Satryn DX

Genre: 2-Stick Shooter

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Satryn DX (released on PC as Satryn Deluxe) is a 2-Stick Shooter released on PC in 2021 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2024. This game has players shooting enemies, avoiding hazards, and rescuing “friends” in arcade-style single-screen levels.

The presentation here is definitely one of the major selling points, using simple 2D pixel art in a way that evokes arcade classics, while adding a more modern spin not only with the large number of enemies you face, but also effects like enemy blood spatter. This is joined mostly by the sounds of gunfire and explosions, and this game doesn’t have any music.

The gameplay itself is pretty straightforward – I pretty much just described it in the opening paragraph. You can get temporary power-ups, but aside from that it’s just an old-fashioned “last as long as you can” score-focused marathon. No RPG elements, no Roguelike mechanics, nothing to complicate (or deepen) the game’s core action.

Some will appreciate this simplicity, but personally I find it pretty disappointing – there’s little reason to do anything here other than to survive longer and build up your score, and while that may be fine in some games, I’m really craving more depth here.

I suppose, in the end, if you’re the sort of person who longs for the simplicity of arcade classics of a half-century ago, Satryn DX may be exactly what you’re looking for. However, for everyone else, there are just far too many great 2-Stick Shooters on Nintendo Switch to bother with this one.

tl;dr – Satryn DX is a 2-Stick Shooter that hearkens back to arcade classics of a half a century ago, and that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good because this game’s nostalgic presentation is wonderful, and the core gameplay is solid. But it’s bad because the simplicity of this game feels like it lacks depth. As a result, it’s hard to recommend this over countless other entries in the genre.

Grade: C

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