Developer: Arcen Games, LLC
Publisher: Arcen Games, LLC
Platforms: PC
Tested on: PC
Starward Rogue: AuGMENTED – Review
Starward Rogue: AuGMENTED was developed and published by Arcen Games, LLC. They aren’t new to developing and publishing games. With 25 games in their roster, they know what making and publishing a game is all about. Starward Rogue: AuGMENTED is the base game with added mechs and new bosses, giving the fans of Starward Rogue something new to sink their teeth into and newcomers to roguelites a decent amount of content to ‘git gud’ with.
Story
You are a head of a Hydral – an alien race – stuck into a mech and dropped into a maze which is fused to the side of a star. That’s all the story behind Starward Rogue: AuGMENTED. There are no cutscenes or dialogues to entertain the player. This is makes the game feel lackluster story-wise. With every floor having a smaller boss and a big boss, and none of them have any lines of dialogue this makes it so players don’t really care about why you are shooting up everything in a maze. Good writing makes it so you could even make the player feel remorse for shooting up the attacking force as it becomes clear that they too, are fighting for their freedom. Currently you are just blowing up other ships and it doesn’t make the player feel invested in Starward Rogue: AuGMENTED. Then again, what’s not in it can’t be bad. So maybe the developer playing it safe didn’t hurt the overall experience of the game.
Graphics
Level design is often something difficult and messing it up can totally break the experience for the gamer and turn them away early on. Starward Rogue: AuGMENTED constantly changes and the levels are different every single time you play. The game is really flashy with neon bullets flying all over and filling up the screen making it often really difficult to avoid the incoming fire. There are two different kinds of bullets the enemies can shoot. There’s the ones you can shoot right through, blasting enemies to hell before their bullets even make it over to you, and some bullets that act like shields. It’s impossible to know which bullets act like shields and which don’t. This isn’t so much a problem in the beginning, but as the game drags on, it becomes problematic as you dodge, weave between bullets and try to get a shot in. So a slight visual cue on when you’re able to fire through the incoming bullets and when you can’t is more than welcome.
Sound
The music of Starward Rogue: AuGMENTED is futuristic and bombastic. It suits the setting quite well. There is however no change between the downtime music and the balls to the walls difficulty indicating tunes. With no dialogue, there is also no possibility of voice acting, but the game is constantly being updated, so it still might be in the cards.
The sounds the guns make sound rather generic, but they work and often recreate the impact the bullets have.
Gameplay
Starward Rogue: AuGMENTED is an action/adventure top down shooter roguelite. W,A,S,D moves your character and the left mouse button fires your main gun and right button fires off your secondary gun. These are limited in use so use them sparingly. The goal of Starward Rogue: AuGMENTED is making it to the final floor of the maze all the while shooting anything that blocks your way in your quest. Enemies will fire at you and you’ll have to avoid their line of fire.
There are two ways to stop the bullet onslaught. First is waiting until the bullets have faded away, but as long as there are enemies they’ll keep firing so that’s just a patchy solution. If, however, you manage to kill every enemy in the room then every bullet fired at you will instantly dissipate, making the room safe to traverse. When you kill enemies you can pick up coins to buy other weapons. As accrue experience from killing enemies, you’ll level up, and you can choose upgrades. At first they might not do much to up your chances of survival, but they stack and eventually you’ll feel yourself grow stronger, but don’t get too cocky because that might send you to the beginning of the very first floor.
You can choose the difficulty at the beginning of the game, there are five settings, and even on the easiest setting the game doesn’t kid around. If that wasn’t choice enough and that doesn’t change things up to your liking, you can choose your mech with every one of them having their own playstyle. It’s fun to check out which one suits you. This also adds a depth and quite a bit of replayability.
Conclusion
If you are looking for a roguelite to keep you entertained as you replay the game over and over again, then Starward Rogue: AuGMENTED is definitely a game to look into. If however you don’t like having to start over when you die, then this game won’t be something for you. Also not something for players looking for a space epic with tons and tons of lore and dialogue.
Starward Rogue: AuGMENTED - Review,
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