Grade: B-
A rogue-like shoot-em-up bullet hell set in a hyper future.
Hyperspace Dogfights, the first release by Sleeper Games and made by a single developer, is a high-intensity rogue-like where you are a single ship against an entire space fleet. You start each run with no items or powerups, but as you complete levels, you unlock crates and powerups that serve to keep pace with the ramping skill of the enemies. The ship has front and back thrusters that push against gravity in a 2D side view. Unfortunately, while the explosions, missions, and enemies were exciting and varied, I couldn’t keep pace with the scaling difficulty and was stuck at the front door of all of the game’s content.
Rogue-like that builds up to super saiyan levels
While my attempts at digging deep into the game failed, perhaps the brave reader will do better! I still wanted to see the end game, and this video helped me see the potential of Hyperspace Dogfights beyond my lack of bullet hell dodging skill. When you start the game, your ship has a simple machine gun, but by the end, you can have lasers, giant explosion bombs, and it simply looks ridiculous.
My favorite rogue-likes are when some bit of power you develop in each run sticks around for the next try. Hyperspace Dogfights, though, has none of those long-term power build mechanics. You can unlock new ships as you get past some areas, but I couldn’t even get to the next level of content after a couple of hours of struggle. The high floor of skill needed to get past the opening levels was my main beef with Hyperspace Dogfights. I would have loved to see some configurable difficulty settings or long-term gains in power that supported players of various skill levels.
Fantastic user interface and explosion
My favorite part of Hyperspace Dogfights was the intuitive interface and popping animations.
During each mission, you’ve got to manage your shield health, weapon choices, and health even while dodging amongst dozens of enemies. The interface makes all of the information you need prominent, even while explosions and bullets rip the air around you. I thought that was quite an accomplishment by the developer.
Also, the animations are top-notch. For example, when you make an enemy explode, you get a satisfying animation that pops and then smoke clouds that linger. Nothing feels better in an action game than a satisfying animated explosion. Hyperspace Dogfights got this detail perfect.
Overall Impression
Hyperspace Dogfights is excellent if you like to fly around shoot-em-up rogue-like games. I don’t mind a challenging game, but this one felt unbalanced to me as a player. Of course, I’ve watched playthroughs where players got to the end, so that might be unfair to put my lack of bullet hell dodging skill front and center in the review.
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