Review pixelcrypt 4/5 · Mar 13, 2023
Excellent Metroidvania / Shmup
Rocketron is solid and totally overlooked. It is a medium size Metroidvania in a beautiful 16-bit style, with an emphasis on explosive shooting combat and exploration. It took me 8 hours to 99%.
It isn’t 100% traditional. There are lots of upgrades, but only a couple apply to mobility (besides a number of jet pack upgrades). There are visors, a …
Rocketron is solid and totally overlooked. It is a medium size Metroidvania in a beautiful 16-bit style, with an emphasis on explosive shooting combat and exploration. It took me 8 hours to 99%.
It isn’t 100% traditional. There are lots of upgrades, but only a couple apply to mobility (besides a number of jet pack upgrades). There are visors, a wide variety of guns, key cards, and health pickups.
It has perfectly balanced combat - save stations don’t replenish your health, so you’re always fighting to get momentum by killing enemies and re-upping with health drops. It has about 8 weapons, all very unique and suited for different situations.
The world is divided into 6 areas, similar to Metroid fusion/dread. There is plenty of backtracking, hidden walls, etc. The exploration was one of my favorite parts!
There are a couple text bugs (the text field would just be blank). The story is… seemingly nonexistent (which I kinda appreciated). I would’ve loved a couple more mobility upgrades and perhaps some more map assistance I.e. “you have x items completed in this area” so I wouldn’t have landed on 99%.
Overall, really highly recommend for Metroid and Shmup fans! It was very addictive and I flew through it.