Steredenn review


Steredenn was released through steam on the 2nd of October 2015 under the Indie Genre. Upon downloading I had no idea what I was walking into. When I launched the game, I was greeted with a very retro yet futuristic spaceship tutorial. With retro pixelated graphics, bright colouring and good music in a game, it was clear from the start that it would be a fantastic game that I had a lot to look forward to.


The tutorial sets up the whole premise to the game, you are the pilot of your very own spaceship. This spaceship is to accompany you into many battles that lay ahead throughout this side scrolling action packed adventure. Each level is made up of three waves of enemies and a boss. There are many enemies, environments and weather, yes weather in space! During my playthroughs I could not help but laugh at the sheer fact that whilst firing your standard blaster, your bullet casings fall down to the bottom, who said that there is no gravity in space?

The environments consist of clear space, minefields and asteroid field with more to be desired. When facing against the enemies you really have to think extremely fast as to what weapons are best to dispatch them, or even if it is worth even attempting to dispatch them. Your weapons consist of nine bullet weapons, seven energy weapons, eight heavy weapons, four contact weapons, five bot weapons and two shield weapons. The weapons can then all be upgraded depending on what enemies drop during combat, one of the more popular pickups that I have found is the superior weapons drop which increases the fire rate and damage of both equipped weapons.


One of the things that I love about this is how it is a game about patterns and thinking about the patterns whilst also not being about patterns. Whilst each wave of enemies presents a specific pattern to avoid enemy fire, it is not about mastering the levels. Each level is generated on the spot therefore you are not able to play it bit by bit remembering the moves as it is a constantly changing environment.

The soundtrack to this title is fantastic, the menu seems to have a pretty generic retro-futuristic sound and sound quality, however once you hit that play button all hell breaks loose. With enemies charging at you with an array of weaponry at their disposal you do not want to be listening to that futuristic song on a loop. Enter the metal, as the game gets progressively harder the faster the beat goes keeping your adrenalin pumping and keeping you in the fight.


A feature that I found intriguing is something called daily run. In daily run, everybody who participates will have the exact same of everything, the same upgrades, weapons, drops, and enemy patterns for 24 hours, allowing you to see who can perform best under the exact same circumstances. Whilst this is a great idea and very well implemented I think that it would be a good idea to incorporate some kind of customization, even if it is only colours and only for this specific mode.

For all of you competitors out there who would like to beat your friends in all-out war, or if it is just about proving how good you are, let the scoreboard do the talking. With a fully functional leader board, you can see how good or how bad you are, you could even see if Jimmy down the street was telling you the truth about being the best.


Steredenn is now available through Steam for $12.99 USD and has a file size of 329 MB and is worth looking into if you are an indie fan or not. I myself am not an indie fan however with the combination of multiple weapons, bright colours, random generating waves and a fantastic soundtrack I really enjoyed playing this title.

Positives:
  • Music.
  • Warm colours.
  • Every level is different.
Negatives:
  • You need to have a high level of co-ordination.
  • No co-op mode either local or online.
  • No checkpoints, of you die you start all over again.
SCORE: 8 out of 10 

Platforms: Xbox One, Steam (PC, MAC, LINUX), PS4
Genre: Indie
Initial Release: Xbox One 01-Apr-2016, Steam (PC, MAC, LINUX) 01-Oct-2015, PS4 28-Jun-2016
Developer: Pixelnest Studio
Publisher: Plug in Digital

-Iroro
Aussie Gamers Express

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