Penimorta
Penimorta is a delightfully charming yet challenging bullet-hell experience that is chock full of stellar sprite designs and thoughtful level design. The movement is fluid, controls easy to handle, and the presentation of the game itself is quite polished. I was incredibly pleased with Penimorta and would emphatically recommend it, although it had just one minor qualm which I will address later on in the review.
Let’s start with the sprite design. Penimorta’s enemies (and especially its bosses) were incredibly well animated and aesthetically pleasing. The overall quality of the artistic direction of this game is superb, and easily makes it stand out among other similar indie games. The mage (the second boss of the game) had one of the best designs in the game, notably because of how well his appearance changes accompanied his second phase. The enemy attack patterns never felt boring, and were rather refreshing due to the pleasant palate of colors selected for their pellets/bullets. I also appreciated the slight distinctions in color and shape for the enemy bullets as it helped make navigation and movement more refined.
– Real player with 3.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Bullet Hell Pixel Graphics Games.
This game is great, but the snake boss is the worst thing to happen to humanity. The entire game before the snake boss was easy, I only died around 3 times before it appeared. I hate the snake boss, please make the game more balanced.
Edit #1: Turns out that the warden (the final boss I think) is even worse than the snake. It has basically every negative affect, and for some reason there is a cage it randomly puts on you without any sign, the cage moves randomly too, damaging and blinding you whenever you touch it. I could keep on complaining but that would take a while. But please just balance the game, everything but the last 2 bosses is like 1/8 of the difficulty.
– Real player with 2.9 hrs in game
Space Revenge - Prologue
YOU CAN PLAY AS A SNIPER FURY CAW CAW
YOU CAN ALSO PLAY AS PISTOL WIELDING FURY CAW CAW
OF COURSE YOU CHOOSE THE SNIPER FURY CAW CAW, IT’S THE ONE THAT MAKES SENSE CAW CAW
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Bullet Hell Shooter Games.
Gamers as old as I am might remember the Amiga classic “Alien Breed” where up to two players at once infiltrated a base full of aliens, shooting their way through to collect key cards and upgrades to be able to progress further. Of course, “Alien Breed” wasn’t a twin-stick shooter - twin sticks weren’t a thing back then - but there’s a lot “Space Revenge” does similarly.
While “Space Revenge” doesn’t quite get the atmosphere of the classic right - especially not in the musical department - many other boxes are ticked. The combat? Difficult. It’s one man against many, and health packs are in short supply. Despite the corridors of the base looking rather spacious they quickly become rather small once several enemies spawn more or less on top of you. Add a heavy enemy into the mix and the whole ordeal becomes deadly very quickly. This isn’t a game to rush through, you’ll have to move slowly and aim carefully to succeed.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Ke-Tsu-No-Ana
Beautiful game, gives my life meaning.
– Real player with 71.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Bullet Hell Shoot 'Em Up Games.
Looked good from the screenshots, a modern take on Zaxxon.. was I ever mistaken….
– Real player with 5.4 hrs in game
Medievalien
IN A WORD: MAYBE
IN A NUTSHELL:
WHAT TO EXPECT: Real-time combat. Action Roguelike. Medieval setting with alien technology and enemies. Fast-paced ARPG styled, ranged and skill based combat. Excellent range of alien enemies with different travel and attack types. Large arsenal of medieval and alien ranged weapons. Passives and skill power-ups instead of character levelling. Changeable level modifiers. Procedurally generated isometric maps. Unlockable hub trainers. Single-player only.
– Real player with 33.3 hrs in game
Medievalien is a very pleasant action roguelike which combines the procedural generation of a classic dungeon crawler with the new-age feel of your favorite phone shoot ‘em ups like Archero. It’s easy to get into and play a run, and it’s not a big time commitment. It’s a game that’s constantly being added to in terms of bug fixes and new content. It helps that the developers are extremely receptive to feedback and the like. And while there are some bugs (which I expect in early access), they are few and far between. Most of them will not impact game play in any significant way.
– Real player with 14.5 hrs in game
Wildcat Gun Machine
Wildcat Gun Machine is an explosion roller coaster ride! Enter a bullet hell dungeon crawler where you take on hordes of disgusting flesh beasts with a wide variety of guns, giant mech robots, and cute kittens.
Explore sprawling maze-like dungeons and liberate giant mech robots from demonic elder gods. Enemy encounters are challenging and specifically designed - not randomized - to provide difficult combat puzzles.
Gear Up - Mow Down - Get Killed - Retaliate! Over 40 gun types to choose from. Each has their own unique features like auto-aim bullets, long-range laser beams or exploding rounds with a huge blast radius.
Super abilities that disintegrate everything on the screen!
Character upgrades to suit the player’s gameplay style. Players wanting a more forgiving difficulty can increase the times they’re able to respawn, while speedrunners can upgrade their movement speed and improve their dash skill.
Features
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Bullet Hell shooter
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Over 40 gun types
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Epic set-piece boss battles
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Skill upgrades to suit your playstyle
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Unique 2D art style
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Monster closet combat puzzles
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Hand crafted, consistent experience
Grid Force - Mask Of The Goddess
Grid Force is an all-female grid-based tactical Beat Em Up RPG with dozens of unique characters and with a deep story full of humour and loss, where every decision counts.
THE SPEED OF A FIGHTING GAME AND THE DEPTH OF AN RPG
The frenetic real-time combat requires quick-strategic thinking. Explore the deep Class and Elemental systems to get an edge in combat and build your dream squad from the dozens of recruitable characters, each with charming storylines and game-changing abilities.
A STORY LIKE NO OTHER
Guide Donna in her journey of self-actualization through a beautifully animated Manga Style narrative. Who will Donna trust and who will she betray? It’s up to you to write the end of her story. Grid Force tells a story of inclusion, personal growth and responsibility through an epic journey to the multicultural fictional world of Gora.
MAKE GAME-CHANGING DECISIONS AND BUILD RELATIONSHIPS
Each playable character in Grid Force has its own paths, traumas and aspirations. Get to know them and they may help or surprise you. Gain enough of their trust and they will join you. Their presence in your squad can radically change the course of the story, opening previously unavailable paths and revealing deeply hidden secrets.
THE POWER TO CHANGE GORA
Recruit and level up each individual attribute of your units to unlock a variety of active and passive skills.
The right squad is the key to defeat the Goddesses of Gora and claim their Masks and the ultimate power they contain.
Marmoreal
Marmoreal is a Bullet Hell Action RPG with magical girls, swords and fully automatic crossbows.
Join the Mages of the Arcanum and the Warriors of Melkirion in their battles against the armies of the undead in their quest to stop the evil Necromancer from becoming an immortal Lich!
Features:
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Two full-length story-driven campaigns. Play as the Mages of the Arcanum and the Warriors of Melkirion as they wage separate battles against a common enemy.
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Six playable characters. Play as a varied cast consisting of mages, knights, soldiers and living suits of armor, each with their own unique abilities and weapons.
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Lots of bullets and enemies. Your enemies aren’t pulling any punches, and will try to overwhelm you with hordes of footsoldiers and swarms of bullets.
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Varied enemy factions. Fight against the undead armies of the Necromancer, the spirits of the forest, the remnants of an ancient empire and various other factions vying for power in these undead lands.
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Procedurally generated loot. Enemies drop rare and unique equipment, all with their own procedurally generated stats and attributes.
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Trait-driven progression system. As you gain levels, you unlock various traits that improve your characters, ranging from simple health and damage boosts to character-specific unique traits.
Devader
Devader is a twin-stick shooter that would feel at home in an arcade cabinet. In it you combat waves of bizarre and awesome enemies to defend a hexagonal matrix from destruction. While there’s no dearth of these type of games on Steam, Devader has several interesting components that make it stand out. The first thing most will notice from looking at screenshots is the aforementioned enemies. These otherworldy foes are called the Krin, and they are every bit as impressive as they look. There is a huge variety of them as well, probably well over 100, many, many more than what is usually found in this genus of game. There are least 15 different bosses alone. Contrast that to Cuphead with its 19 bosses and nothing else (okay, there are a couple of non-boss stages in Cuphead), and you get an idea of just how expansive the menagerie of monsters here is.
– Real player with 32.1 hrs in game
Addictive, intense and hypnotizing !
That’s how i can describe Devader in three words. 😄
Right after getting the game i ended up playing it 15 hours in four days, so for someone like me who’s pretty stacked with way too many games to play it’s a good sign !
It’s such an awesome game, quite hard and challenging but so rewarding once you complete a tough level.
The artstyle and graphics are beautiful with gorgeous 2D sprites mixed with 3D elements.
Devader is probably one of the the most visually intense game i ever played, it’s ecstatic.
– Real player with 20.1 hrs in game
Random War
A great casual game. It’s varied enough to keep me entertained.
– Real player with 51.8 hrs in game
A great little isometric twin-stick shooter.
I found that the ‘Robotron 2084’ style 4 way movement control option transformed the gaming experience and made it far more enjoyable and playable than the default ‘Asteroids’ style rotate and thrust movement scheme.
The voxel style graphics are really well executed and give the game a distinctive look & feel and the different adversaries all have their own quirky strengths and weaknesses.
A little more guidance on the different weapon systems would be a welcome addition.
– Real player with 6.5 hrs in game
Next Up Hero
Saw a streamer I know play this and it looked interesting enough for me to buy during the February Steam sale. Since then I’ve been unable to put this game down.
Be warned, though, this is Early Access and it shows. Some of the menuing doesn’t work as expected, you can sometimes get stuck on screens, not all the ventures show, you can easily go out of bounds on some characters, etc. There’s also a variety of tuning issues, with the time trials requiring you to think with a speedrunner’s mindset, the sky is falling levels filling your screen with rocks that on the edge of the level can be hard to see, don’t be greedy levels that rob you of gaining precious prestige, and other things.
– Real player with 175.5 hrs in game
I was a bit shocked that with all of the negative reviews I would like the game as much as I did. I have been enjoying it quite a bit and have unlocked a bunch of heroes and created my own stages and so on. It is fairly enjoyable, I also enjoy the boss pushing mechanic as well. It is weird in that you are kinda supposed to die and build on your own defeat. The same goes for other people. If you have friends that play the game it does become way more fun as you can tackle dungeons in co op and also have more echos to use faster as your friends die playing your stages. I had no problem with it. The bosses have a lot of health but in roughly 4 tries if you know their mechanics you can take down their full health bar. The last time I tried I did it in 2.
– Real player with 44.0 hrs in game