RefleX Reviews

Despite it being technically a short game, it makes up for that in difficulty + number of lives increased per game over, with insanely fun gameplay. Just hoping the devs would fix that black box issue that you seem bound to get, unless I was just unlucky in that case ^^;

I played the original title this game is based on (Reflection) back in the early 2000s and this remake has a lot of massive improvements, although the player aircraft in the original game had access to rocket launchers (which has been removed in this version) that can keep firing while the shield is deployed and can penetrate enemy shields. Dodging missiles in stage 7 and the final stage (where your plane loses the side cannons and can be easily picked off one-shot by enemy missiles coming sideways) could have been more fun with this original feature where you can shoot down some enemy missiles with rockets while the shield is on (while also chipping off the robot's HP through its shield).

Great classic shmup game. The presentation may sound dated but works well has enemyes, bullets and player visibility are cleat and pratical. The game is old but the gameplay continues to be good and passed the test of time. The mechanics are similiar to gigawing/mars matrix. The only negative i see is that the game is a bit long for the genre to be finished in one sitting. Things could have been a little more compact. Anyway. Siter Skain and qute are the best indie developers when it comes to classic shmps (no bullet hell). I recomend all games from then (this, altynex second and kamui). All the 3 have different mechanics and are good

First, beat the game (which can be cheesed by dying immediately then choosing to not continue, which gives you a permanent extra life), then go to the mission select and choose the other vehicle. Next, select literally any mission, and drop your shield as soon as you reflect a blue shot. Congratulations, your DPS has increased by roughly an order of magnitude. It's stupid and I love it.

6/10 I didn't like it at first, but after a few plays through it has grown on me a bit. The first half of the game is very good, and there the scoring system is pretty inventive. You reflect blue lasers back to the enemy, and each one that kills starts multiplying your score, first 2, then 4, 8, 16, 32 and finally 64 times the score. Once you get the multiplier up, any enemies you kill with your normal shot still gives you that score multiplier, but if you don't kill something for half a second, your multiplier resets. While it's pretty fun, there are a few issues with it. That half a second timer is really strict, you have to memorize the game down 100% to make the most of it. Some enemy sprites can shoot any type of laser, which means there is no indication what you will be shot with by a given enemy, did I mention you have to memorize the game 100%? You may be waiting for a blue laser, then they just shoot red ones at you. Since you want to kill the bosses by reflecting a blue laser at them, they can fight for long periods without firing any, so you just have to survive until they restart their move set, making some boss fights really drawn out. There is no leader board for score. Fighting the space fleet early on is definitely the highlight of the game, But once you get to the 6th(maybe 7th) boss, Entropy, that is where the bosses start getting really drawn out; as your standard laser won't do any damage to them, you have to rely 95% on your shield to reflect blue lasers to do damage. The last boss is especially drawn out, it feels like 15 minutes, but is probably 10. your shield becomes unlimited, so the boss will do things like shoot a full screen laser, just hold the shield button for 10 seconds and your good, you can't die, and you don't have to do anything to dodge. This is what really makes it feel drawn out, as stuff like that happens throughout the entire boss fight. So the shield is limited until the final boss, so you don't want to over use it, as it takes time to recharge, your main weapon becomes weaker the lower the shield gauge is, and if you are firing your main weapon, the shield charges very slowly. This kind of sucks when you use the shield to deflect a lot of shots, and you want to use your main gun to wrack up the points, but you can't sometimes, because you want to recharge the shield. To top it all off, as the shield gauge starts getting low, there is no audio queue to indicate this, your shield turns red but that isn't a good enough indicator. Controls aren't great, to move diagonally you have to be very specific with your control stick. Ever since Gunvein I always complain when a game doesn't have full analog controls, but this is an older game apparently so I wouldn't expect as much. In spite of all that, it's still pretty enjoyable, definitely worth the price. The reflector is a nice idea, the tone of the game is cool, and the scoring system is decent fun. Overall, it's good

Finally the renowned doujin Shoot'em up trilogy "The Tale of ALLTYNEX" is getting released on Steam. Starting with RefleX the second game in the series. Gameplay: Polished and intuitive, the key mechanic of the game is your ships relfecting shield. When activated the shield reflects bullets, but your ships energy is drained fast and when it gets low enough the shield stops working and even your weapons get weaker. So using the reflector-shield requires timing and strategy, mastering the game requires a lot of pattern recognition, good timing and knowing when to use the shield. Sound: The sound design is spot-on, catchy electronic retro music. With nice sound effect feedback from explotions and hits. Graphics: Looks basically like an Arcade game from the early 90's. But with some modern effects like lensflares and transparencies. It's pretty good looking for a low resolution 2D game, but the animation is somewhat lacking. The explotions and lazer effects look however satisfying. Overall: Impressive for a Doujin game, this could have passed as an professionally produced Arcade game in the 90's. I would recommend this game for any veteran fans of the Shoot'em up genre, the gameplay and music is top notch. But the graphics do look dated, and it is a shame that the developer did not allow making modifications to the game, so it is missing Steam achievements and leaderboards. Also the game lacks configuration options in-game, you have to find the config executable in the steamapps/common/RefleX directory. For people completely new to the genre, out of the games available on Steam I still recommend starting out with Ikaruga. The only reason being it looks modern and has a great well polished PC port with full Steam features. However RefleX is likely more fun and easier to grasp than Ikaruga for beginners, but not everyone will accept the dated look.

A good shmup/bullet hell with a bullet reflecting shield to bounce bullets back at enemies. Every Game Over you accumulate a continue for your next game. I stored up 50 continues for my run to the end and used 30. RefleX had me cursing a few times but most the time I accepted my lack of skill or the seemingly impossible odds of survival.

While I have only 1cc'd a handful or two shmups this one has to be my personal favorite so far. Its not the greatest by any means except in how the levels unfold. I don't want to refer to it as story because it is vague but that is more or less what I am talking about. That combined with the great music and excellent gameplay for a scrub like myself makes it the perfect shmup for me.

I'm a HARDCORE FAN of scrolling shooters(shoot'em up/shmups). I'm a CASUAL PLAYER of the genre. What I mean to say is that I enjoy the moment to moment action and kinetic movements of playing these types of games. Often times I play with an arcade stick and on a vertically orientated monitor("Tate" Tah -Tay, when available/applicable). I tend to jump around from game to game over a few beers rather than being OCD about mastering scoring systems and mapping optimal pathing routes. For me, non-stop action and thinking on your toes is what I find so deeply enjoyable about this genre. Reflex is one of my favorites, hands down. Not quite as bullet-hellish as a CAVE game and you aren't constantly made to adhere to screen filling bullet patterns. This allows for a moment to moment freedom that I enjoy so much, and doesn't demand strict adherence to optimal pathing. Just dodge the bullet and you'll likely be fine(save for a few later bosses). Reflex is unique in that you can reflect certain projectiles(blue colored) back at the enemies by running into them while your shield is active. Your shield depletes a meter every time you use it. Stop using your shield and your shield will regenerates. It is this risk/reward balance that makes the moment to moment action in Reflex so enjoyable. If you reflect bullets back at an enemy and it destroys an enemy you get a score multiplier. That's about as far as I've tried to examine the scoring system. Doesn't seem like the most robust scoring system in the genre, but it servers it's purpose and casual high-scores are fun to chase(however, no online leaderboards). As you play the game you will unlock more continues("credits") over time. That's a good thing as Reflex isn't the easiest shooter out there, although it's far from being the most punishing. Another rather unique thing about this game is that it isn't single hit death, you have a shield and also life bar allowing for a less harsh learning period. The graphics are low resolution sprites and embrace the golden era of shooters. The story is 'whatever' and doesn't really matter to me. But there is nice "story staging" which I think a lot of games of this type could learn from. It allows the player to feel like part of a story's motivations, without the actual need to engage in the story/lore outside of the gameplay. You feel part of something bigger than just playing a game, but it doesn't force-feed you unnecessary story/lore allowing the player to use imagination, should they choose. I feel more games of the genre could benefit from this sublime mixture. This game is greater than the sum of it's parts. The soundtrack is very good and compliments the action and encounters remarkable well. This is one of the only games that gives me chills every time I play it(the entire space armada level and the Enropi boss battle are standout phantasmagoria crescendos). I really really like this game and recommend it to anyone craving twitchy satisfaction. The sequels Kamui and Alltynex Second are pretty good too, but not as unique or satisfying as Reflex.

Vertical space shooter. Tight controls. Old school memorizer with interesting bullet reflect mechanic. Nice presentation and graphics. Okay audio. Quite challenging as was the standard back then. [i]Listed on the [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40858110-Shoot-%2527em-up-Database/]Shoot 'em up Database[/url][/i]