STRAFE: Gold Edition

TL;DR: This would be fun as hell if it weren’t for the many, many game-breaking bugs. Very frustrating. It honestly needs the “in dev” tag because literally every time I play it, I send at least two new bug report emails to Pixel Titan’s feedback email address. I am not making this up. As of writing, there have already been three patch releases fixing many issues, but only one of the issues I have reported has been (partially) addressed, so there’s probably plenty more to come. In addition to that, it really suffers a lot from typical Unity Engine performance issues, to the point of occasionally dropping below 10 frames per second and juddering on every mouse movement on a machine that’s way above the recommended system requirements. It’s all blocking on the CPU, not graphics. When I manage to get a run with no game-breaking bugs or performance issues, however, it’s fun and extremely addictive. I don’t even mind the weapon mechanics that are so unpopular with other players because the power-ups you collect will improve your weapon and it ends up working really well with nice and steady difficulty. And you can keep the secondary weapons across levels. You don’t have to use them right away. It’s called roguelike for a reason, and if you can’t handle it, you’re just not good enough for STRAFE®. I wouldn’t call it unforgiving. It’s very far from it. Honestly, I think it should be way harder and have better enemy AI. Right now they all just come at you in a straight line, and you either circle strafe around a group or you run backwards in a tight corridor to take them out one by one. That’s not very challenging given how easy strafe jumping is in this game (movement in general feels spot on), but I guess it works for people who have never finished Quake.

Out of all of the procedurally generated FPS games I've played, Strafe stands out as the best one. Strafe doesn't waste any time getting straight into the action, and the shooting is very fast-paced and visceral. All of the weapons are varied and fun to use, and although the sound design for the gunshots leaves a little to be desired, the guns nonetheless feel powerful in their own right. The procedurally generated levels are generally put together fairly well by the game. All of the various rooms utilized by the proc-gen system flow into one another nicely and they feel good to b-hop and circle-strafe around whilst blasting baddies. After playing the game for several hours, you may find yourself becoming familiar with a lot of the rooms that the game cycles through, which can lead to runs feeling samey, but I personally never found it to be much of a problem. Especially when the focus of the game is shooting things and earning upgrades for your character. Strafe also has some of the most enjoyable easter eggs and secrets that I've experienced in a game like it, such as a Wolfenstein 3D-esque arcade machine that can be played and a hidden speedrun / jump course that's accessed through completing a mini challenge right out of a Tony Hawk game. They add a lot to the game's charm, and they make me look forward to starting new runs so I can experience them again. Strafe isn't perfect. It has some glitches that can halt progress, the automap on your HUD is borderline worthless, and a lot of the weapons you pick up tend to take the backseat in comparison to your upgradable primary weapons. The intentionally retro aesthetics are also a bit odd, since they mix low-res models and textures with modern physics and other effects such as dynamic blood that make the presentation a strange hybrid between modern and classic visuals. At the end of the day, though, the strange visuals add to the charm for me, and they don't make the game any less fun or replayable in my book.

The gunplay isn't bad but not that great, and the game gets boring pretty fast.

This throwback shooter lauched with some balance issues but still a good retro fps style game. the latest patch made it a much more balanced, enjoyable and complete experience. its a modernized version of mixed 90's fps concepts that fit well in a original take. secrets , upgrades, game modes nad a synthwave soundtrack on top makes it a great choice among this genre.

Bought it for my GPD Win because I figured the lo-fi graphics would run well on lower end hardware. Boy was I wrong. Stay away. 10 fps as soon as you start firing your gun at enemies. Do not recommend for a lower spec pc at all...Seriously disappointed. Developers, please optimize.