I want to love Stargunner. Raptor is one my favourite games and this game channels a lot of its spirit, but it falls short of greatness. I've tried immersing myself in it a few times over the decades, but I always bail after an episode or two. Why? I feel like it tries so hard to be complex and replayable that it fails to provide a balanced continuous campaign. The core game mechanics are solid and quite complex, weapons are varied and fun, as are enemies and level environments, but pacing is (potentially) terrible. Every level is bursting with tens of secrets and therein lies Stargunner's downfall. If you're like me and try to explore what the game has to offer to the fullest, you'll replay the first levels a couple of times to learn about the secrets' positions... and then you'll find yourself hilariously overpowered, with the best equipment as soon as two levels into an episode. Then you'll realize none of the secrets matter anymore and dying weakens your main weapon, so you'll stay on the safest course, breezing through the other levels with your dreadnought of superdeath. Rinse & repeat until the game chases you out with tedium, because it doesn't support digging deep into its secrets. It works better with a more casual, less risky approach to the early levels, but I feel like this is a serious design fault. In the end it doesn't even scratch replayability of, say, Tyrian.
