Scaling and Review Notes

Personal Hours Played: 1.5

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 11/16/2023

Feels like this is a proposal for a game and not a game. I'm really surprised money is being charged. The basic concept is fine. The enemies are still overwhelming and terrible.. just because I hate that there are a lot of them, damn you big red orbs, damn you.

They are literally just a big red orb with a number in it. It could be literally any cute enemy sprite and have some charm. But it's not. The arena is a white untextured space. This gets pretty boring pretty quickly.

Weapon upgrades tend to not feel that impactful since "more shots" just goes to the same place, bounces to the same next enemy, etc. The way you avoid and shoot doesn't seem to change much with upgrades or progression.

But the real issues is the bow controls are perfectly wrong (no pull on left trigger aim right trigger to release so it's basically a slow gun.) I love bow games and after amazing stuff like the latest Horizon or Zelda games or all the VR ones I was expecting gameplay totally built around shooting a bow. And that's not what I got. With my hands, it honestly hurts to hold down the right trigger exactly like this, so I had to play in short bursts.

It kind of works with works with a steam controller profile but then you get stuck in menus, a frustrating experience on steam deck. At least, it forced me to quit out of the game at least once at the gear menu. Generally the UI and overall feel of the game isn't too buggy but also feels fairly uninspired, again unfinished like a wireframe or mockup.

In terms of content there's only the one weapon, one enemy, one visual style of map for two maps. It has incremental meta upgrades and challenge based upgrades. Gets a -1 for "multiple characters" for being first person with basically no character and no unique character build related features.

It's definitely a survivors-like, clearly inspired by the upgrades style, horde gameplay, but it's like a note someone made to remind themselves to make a game later. Then they packed it full of 'unlocks' and charged for it. It's frustrating because I would like more very simple first person arena shooters in this format. I don't have a problem with small games, if they're tightly designed and fun. Maybe something more will come from this, one can hope.

Scaling and Review Notes

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 10/31/2023

Scale scoring from scorecard submitted by Developer. Once evaluated after a couple hours play and some research, will be adjusted and moved up into the ranking proper.

I think it's likely they've given themselves too low scores (plenty of absent features could just be 0 instead of -1) but once I've gotten a chance to play myself I'll adjust.

Dev Scorecard notes: "Traditional vertical scrolling shmup with a cool twist (this NOT a Survivor-like)!"

Dev note from interview: "There is a special mode you unlock after the main, regular shmup mode (8 levels, but there are two branching paths), the special mode is an infinite mode, that keeps basically the same level layouts, but uses some procedures to make them tougher. So very different in a lot of ways from a survivor, but it has a bit of randomization and generation in it."

Help us rank this game! [Submit Review]

Scaling and Review Notes

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 11/16/2023

Scale scoring from scorecard submitted by Developer. Once evaluated after a couple hours play and some research, will be adjusted and moved up into the ranking proper.

Help us rank this game! [Submit Review]

Scaling and Review Notes

Personal Hours Played: 15

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 12/24/2023

Scoring in progress

This classic vertical shmup was a favorite of mine as a kid for probably one of the same reasons I enjoy survivorslikes now: the ability to upgrade your ship between rounds and grind to try and get powerful enough to pass a stage and see more of the game.

While there isn't exactly buildcrafting within the runs, you can get upgrades and bring them back to sell or use tactics like repeating an earlier stage to farm a particular weapon. It's not a bullet curtain danmaku game either - Compared to many vertical scrolling shooters you can take quite a few hits before you're out. When the ship is destroyed it's game over and you have to reload from a save instead of mimicking an arcade credit system.

This is an interesting title to look at historically. I think that there is a history of "arcade game with meta upgrades" on the PC that is often less focused on when examining the shmup genre. Usually study of the genre is very focused on arcade games - and for good reason since the arcade versions often crammed a ton of amazing art and gameplay simply impossible on home computers of the eras.

However, just because Raptor is a little simpler graphically and less elegant mechanics wise doesn't mean it's not an important title. The shareware distribution model meant this game and other similar Apogee titles was played by a very wide player base, likely influencing many future developers.

The PC roots of the title also meant another thing: Save files. The meta upgrades gave a player something to invest time in while waiting for the next episodic release of stages. Doesn't that sound familiar? These DOS shareware games were already doing incremental upgrades and content releases of the sort people love today in modern survivorslikes!

Many people mention Epic Megagames' Tyrian 2000 as like this but better, though I've never played it. It's not on Steam either, so right now Raptor is our pick for classic PC shmups to compare!

Note: There are a few shareware, freeware, and unauthorized ports of this game out there. This is why there are some platforms listed as compatible not currently on the Steam release.

Scaling and Review Notes

Personal Hours Played: 2

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 12/23/2023

First impressions! Scoring subject to change as I play more - but it's not a survivors-like really so it's not top priority.

A first person shooter rogue-lite that sometimes comes up recommended to survivors-like fans looking to switch up the gameplay perspective. I'm just starting to try it out, as it seems to be one of the recent titles with a larger player base and many play hours visible in the steam reviews. However, it doesn't seem to be oriented around wave survival. It's more like a dungeon crawler.

A big draw here is the multiplayer, which allows up to 4 players co-op. As a big Borderlands/Destiny player on steam (with my partner), this one has been shoved in my face by the platform for a couple years now (It fully came out in November 2021 after a year and a half of Early Access from May 2020.)

It's not a bullet heaven - while you certainly shoot a lot of bullets and can get quite OP, the enemies are always going to be shooting a lot as well. It's not really a bullet hell either, though, since you don't weave your way among enemy shot patterns. It's just an FPS.

It's got a low polygon cel shaded aesthetic which is overall alright for the enemies and sometimes quite cute for the characters. It can be pretty sometimes but most of the time just serves its purpose. The vibe is a kind of eastern adventure RPG, a little more cozy and definitely more furry than the Borderlands wastelands that obviously inspired it.

Translation from chinese can feel a little stilted. It's hard to say if the game has/had more personality in the writing before that. Some weapons (like literally just a brick) are funny enough to give it some positive score in subtle humor.

Overall it can feel a little underwhelming aesthetically when you focus on the details, but I think it's likely the visual style prioritizes being able to work on a wide variety of machines to enable the multiplayer aspect. And it's not a AAA studio, which of course I respect.

The controls are much more complex than most of the games on this list, which makes sense considering it's a first person shooter. Compared to other FPS games, though, it's somewhat simplified in some areas and mixed up in others. For example, the first character and many weapons use a secondary fire on the left trigger instead of an aim. There's a dodge instead of a sprint/run and so on.

I think the general gameplay and controls, along with character styles, would feel at home to Risk of Rain 2 players. It does seem to be missing some of that verticality (also from games like destiny) and to me it's also missing some of the visual depth and vibe that keeps a game on my big screen, but I'm looking forward to playing more on steam deck.

Honestly I admit kind of wanking around in first person shooters, so I tend to enjoy ones that let me die a lot in co-op.

The initial tutorial walkthrough makes it feel more complicated than it really is - part of why I dislike them - as overall it's got a currency unlock menu and some character upgrades. The major way you progress in game is by picking up weapons, which comparing stats on is kind of more complex than a simple 3 or 4 card level option (hence the related low score for streamlined levels). Find based unlocks exist here too.

I'm counting the elemental fusion system (synergy from attacking with different weapon elements) as a partial score for weapon combination.

It's more expensive than many of the games on this list, but given the 3D first person art style, it makes sense. It's still cheap enough to consider buying a copy for your partner or friend to play with you.

I think this is likely a great option to try if you really want an FPS roguelite, but also won't really appeal to core survivors-likes fans looking for a very similar mechanics vibe either from a bullet heaven or simplified controls/ui perspective.

Pixel sprites are from Steam emotes, not in game.

Scaling and Review Notes

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 10/29/2023

Scale scoring from scorecard submitted by player reviewer. Once evaluated after a couple hours play and some research, will be adjusted and moved up into the ranking proper.

OneUpNerd's scorecard notes: "All levels are the same with different colors, boss is always the same. It's price is the same as VS (4.99€)." Full review here.

Steam reviews seem to negatively compare to Brotato.

Help us rank this game! [Submit Review]

Scaling and Review Notes

Personal Hours Played: 240 (Thundergodeneru)

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on ?

Scale scoring from scorecard submitted by player reviewer. Once evaluated after a couple hours play and some research, will be adjusted and moved up into the ranking proper.

Review Notes by Thundergodeneru: "This game is a rogue lite like many others, such as Wizard of Legend or Enter the Gungeon. The difference is how much it leans to Chinese cultivation, where it has moves and monsters that would be foreign and interesting to most people who aren't familiar with this trope."

Thundergodeneru: "The mechanics are fairly unique, taking a lot from the Chinese xianxia trope. You age one year when you enter each room, if your lifespan reaches 0 you die with there being many ways to increase your lifespan."

"This is only one mechanic as there are skills and weapons that can be matched into combos, changing their animation and how they work. A main function of this game is how you collect chi, which empowers anything that uses its element and how you can pick cards that synergize and make you much stronger like uncapping your crit rate so you can crit twice in one attack. The main focus is to synergize in this game."

"Playing this game is a blast, especially figuring out how the game works on your own as if does not tell you. The guides are scarce and figuring out a combination and obliterating an enemy with your new-found power is a very enjoyable experience." - Thundergodeneru

Help us rank this game! [Submit Feature Survey]

Scaling and Review Notes

Personal Hours Played: 4.0

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 11/21/2023

Scoring in progress

Help us rank this game! [Submit Feature Survey]