Starlair Reviews

Its AMAZING and that is all you need to know.

Please buy this game, if for no other reason than to give them the funds to get some decent in game music. Right now they have classical music playing in space and after about 15 minutes it gets really really old. I just wanted add a few things after playing the game extensively for 50+ hours. The game depends on player created levels. So if you are interested in the level creation part of the game (which is very extensive), you should defiantly buy this game now (Feb 2025), However if you are more interested in playing the levels and experiencing the story, wait a month or two. In the game itself, if you fly into a galaxy and don't find planets pretty easily, that means there isn't enough player created content yet. Don't be like me and spend days hunting around in empty space for content. Likewise don't bother with buying asylum keys yet, they don't really do much.

A Metroid fans dream! make your own levels and music even your own character! it plays great! 9/10

Inverted vertical controls are only option while navigating space. There is an interesting concept of a game here but I don't feel this is good enough, I'm afraid. Definitely needs a pass on the UI and accessibility front, and I feel the ground gameplay isn't very deep. Didn't test the editor thing; it probably is the part given the most love, but that's kind of bad when playing the game doesn't feel fun.

Greatly improved with the new star map.

I really wanted to like this. Unfortunately, the moment I started, I experienced the depressing controls and had to peace out. Now, dear reader, you may think think that when I say "the controls are depressing" that I may mean "these controls are too hard waah waah." I'm with you, I think a lot of people say "controls bad" as a placeholder for "I have a skill issue and am insecure about it." But trust me when I say that I wouldn't even want to play a newgrounds game in 2002 with controls this bad. The jumping feels terrible. The gunplay is awful. Nothing about this grabs me. A game like this should have tight controls and combat to start with. You don't design this whole user-created ecosystem and THEN say that you'll make the movement enjoyable later, like StarLair does. If the controls were improved and tightened with more engaging combat, I would recommend this game. But I think it might be too late for the dev to change the controls. There's already a ton of user-generated content that is out there with the assumption that players have certain limitations. I just don't know how this game could ever be fixed. But hey, maybe I'll be surprised.

I feel a little bad saying this about what's a smaller indie game. But it feels like it's still Early Access and needs a ton more work and polish before it's worth buying. A few issues I had: 1. No controller support. Doing the sidescrolling Metroid action on planets is really bad with keyboard, and they should've known that anyone checking this game out on Steam is going to want to use a controller for that part. 2. Pretty bad physics/gameplay in the sidescrolling part of the game. Most games of this type give you better control over your movement in air. Particularly if you're jumping and moving backwards, the slow movement feels bad. Even if that's intentional, all it really does is give bad comparisons to other stuff in the genre. 3. Amateurish graphics. This is something that also really needs to be addressed. Everything looks like it was part of some free pixel art collection from an old Flash game with no sense of style. I'd expect the sprites in this game as placeholders, but again, it's not Early Access. 4. The UI needs a ton of work. There's no minimap to help you avoid constantly pausing to check your exploration, the big map itself gets loaded with icons that are hard to read, there's no feedback on how to open a few kinds of doors... I'd say this is at best 50% of the way to what a good, functional UI should be. The bones are there to make something good, but right now it's way too flawed to recommend playing it. The build mode is great, though, so once they make it so it's actually fun to explore planets, this could be a fantastic game.

Really wanted to like the game but there are too many problems; some can be fixed but the primary issue is the fully player-built world gameplay. Maybe you get lucky and get a world with real thought put in to it... but more likely you get stupid bullethells with tons of jumps to tiny platforms where you get knocked in to lava, possible soft-locks or just generally very poorly designed. The issue that can be fixed, however, I can provide more specific feedback on; the universe travel is SLOW. You start with 50 fuel and you have to get lucky in finding it in the universe (I found one.) or buy it from stores and it'll last you... maybe 30 seconds. Two possible fixes; allow it to slowly recharge over time, scaling with fuel tanks, or allow the meteoroids to drop it; as it is it's way too time-consuming to cruise around. Second issue, there needs to be an input buffer; a small window of opporunity to queue up an action, usually about half a second to one second, specifically for jumping. It would make platforming a lot less irritating. Speaking of platforming, a direct vertical jump gives you a little more height than a moving jump; normally not a big issue, except when you have tough jumps that are at that exact height; just normalize it between standing and running jumps. I don't know why they're different. The last and biggest issue by far; the screen shake during the time segments... My god, the screen shake is terrible and makes it so incredibly hard to process anything. Either lessen the screenshake or, even better, provide a slider so people can change the amount, down to none. The game really isn't that bad but some issues and the purely player-made worlds aspect of it greatly holds it back from being something that I recommend to others. Honestly, if you want Metroid, A Robot Named Fight does the 'Metroid' thing infinitely better, very nearly a 1:1, though it is roguelike so won't be for everyone.