Absolutely one of my favorite genres that has never gotten old (at least when the games are good) is the side-scrolling shooter. Indie games have been doing a great job celebrating and rejuvenating this staple of the old arcades, bringing modern sensibilities and intensity to an already-exciting style. Roguelikes have also been immensely popular due to some great indie titles, some of them my favorites on any system, so when I hear about any titles that are looking to marry these two together they immediately get my attention. In the case of Steredenn: Binary Stars the result is something extraordinary, filled with some absolutely insane action but throwing in a mix of choice and randomness to turn it into something special.

May 18, 2015  Steredenn - E3 2016 Trailer Steredenn is an endless chaotic space shooter, coming on PS4 on June 28th, 2016. Twitch Prime: Last Chance To Snag Five Free Games (February 2020).

Starting out with your first ship you’ll need to get your bearings and spend a bit of time getting absolutely wrecked as you come to understand the basics. All ships on the screen are to be blown away before they can do the same to you, big cargo ships will drop a power-up when destroyed, and boss ships will have multi-phase attack patterns that can be truly terrifying. Each ship you can control will have a primary weapon, a secondary weapon, and then a special attack that and attributes that set it apart from the others. Whether being nimble or a bit slow, armored up or a bit fragile, as you unlock new ships by making progress you’ll need to give them all a shot and see what suits you best. I’m partial to the well-armored Fortress, partially for its ability to survive a bit of a beating but mostly because it has a great homing missile attack that can really help out in a pinch when you have limited opportunities to line up a shot at your attacker.
Where the roguelike element of the game really makes it all come together is in the diversity of the weapons and power-ups you’ll get to choose from. When you blow up a cargo ship in the middle of battle you’ll only have a brief time to either pick up the power-up it drops or leave it. Depending on what weapon you already have, what styles you may prefer, or possibly taking a chance and picking it up in the hopes it will pay off later there are many possible motivations for taking or leaving anything you encounter. Weapons fall into categories, whether bullet, heavy, energy, bot, or contact. Depending on the style of play you prefer and also the ship you’re using different options may appeal to you. I personally found success picking up a bot power-up, that allows you to place a few remote attackers on the screen, and complementing those with an effective forward weapon. In true roguelike fashion the more powerful weapons usually have downsides like requiring a charge, only being semi-automatic, making your ship move slower when in use and more. Where it can get more interesting is between levels you’ll get to choose one of 5 random enhancements and some of these can counteract certain downsides so there can be many strategies for finding success if you’re willing to roll the dice.

While people who embrace the challenge of roguelikes and are dialed into the repetitious nature of an arcade-style shooter will likely have an incredibly good time with all of this, there’s no doubt it won’t be for everyone. To be clear, the game is very challenging and more often than not you’re going to simply have poor to middling runs when things just aren’t going your way. While the weapon diversity can be exciting it also means there’s a higher probability you’re not going to prefer the drops you get, making the road even tougher in the process.That said, forced improvisation can sometimes lead to the discovery of new and effective tactics you hadn’t anticipated so it is worth giving anything you encounter a shot at some point. The ability to add a friend to the action is also a mixed bag in that your offensive firepower is doubled but the chaos on the screen being magnified and a shared life bar mean that there are no guarantees of better results, especially if your skill levels aren’t well-balanced.
I’ve personally had a great time playing Steredenn and would immediately recommend it to anyone who enjoys intense shooters and roguelike sensibilities. It’s a combination of bullet hell, crazy power-ups (you can get a sword that lets you stab enemy ships), and risk-reward decisions that most often ends in complete failure but still puts a smile on my face. If you’re up for pushing yourself, and don’t mind the taste of defeat, I heartily recommend it.



Score: 9

Pros:

• Challenging multi-phase bullet hell boss fights
• An insane variety of power-ups
• Risk/reward decisions after every round let you help define your fate

Cons:

• Not for the easily frustrated
• No slow burn method of making the game more approachable with time, you just need to learn and get better
• While I appreciate the ability to play the game coop overall I didn’t find the added craziness practical

Hi, I'm a former game journalist, but even though I don't do that professionally anymore, I still have, you know, opinions.One of those opinions is that while I thoroughly enjoy games on Nintendo platforms, there are a lot of them that you have to wade through to get to the good stuff. So many, in fact, that there aren't too many reviews of some of them.With this in mind, I'll be contributing my own reviews and mini-reviews of these games to this subreddit so anyone who's curious can have something more to judge the quality of these games and try to weed out the diamonds from the rough.And just to be clear, I'm not paid by anyone, I'm not making any money off of this.

I'm just doing this because I wanna'. Genre: Compilation / Action-Platformer / 2-Stick ShooterPlayers: 1-2 Co-Op (Local).Review:Bleed Complete Bundle is a Compilation of Bleed and Bleed 2, both Action-Platformers with 2-Stick Shooter action, and a goofy story with a cartoony presentation. Here's what I thought of these two games: GameGenre# of PlayersScoretl;drAction-Platformer / 2-Stick Shooter1-2 Co-Op (Local)Bleed is an Action-Platformer and 2-Stick Shooter with a simple, cartoony presentation and a silly story about a young woman hunting down heroes to prove she's a better hero. The gameplay here is absolutely fantastic, with some really inventive level design, great controls, a lot of variety, and excellent co-op.

Unfortunately, this game is painfully short and insultingly overpriced, and as good as it is, I cannot recommend spending $15 for what amounts to about an hour of gameplay. If you can get it on sale at a good price, definitely do, but otherwise it isn't worth the cost.Action-Platformer / 2-Stick Shooter1-2 Co-Op (Local)Bleed 2 is an Action-Platformer and 2-Stick Shooter with a simple, cartoony presentation and a silly story about a girl fending off an invasion. This game improves on the first one in almost every way, with even better action, better visuals, a great soundtrack, and the same wonderful variety, great level design, and excellent co-op.

However, where it doesn't improve on the first game is value - the main campaign can still be finished in an hour or so, and the extra game modes don't stretch things out much more than that. For $20, I simply cannot recommend this game, but definitely get it if you see it on sale.The short version is this - both games feature incredibly fun gameplay that I absolutely love. But both are all extremely short, and drastically overpriced.Unfortunately, this bundle does little to mitigate that problem. At $30, you're only saving $5 of the cost of buying both of these games separately, and given that this entire collection contains just 2-3 hours of gameplay, that $30 is still way overpriced.In addition, playing these games back to back highlights one of the flaws in Bleed 2 - that game recycles many of the ideas from the first game.

Bleed 2 is definitely still the better game of the pair despite this, but it does contribute to the lack of value plaguing this collection.I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but my recommendation for Bleed Complete Bundle is the same as for the individual games - if you can buy it at a significant discount, absolutely do so. These are two fantastic games that are a thrill to play while they last. But given how short both of these games are, and how pricey this collection is, I'd say definitely don't buy this bundle at full price.tl;dr – Bleed Complete Bundle includes Bleed and Bleed 2, both excellent Action-Platformers with 2-Stick Shooter gunplay, and both also extremely short and extremely overpriced games. Much as with the individual games, if you can get this collection at a discount, absolutely do so because the games are immensely fun. However, even with the savings this bundle provides, it's still horribly overpriced at its normal price. Grade: B+. Ecco the dolphin sega cd.