dodge their fire as you shoot back while cycling through your special attacks once their cooldown ends. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Even the upgrade system is hopelessly crippled by what I can only assume are the remnants of ugly monetization, as it takes an absurd amount of grinding to make any progress upgrading anything. And I can’t even tell you how many battles it takes to afford a new aircraft, because I never got that far before I threw my hands up and called it quits.

There was so much potential for Red Siren to be a fun 2-Stick Shooter with a great presentation, a lot of action, and an enticing selection of upgrades, but the Nintendo Switch release of the game bungles the presentation, the action is dull and monotonous, and the upgrades are acquired at a snail’s pace. As such, despite its good qualities, I can’t really recommend this one.

tl;dr – Red Siren is a 2-Stick Shooter where players fly a helicopter in side-scrolling stages fighting off tanks, aircraft, and mechs. There’s some potential for good action and a nice upgrade system here, but the action is far too monotonous, the upgrades take forever to earn, and the presentation is ruined by terrible performance issues. This game still has good qualities, but I can’t recommend it.

Grade: C

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