I love this game. Some of the things that go into my love for this game are: Randomized, explorable environments. I really feel like I am exploring some place with a purpose. Great gameplay. This is a tribute to The Legend of Zelda (the original and possibly Link to the Past) and it really shows but it is modern as well. The attacking is tight but simple, the enemies are varied but have predictable attack patterns. There are iconic enemies that when you see them you think "oh crud, not those..." (the lizard guys with knives for example). Feeling of progression. At the beginning, I was getting trashed by the later dungeons but as you grow in skill and learn the use of items and enemy behaviors then you do much better. This is an item progression game rather than a stat progression game with XP and arbitrary strength upgrades (again, see tribute to The Legend of Zelda above). Amazing style, music, and graphics. These combined make for a really memorable experience. I've played a ton of modern retro games that just don't do it right. This one did it right. There is a lot of expression in the simplicity of the graphics and the environment feels alive but made up also. The music is great and minimal, almost reminds me of Night Stalker on Intellivision with it's repeated drum beats. The sounds and visual splashes are perfect. There is only one thing I dislike about this game and that is the screen shaking when many things occur: killing enemies, finding secrets, blowing up bombs, etc. This is common in many games these days and I wish it would stop because it makes me dizzy. If that can be disabled in a new version, this could very well be my favorite game since The Legend of Zelda or Metroid (the originals).
This is an extremely satisfying game. The graphics and explosions are super awesome, you really feel like you did a lot of damage when you destroy a large enemy. Your character even trash talks the enemies while you are dogfighting! The difficulty is high but very rewarding. The gameplay is similar to many older top down space shooters I used to play. Some that come to mind are Escape Velocity, Asterax, or Maelstrom (Asteroids clone) for the Macintosh (os 7 era). There is a lot more close quarters combat though and only some of the scenery can damage you (and the enemies). I find that the mouse and keyboard control is very easy to use, to me it is like a top down fps style WASD keyboard layout. If you ever played DOOM and looked at the map while walking around, you may know what I am talking about (except you couldn't see enemies there). Oddly the strafing function is only available when you earn it on the 3rd level or so. I grew up watching Robotech and Voltron and this game is an interactive love letter to those kinds of space anime. Even the pause screen pretends to be a paused VHS recording with white interference on the top and bottom of the screen and 90s style VHS menu font. I seem to be the exact target audience for this game and it is very well done. If I have one complaint it would be that the character animations (not really in the gameplay itself) are done flash style rather than in the drawn animation style they are emulating. Thats a pretty small complaint though.
