STARVADERS
- Hubert Spala
- May 2
- 5 min read
It was rough. Surrounded by alien invaders, it seemed like my doom was upon me, as their rocket barrages filled the battlefield. Shielded walking bunkers littered the area, and my limited resources were thinning out. To add to that, my poor mech was on the verge of overheating. But then I discovered something amazing - turns out that the two artifacts I nabbed just before the mission work together! And by blasting a shield open, it explodes in a massive explosion, popping shields of other targets in a beautiful cascade of carnage. All it took was one well-placed bullet to clean the field and win the day. Another hard battle won by a sudden discovery!
This is a repeating thing when playing STARVADERS. You will never know how many synergies you can find in your ever-growing kit until you try them out. It is a roguelike - however, I am starting to believe the label is losing its meaning, being less a genre and more like a framing device. A way a game is presented. But, of course, it is still exactly that. You have your steady progression through various grinding systems that reward you with a generous flow of unlockables. Every run will bring something new to the table, be it new enemies, cards, or artifacts. This is the balancing act that every roguelike needs to nail, and I am happy to report that STARVADERS earns its A+ on that front. It is a deluge! There are three mechs, but each mech has three pilots, each pilot has access to their unique deck of cards and set of artifacts, and each card can be upgraded with different components. The combo potential here is off the charts.
That might seem overwhelming at first, but another big point for the developers comes from a stellar User Interface. It manages that rare act of being both stylistic and fun while offering extremely clean information, all easy to access. Not a single time during my many hours of play did I feel that the game obfuscated anything important from me. That my failure was due to a lack of some crucial bit of info. Every status, every interaction, and attack pattern is laid down with utmost clarity. If you miss something that is very much just on you, but hey, learning is part of the experience.
I just realised I spent a couple of paragraphs talking about the roguelike core of the game without ever touching what the game is about. What the game IS. It is a tactical grid combat with a healthy deck-builder core - all of the above streamlined to the max. Each stage is a small, rigid grid of squares on which the Space Invaders (hah!) will drop down turn after turn, and you - in your well-armed mech - need to stop them before the turns run out or before too many enemies reach your starting zone and start pumping Doom into your bar. Oh yeah, Doom... See, the game has a unique system of handling damage, health points, and all that. Virtually, your Mech is completely immortal. You don't have to worry about being 'destroyed' in a traditional sense. Instead, each time you take damage to your deck, for that battle, it grows by a single junk card of various types. When you draw them, they often have negative effects if you don't spend resources to burn them and purge them from your deck.
It's a brilliant system. It still punishes making too many mistakes, as the Junk cards can bloat your draw, limit what you can do in a turn... But by turning damage into an actual resource, even those Junk cards can be of use. Plenty of cards can purge or sacrifice other cards as their fuel for their power, and you can use those 'useless' junk cards. First time I threw a Junk card as a projectile at an enemy even rewarded with an achievement for this simple act of thinking outside the box. Nothing is truly useless here, and there are even fully legitimate builds operating on acquiring and using the junk cards to your advantage. At the same time, it also means that you can get very bold in the last turns or when facing final enemies. Since you don't have to worry about getting destroyed or bloating up your deck in the last moments of a round, you can take risks and tank some damage just to clear the stage.
To counteract this peculiar damage-taking system, your run hinges on the aforementioned Doom. Each time an enemy survives a turn in your starting zone, they will channel it to your bar, and you can get only 5 Doom for the entire run before the game fails. And so, efficient cleanup of enemies is crucial. But to toss an extra challenge your way, quite a few enemy types will also channel special doom-giving attacks from the backline or even smack you with Doom for destroying them. It's a great system that focuses you on what's important in every stage - proper resource management, a bit of logical problem solving.
And see, that is not even all. There are so many tiny little bits that make each run unique. You have special tokens to 'reset' a turn with the new draw of cards. Which, of course, can interact with some artifacts for added bonuses. There's a whole shop that both helps you curate your deck more, but also acts as an extra progression bit, unlocking new cards. Special challenges that give you a permanent drawback for the run in exchange for some powerful boon. Multiple different stage types with hazards and differing rewards. A bucketload of components to upgrade your cards - this one... This one is a big one for me, because it kind of steals the idea from 4X games, allowing you to opt if you prefer to build your deck Tall or Wide. That is, if you want many cards with different effects or a tight, small deck with most cards upgraded for additional interactions. It's decision after decision, with player agency always at the forefront.
I would be remiss to not mention the awesome art direction of the game. It's cartoony, reminiscing slightly of the 2000s era of Cartoon Network shows to a degree, with bold colors, thick outlines. The animations are crisp and snappy, the tunes? Boppy and vividly alive, buzzing with energy to match the action. After sitting for over 6 hours in a single session, I didn't get tired or bored with the music, not even for a split second. For me, that's a mark of a soundtrack done well. Sure, I don't believe it is going to win any awards for amazing music, but it fits the game and its style like a glove.
STARVADERS is quite possibly one of the best examples of its genre. Mostly because it comfortably goes beyond the usual schema of things, blends some core mechanics with expertise bordering on miraculous. It manages to be constantly engaging, always fresh run to run, and does something I beg any roguelike to do - respect players' time. Rounds are quick, stages are snappy, and decision paralysis doesn't exist. If you're a fan of roguelikes, you're pretty much going to take continuous damage over time until you finally get this game and blast through it. So get that debuff off and buy it already!
Comments