Zero Strain Reviews

gets you fired up

good game

If you are looking for a bullet hell and something you will have to take a few swings at to clear a boss / stage this is it. Each ship has their own mechanics that change how you approach each stage a bit differently. There is some back tracking that takes place to earn upgrades. Easy to get sucked in by the visuals and lose your place on the screen. Feels very satisfying to utterly blow up a boss and struggle against them for hours at a time until you master your ship. Awesome game!

This game is fun and the ships are very different from each other. It can be a bit tough at times and the ramping does happen fast but its still very fun Controls are pretty good for the most part aside from a little oddness on aiming at times. Music is alright enough, not amazing but pretty up there. The ships look pretty cool. The levels and bosses have been fun so far. All in all its a pretty fun little twinstick.

A stamina gauge has no place in a SHMUP. Combined with a weak lock on and loose controlling ship, the difficulty feels borne from frustration.

This game is by no means easy, or perfectly polished. What it is, is a very intense experience trying to fight your way through stages and bosses, with plenty of good concepts that are well executed for ships and fights. If you're looking for a challenge to overcome, this is for you. If you just want to mindlessly spam or hold a button to win, you should look elsewhere. You'll start the game simply enough, but as it goes on you'll quickly find that the game does not hold your hand, instead giving you a challenge that you'll have to figure out how you'll get through it. There are certainly better match-ups for ships and bosses that'll make the game easier or harder for you, as well as each ship is very distinctly different, with their passives and abilities changing how you have to learn to play each ship. As you press through you'll need to get better and improve at piloting your chosen ship, as fighting a boss or clearing a stage that requires a mastery of the controls and mechanics. It is satisfying to beat a boss. Even more satisfying to beat a boss if you're using a ship that's not the best for the situation, where you had to force your way through more difficulties, although this may not always be possible. Overall, This game is one of the most difficult I've played, however it's also one of the most satisfying games to get good at, and play well. Once again: If you're looking for a challenge to overcome, this is for you. If you just want to mindlessly spam or hold a button to win, you should look elsewhere.

Not "that bad" but to be honest I still can't recommend. There's two major reasons let me to not recommend this, but these may be very personal so if you think both of this is not that serious for you, give it a chance. 1. Energy management Shot(normal attack in this game) and dodge both uses energy, which may have a great technique balance on choosing act on souls-like games, but it is not recommended for a fast paced game like this. Players can easily lose their attention on resource management, since attacks from enemies is too frequently, or too many to leave focus with. More critical moment you require an act(like dodge), it's more like you will not allowed to use it. "Shot not that often"/"it's by personal skill" may be right, but it slowed the pace and bothered the good feeling from this game's acting, like every time you start feels good on destroy enemy there's a hand slap into you face and shout at you "NOT SHOOT THAT OFTEN CANT YOU SEE THE ENERGY?". 2.Lock system is not really that "Lockable" Instead of using twin-stick, this game using a lock system, only when you're not leaving the button. That is, each time you shoot at a target, if you leave the btn, aiming will return to front(release the lock), so if you want to shoot at the same target again, you need to turn back, face it correctly and shoot again. And since reason of 1(energy management), you need leave your shoot very often, causing you "manually lock target again" very often; because of turning is not instantly and amount of enemies, for times it's very hard to lock your normal shoot to the target you want to shoot (even there's only one enemy, you still need a gap of time to turning back which lose your mobility, in a fast paced battle). Some boss are designed to be interesting to choose strategy form destroying itself or the spawnings first, but this lock system made it very hard to lock your normal shoot to just one of them. Due to the turning speed, at some situation you just cannot shoot to where you want to. I'll suggest using another lock button to keep the lock target or just shift to twin-stick system. Keep turning back just to aim to enemy(even there's only one) is just not fun.

This game is awesome. Unlike what the screenshots may lead you to believe, this game is not: - a twin stick shooter, instead, there is a lock on system. - a typical shump/bullet hell, you can dodge through stuff Hades style and many bullets can be shot down. In fact, it's more similar to a character action game like Hades or Furi. A big part of the game is the high difficulty bossfights, think Cuphead/Furi/Souls-like(without the need to travel back to the boss). Apart from the bosses, there are also other kind of stages with various enemies (think high-heat hades or some top-down arpg). Similar to how cuphead has platforming levels between bossfights. There are many ships to unlock, each with very distinct playstyles, you'll be clearing bosses and stages multiple times with different ships. The game is hard, expect difficulty walls (unless you're a god gamer or something :thinking:). Controls might feel awkward at first, since there are two modes: - When holding special weapon lock on or shooting, you move around with more control - Otherwise, you have a looser control with turning speed. But you quickly get used to the controls, Also, it is completely playable on keyboard. This game is also on consoles, but is balanced to be easier (in a bad way imo) and there's a boss that has an attack working completely wrong, idk what other differences there are. Recommend the steam version over it.