Icarus-X: Tides of Fire

Ok i usually don't spit on games i buy but this one can't stay untouched. Everything from the control to art is terrible. The sound will make your ears bleed to death, the controls are approximative at best. I never really care about art or graphic quality but when it does hide the bullets or the enemies there's a problem. A really bad mobile game that should have stay rotting on his garbage support.

Alright, this is rather interesting. Although the description references Diablo and Borderlands it is actually a very standard (length wise) 5 levels top-down shooter with Rpg mechanics mixed in. You level up, get some loot and allocate points in skill trees with the usual critical strike, armor, shield and such stats you would find in a typical Diablo-like. So while it's not the big adventure you might expect, there is some interesting theorycrafting to be made. Pros Super smooth framerate Good variety of loot and stats Weapons feel great You get a massive regenerating shield which is a relief when tons of bullets are fired your way Controls fine with a gamepad Pretty cool music Cons The backgrounds are really minimalist and repetitive Some bosses are op, some are jokes, could use some balancing Gamepad in menus controls the mouse cursor, might as well use the mouse? All in all I'd recommend it, just don't expect a full blown RPG but rather a small top-down shooter with Rpg mecha...

Me nice music

When I first booted this up and I saw the auto-fire kick on, I figured this shmup wouldn't keep my attention long, but I've been pleasantly surprised. Some elegant RPG progression elements needed to advanced past challenging (but not impossible shmup-like) levels has kept me coming back for more. A decent varity of common and boss enemies, weapons, shields and powers gives this little game a good amount of depth. Recommended!

It's got a fine base bullet hell gameplay loop (although sometimes some bullets can be hard to see), and the creator has at least a better than average understanding of what makes a loot system interesting, at least in terms of managing to have some meaningful enchantments on occasion. However, there's just not enough content for a complete game: the enemy patterns and bosses are reused excessively between levels, in a game that already has you repeating levels for more treasure; and the loot system just plain doesn't have enough different item types to collect, so it loses its charm long before the campaign reaches its end.

The best so far of the vertical shooter genre.

I guess if you get 8 hours of play from a plain and simple 2D shooter it deserves a thumbs up. Contrary to some negative reviews, I like the presentation and the simple nature of the game. Some of the stats are a little confusing from the loot-drops but the progress system works fine overall and the leaderboard is fine and functional. It won't blow yer mind but is worth a blast in my opinion.