Star of Providence Reviews

Star of Providence is a criminally overlooked gem in the twin-stick shooter genre, a game that blends tight, satisfying combat with roguelike structure and retro-inspired visuals to deliver an experience that feels both nostalgic and fresh. Developed by Team D-13, the game wears its inspirations on its sleeve—titles like Enter the Gungeon, The Binding of Isaac, and even classic arcade shooters clearly influence its design—but Star of Providence distinguishes itself through a distinctive balance of chaos and control. It offers rapid-fire, top-down action in a procedurally generated world, punctuated by intense boss fights, dynamic enemy patterns, and an evolving arsenal of weapons and upgrades that reward experimentation. At first glance, the game seems straightforward: you navigate rooms filled with enemies, dodge bullets, and shoot back with whatever weapon you’ve managed to scavenge. But what makes Star of Providence shine is the precision and responsiveness of its core gameplay loop. Movement is smooth and deliberate, hitboxes feel fair, and every weapon has its own character, with subtle differences in fire rate, recoil, projectile behavior, and synergy with power-ups. The game is unforgiving at times, but never unfair—when you die, it feels like a lesson, not a punishment. This is crucial in a roguelike, where every run is a learning experience and a chance to refine your strategies. The game’s enemy design is one of its most impressive features. Each enemy type introduces unique movement and attack patterns, and rooms often throw combinations at you that force you to adapt on the fly. There’s a certain arcade logic to how waves build and interweave—projectiles fill the screen, forcing the player into constant motion, weaving through pixel-perfect gaps while returning fire. Bosses, in particular, are standouts, each one offering memorable patterns, phases, and a rhythm that feels almost musical once you lock into it. Learning to survive and eventually master these encounters provides a true sense of progression, even when you start from scratch with every run. Progression is handled elegantly through unlocks and secrets. As you play, you gain access to new characters, each with unique starting stats, weapons, or passive abilities. These variations help keep the gameplay feeling fresh and open up new tactical approaches. There’s also a wide variety of weapons and power-ups to discover, many of which interact in surprising ways. Some upgrades offer simple stat boosts, while others fundamentally alter how your character plays, such as giving bullets bounce, spread, or elemental effects. The more you play, the more possibilities you uncover, leading to a sense of discovery that never wears thin, even after dozens of runs. Visually, Star of Providence embraces a pixel-art aesthetic that recalls 16-bit console shooters, but with a clean, modern sharpness that makes everything pop. Effects like explosions, laser beams, and enemy projectiles are bright and readable, which is crucial in a game where split-second reactions matter. The art style may seem modest at first glance, but the clarity of design is intentional and expertly executed. It never overwhelms the player or hides important details behind visual clutter. The soundtrack is equally impressive, driving the action forward with pulsing, atmospheric tracks that shift as you progress deeper into the game’s layers. Beneath the surface-level shooting lies a deeper lore and atmosphere that hint at something greater. While the game doesn’t frontload narrative elements, players who pay attention to environmental clues, enemy names, and item descriptions can piece together a loose mythology. There’s a distinct tone of mystery and decay running throughout the game world—ruins, celestial themes, and cryptic boss names suggest a fallen or corrupted system that you're trying to navigate or perhaps survive. This subtle world-building adds an extra dimension of intrigue, especially for players who enjoy finding narrative through mechanics and tone rather than exposition. Despite its strengths, Star of Providence isn’t without a few shortcomings. The difficulty can be daunting for newcomers, especially those unfamiliar with bullet-hell or twin-stick mechanics. Runs can feel punishingly short if you're not yet skilled in dodging or recognizing enemy patterns, and while that’s part of the roguelike appeal, it may deter more casual players. The UI and menus, while functional, can feel a bit bare-bones, and there’s a sense that more could have been done to ease players into its systems. However, for those willing to push through the early learning curve, the game reveals its depth quickly and convincingly. Star of Providence is a stellar example of minimalist excellence in indie game design. It doesn’t rely on cinematic storytelling or excessive content bloat—it distills its vision into pure gameplay and refines it until it gleams. The combat is intense but fair, the roguelike elements are thoughtfully implemented, and the aesthetic choices support rather than distract from the experience. It’s a game that respects the player’s time and skill, and rewards mastery with an increasingly rich and varied journey through randomized chaos. For fans of the genre or those simply looking for a tightly tuned, endlessly replayable action experience, Star of Providence is a must-play—an indie title that may fly under the radar but punches far above its weight. Rating: 9/10

Awesome twin-stick shooter that does a great job doing away with all the fluff and keeping you in the action non-stop. If you enjoyed Gungeon or Isaac, it is very likely you will enjoy this one as well.

Those who played Undertale might be familiar with a bullet hell in a cramped space. This is very similar but 10 times harder. Incredible soundtrack, graphics and vibe. Couldn't put it down until I beat the final boss and can't put it down even now.

Straight to the point roguelike fun. I struggle to find many gripes with this game at all. It's extremely polished, fun, unique, and just nearly flawless. This is absolutely one of those games where if you think it looks interesting, you'll love it.

An exceptionally [b]polished[/b] roguelike twin-stick shooter. The excellence of Star of Providence lies in its responsively slick controls, carefully designed challenge, and gradually revealed depth. The gameplay feels [b]fantastic[/b]. The music sounds [b]dynamic[/b]. It expertly introduces intimidating obstacles while encouraging and rewarding your persistence. Each room is a miniature puzzle, and there is a staggering amount of [b]variation[/b] between runs. Furthermore, the implementation of difficulty was not an afterthought, as enemy attack patterns, rooms, and bosses are added with each incrementation. And the visual clarity despite the overwhelming amount of information is praiseworthy. You will not want to stop playing even after the credits roll.

Hello! This is a rougelike bullet hell game. Its cute! and fun. weapons in this do have ammo and it feels like you can develop strategy for saving it that can be rewarding! anyway! I am a dork about audio settings! I would beg of you if you are a dev and read this. Pls save my audio settings when i close the game Repro steps 1. Open Star of Providence 2. Select options 3. Select audio 4. Adjust Volume sliders down 5. Return to the main menu 6. select Exit 7. Open Star of Providence Result The audio settings are returned to default.

Amazing game that scratches the bullet hell itch while feeling rewarding. If you like Enter the Gungeon, this is another must play!

So i started playing the game after seeing the trailer and how nice and crisp it looked and i was taken on a great very high pace issac esc game, Im loving every second of it and also im sure i always have more to discover and i can recommend this to anyone who likes bullet hell and tight dogging in your rouge lights

I like the game, but some of the recent balance changes are really "meh". There was zero reason for them to nerf player damage scaling as well as base damage on higher lethalities: if I had wanted the game to be more tedious for no reason, I'd be playing on a higher difficulty or loop level. There are also some other flaws like a lack of variety between runs, a lack of meaningful choices, a lack of any button that lets you slow your movement (to thread through those REALLY fast and tight patterns that the game loves to spam later on), and more. Don't get me wrong, the base of the game is still pretty great, as all the other reviews will tell you, but it could use a bit of reworking. I'd rate this game neutral for now, but since Steam only lets me rate positive or negative and there are a billion positive reviews already, here we are. Buy it when it's cheap, try it out, and keep it if you love it or don't if you don't.

Coming back to it after being a bit grumpy with the initial release of Into Oblivion's release and properly investing myself in the game again I can say that overall the update was great for the game and overall made it one of my favourite games of all time with an excellent difficulty progression system. I'll try to keep it short mainly focusing on the standout things, I think for the boss amount their design is absolutely incredible across the board, off the top of my head there's 30-40 of them each feeling unique and representing a shmup subgenre, and just this alone is super impressive considering most games that reach this boss amount do a lot of refights of various quality (think fromsoft and their offsprings) the weapon keyword system is still great, promoting 2 main different playstyles, pre Into Oblivion I'd say sticking to one OP weapon was vastly superior, but now going all into salvage with switching weapons at every opportunity is good too. The main game progression is incredible and so is the endgame, personally I love this sort of progression of slowly pushing towards more ridiculous accomplishments with how deep you want to go to finish the game, kinda like in Spelunky 2 which I also higly praise in that regard. Now about those balance changes they would probably be my main gripe still, the rebalance of upgrades is very nice, but I don't understand the point of diminishing returns from max ammo and damage upgrades, but no such thing on max hp upgrades, was it to punish minmaxxing? now you just minmax more towards insane hp numbers instead, was it make damage more equal across runs? I still had some absolutely nuts runs way ahead of others, it just required insane luck and good macro play to get, whatever the point of the change was I don't think it accomplishes what it wanted to do and it just makes the game less fun, that also goes with changes to Intense and Sudden death Lethality, before you could argue they were alternative playstyles, but with their dmg bonuses VASTLY decreased and the whole damage scaling fiasco, they're strictly challenge mode nows in my book, which isn't as fun. Alternative ships also feel like more like challenges instead of alternative playstyles, you could argue one is better than default, but that is too boring to play for me with just one weapon that I consider to be really lame to play. Specifically with the new update Arm Master being ANOTHER no bomb character made me write him off immediately, now if he could dual wield.. how about we got a character that favours bombs more instead? Now I didn't write all of this to say the game is bad, because I don't think that's the case at all with how much content it has and how good it is I just want this game to be as perfect as it gets, we got tools to get around Pure rooms, hell they may have been removed entirely for how much of a shitty troll they were, so I believe the devs do listen and I want to see this game shine even more than it already does. I'll end this review on a funny note, please keep Flan out of designing rooms and have him do just bosses since those are absolute fire