Review: The Red Star

written on Saturday, May 23, 2009

The Red Star (2007, Archangel Studios) is an interesting mix. Most of the game is a brawler. As a bralwer, it's fairly mediocre. There aren't too many moves and most of them aren't particularly satisfying. Well, the big slow guy can impale a guy then beat him against the ground. That's pretty good. And the small fast woman can do an air combo. Yay. But it's still painfully repetitive. It's also punishingly difficult. But that's not in the brawler part.

Every so often you have to fight a boss, and the game turns into a bullet hell shooter. Yeah. I know. Crazy. At first it's not bad. But later bosses will fill the screen with pain, and if you don't get a high rank on every stage (by not getting hit), you don't get enough upgrade points to take on the later stages, and there's nothing you can do but start the entire game over. There are no difficulty levels. There's no stage select. Start over.

No thank you.

2 of 5

The game is competently made and all. Part of me thinks it deserves a three for people who like bullet hell and don't mind having to start over from scratch. But those people aren't me, and this is my blog. :P I preferred Neo Contra. :O