Sky Mercenaries

Bought this game as a long time fan of the genre. The RPG elements seemed cool to me and the Ikaruga-like color swapping held some appeal as well. But the game is not good. Technically it runs alright but I encountered bugs with it not displaying an icon on my taskbar. The UI is lifeless, the music is horrible (really poor quality on the menus and ingame) and doesn't feel inspired or interesting in any way, the ship customization+player customization+drone customization is done very badly. You don't get any real description of what anything does, and the little bars that gauge offense and defense don't make sense. On the ship selection screen they work one way and on the drone upgrade screen they work in the opposite way. The levels are typical for a SCHMUP but your ship+drones take up a ton of the screen. It is really hard to avoid getting hit (which makes the Ikaruga-like color swapping mechanic useful) and things just feel really... unpolished. I think it is safe to say that the ...

A very decent shoot 'em up that is troubled by some bad optimisation and issues with display mode. The game is fast and frantic and definitely satisfying when you can pull of a good run, with levels taking the proper length for a game like this: a few minutes each time. Between levels you can upgrade your stats and enhance the story a little. Sadly the game suffers from strange slowdown when things get hectic, which really shouldn't be the case for a relatively simple game like this. Others in the genre handle a bullet hell scenario much better. There are more issues. Some of the text in the dialogue boxes is cut off or appears outside of the box, and as for the display problems: I run a native 6000x1080 and on that revolution the game suffers from the common problem that it is Vert-, meaning the screen is unuseable. Sadly windowed mode will simply use the same resolution, windowed. There doesn't appear to be an option for it so I have to disable Surround to play. Still, for the ...

Nice RPG elements mixed with a cool soundtrack and nice old school arcade gameplay. Some of the levels and the bosses that I managed to kill where very challenging. Nice game with cool new features to the genre, a game with a heart for shoot ’em up fans.

I don't know if this game is supposed to be an homage to old school shmups because it sure as heck doesn't tell you so.. or anything else which possibly could be of use to the player for that matter. It almost seems like this game tries to bite off more than it can chew, resulting in what feels like a watered down shooter that doesn't excel at anything. I don't write negative reviews lightly (this being my second). I generally just don't bother with 'mediocre' or lower game but in some cases I do care. So from an almost 3 hour play session (which is more than lenient for this type of game) this is what I got from it. - Damage Numbers: By default, this setting is enabled which may be 'fun' in the beginning but later on just serves as more crap and distraction on the screen and doesn't really add anything useful whatsoever. - RPG Element: I usually enjoy RPG elements in games when it's done right.. but it does absolutely nothing for me here. It feels like a boring linear treadmill whic...

Sky Mercenaries is a sh-mup that has an interesting play mechanism: polarity / color. Otherwise, it's a fast-paced sh-mup like Raptor where enemies comes from left, right, but mostly up/front. Your fighter can swap between 'red mode' and 'blue mode'. In red mode, you absorb red bullets and gets damage by blue bullets, and vice versa. Obviously you have to switch based on your tactical situation: sky too crowded? Switch colors to absorb the shot. Remember though, enemy will adapt with you. You can be accompanied by up to 4 drones and depending on which powerup you nabbed you can be joined by wingmen and more. As you fly through debris of enemies you pick up dropped "coins" and whatnot which you can spend on upgrades. One thing that sets this game apart somewhat is location-based damage, as the ship can take damage in 4 different locations, and the drones have their own individual life meter. There are three different fighters, with different default strengths (heavy defense, heav...

The graphics and sound effects don't have the "kick" I crave in a shmup, very little is explained about the controls, and the menus are annoying to navigate through (there's a certain fluidity that's missing, hard to explain). That's all I can knock Sky Mercenaries for. The rest of the game is a blast. You level up pilots and ships flying missions through Ikaruga-style gameplay. The soundtrack is mostly very solid. And there's a level editor, something I haven't seen in many shmups but is a welcome additional feature. Worth a shot. Add this to your collection next sale.

I've only put a few hours into the game, but I must say it feels good to see games that receive frequent big, beefy updates. If nothing else it shows the dev cares. You can only criticize my review if you can beat my scores, by the way.

A often bundled indie shooter and equally often overlooked or even ridiculed as garbage. It is however worth taking a look at. I find this pretty decent despite the fact that i find the color changing and absorption mechanic sub-par to other more well known games. It will not beat the classics no but it tries hard and partially gets it right.

Nice little shooter with some RPG bits, ship/drone upgrades and character progression, nice dual colour bullet absorption system, nice difficulty progression that didn't get frustrating, nice ships to shoot down that make nice little explosions, and it's not a pain in the ass to get 100% achievements, I think thats nice too!

You will have to spend a lot of time reading reviews, discussions, and guides to have any idea how to play this game well. The user interface is atrocious. There are basically 0 instructions on how to play correctly. The in game visuals are muddy and make it very difficult to see what is actually going on. The controls are tight and there appears to be a decent amount of content, but you'll have to spend some time figuring out just how to play correctly to get to it.