Beyond the Storm

“That theme continues into the gameplay - most of the new ideas are conceptually quite good, but fall flat: the new power juggling dynamic is basically pointless, once you fine-tune the front-firing guns to have enough juice (by default the game only allocates half your generator towards them, and resets whenever you upgrade the generator); the open world idea breaks up the linear flow of Tyrian to its detriment, forcing you to grind levels to have enough fuel to move to the next area; that's exacerbated by what seems to be a semi-procedural aspect - while enemies might be the same in replaying the same mission, the levels do (not always but sometimes) vary slightly; the sheer number of required levels (which is probably what is driving that procedural generation?) also means that some are outrageously short (30 seconds at most), while a couple were comically long (like 5 minutes, with the last minute being almost completely silent flying with no enemies).”

“The Tyrian gameplay is here, but it's hidden behind some design decisions that obstruct and obscure the core of the game.”

“Mechanically the ships work fine, but once you move to faster ships, the movement becomes too fast to get fine control (unlike the original, ships don't accelerate up to their fastest lateral speed), which is criticized by some below.”

“The game would seriously benefit from a punchier synth mix for the soundtrack.”

“Music really captures the old school Tyrian vibe.”

“Some graphics feel quite low resolution, while others are very high resolution. The low-resolution ones could be upscaled with AI or a high-quality algorithm and then put back into the data files to make them look better than whatever filtering GameMaker has (which looks like simple bilinear).”

“The graphics are upscaled versions of the original Tyrian graphics, which is a little uninspired.”

“But the background blends in and isn't aesthetically pleasing; sometimes it feels like someone went a bit too wild with Photoshop, rather than developing a distinct style.”

“Since the world map routinely has you moving 9 spaces to the next mission, that means grinding the one available mission at the current location 9 times. If you try to go halfway, you might get lucky and find some fuel as you go, but more likely you'll have to pay to go back to where you were when you run out of fuel.”

“I don't want to be stuck in an empty space square, farming cells to get to my next destination.”

“The new open map style is nice right now, but using energy cells to traverse the grid and grinding up more cells once you reach your destination to make your next jump feels tedious.”

“The art and music are instantly recognizable as updated takes on the original; there's a similar sense of humor in its writing; and of course, there is the same modular spaceship equipment system that gave Tyrian its depth and replayability.”

“After completing the game once, I found little incentive to go back and play it again. The lack of meaningful choices and consequences really diminishes the replayability factor.”

“While the game offers a fun experience, the linear storyline and predictable outcomes make it hard to justify multiple playthroughs.”