Star Fire: Eternal Cycle

Star Fire: Eternal Fire arrives at a curious time, only a few weeks after Lost Castle 2, a similarly rogue-lite adventure with branching paths and plentiful upgrades. So how does this effort hold up in the bustling genre?

Firstly, the game is very immediate. There's very little preamble before you're dropped into some gorgeous environments that you'll fight your way through to get to the branching paths that will take you ever onward. You'll start with a basic weapon-set which can be upgraded as you progress, unlocking alternative costumes and secondary weapons as you do so. Each update will give you minor buffs and advantages as you go, though you'll really start to do some damage when you start using the elemental stones dropped by enemies (aka "insect cores"). This provides a structure for each of your runs to revolve around, collecting the right element for each weapon to unlock powerful effects, generating minions and creating shields. You can tailor each run around a certain weapon/element combo and have a fine time learning how to make the most of them.

Enemies are numerous and you'll soon get into a groove of attacking, dodging and rallying against each wave, all to a decent soundtrack that keeps you moving forward. It's all very fluid and enjoyable for the most part, the combat being the focus around which you'll make your way to the endgame. 

Bosses are often quite imaginative but have little character

Where the game falls down a bit is tone; you're thrust into a world where humanity has been all but slaughtered, your enemies using weapons made from body parts and the overall grimdark world-building presenting a very dour outlook indeed. But that's not really writ-large when playing, with backgrounds looking fairly generic and bad guys faring likewise. The game lacks its own identity, looking almost as if the characters were generated by AI (no idea if that's the case though). It's surprisingly bland, so whoever came up with this back-story was under-served by the dev-team who didn't take the ball and run with it. Your nameless character has no identity or dialogue and therefore no axe to grind. We learn the backstory through "lore cards", though these are sparse and tell rather than show what's going on in the world for Star Fire. It is, to put it bluntly, uninspiring. The game endings don't help either, feeling abrupt and unsatisfying. The effort just isn't worth the reward.

It has none of the charm, character or presence of Lost Castle 2, even if the combat itself is clean, crisp and enjoyable. I like the artwork for our heroine and there's bags of potential with both the world's lore and the game itself. Mechanically it's a very sound game, the upgrade paths make sense and enjoyable to chase, but after a while you do wonder what you're actually fighting for. If it were a unique title I'd be happy to say give it a run, but when you have games at a similar price with more about them, Star Fire Eternal Cycle becomes a bit of a hard sell. I really wanted to like it more than I did, I certainly passed a few enjoyable hours with it, but after you've done a few runs, you won't feel inspired to return.

Hopefully Indie Herb Games will take what they're learned from this outing, put more of the world into the game and endow their main character with an actual personality we grab onto. Just a few tweaks and a bit of care could turn the game into a serious contender, but as it stands, it's an also-ran in an increasingly crowded field.