I would sit down for the next 6 weeks thinking and typing up a decent review for this game, but I have the brain of a worm and the motivation of a sloth.

Pros:
- You have guns and boobs attached to yourself.

This is one of the best games I've played this year. That includes not only 2015/2016-new games like Overwatch and Shadow Complex Remastered, but also older classics stretching all the way back to the NES (like Super Dodge Ball).
If you haven't gotten it yet, why the buck not? Go, go buy it!

Tight controls and combat, interesting and varied enemies (though still hopefully the quantity will increase via updates/DLC), and a story that you don't have to bother with but won't regret paying attention to.

Twitch Mode: Your Twitch chat can choose to help you out or screw you over! If you've got tons of viewers, you'll never know before the stage begins. (Warning: Game does not do the streaming itself. You must have your own streaming solution.)

Dynamic Difficulty: You suck, game stays easier. You're amazing, game FRAKKIN' KILLS YOU. Technically, you can max out your difficulty (10.00) before the first story boss, even playing on Normal! I personally got up to 7.81 against that boss and died there. I got up to 8.10 later in, in a prior run. And I LOVE IT!

Look, seriously, go buy the game already. You won't regret it.

TLDR: Buy it.

I had no idea this game existed until I saw it released from early access today, and picked it up on a whim and have been very pleasantly surprised. It's a very slick action oriented platformer that's a ton of fun to play. If you have any interest in difficult platformers, pick this up, it's an absolute steal.

Positives:
Adaptive difficulty - I *love* this feature, if I'm playing well I get better rewards and things ramp up.
Refined movement - Double jump and and a dash with invicibility frames really lets you flit around and dodge like a madman, when you're in the zone it's a ton of fun.
No aiming - As weird as it sounds, I actually like the fact you don't have to aim, it makes concentrating 100% on movement possible.
Daily/Weekly challenges - There are challenges which reward high level upgrade items in game if you do well in the rankings, which keeps things interesting and provides incentives to keep improving.
Enemy/Item compendium - The pics/info on the enemies is really cool and helps provide some background to the story.

Negatives:
Backgrounds can be tough to differentiate - At times it's hard to tell if something is the ceiling or an opening you can jump through.
Unexplained mechanics - A lot of the mechanics in the game are left up to you to figure out, the loading tips are useful but there's no manual or any detailed explanations for what everything in the game does.

Summary:
I love platformers and buy a ton of them, this is one of the best I've played in a long time. Highly recommended.

Unity engine, done right. This game is my "the standard" for unity now. Looks and feels amazing, sidescrolling combat with stage leveling and personal progression. Gives you that metroidmania feeling of sorts. Speed run modes, multiple difficulties and replayability this title is a damn treasure.

Normally folks tell me unity and I run the other direction, steam has given me so much crap. This however is amazing. I cant really justify it. For the price tag, this ♥♥♥♥ was super worth it.

Good job dev. Achieves and badge supported. This is a person who actually cared about his title and vision, in the sea of junkware titles, this is not junk.

This was an impulse buy when I discovered this game in the discovery queue [first time that's maybe worked for me?] I Only needed to see only 2 or 3 of the screenshots before I clicked to add to cart button. This review is coming from someone who bought the game during it's Early Access and playing the now finished version

Whats goood about it?

Artstyle - Very vibrant colors and nice visual effects that can really immerse ya into the gameplay

The Adaptive difficulty - Is a pretty cool feature. When im in my zone, I can kill everything in sight and the difficult ramps up which also rewards better stuff. If im not playing so great, the difficulty scales down and I wont be punished as much by the swarm of enemies.

Auto aiming - Is a total first for me to love auto aiming in a game, even the ones with 'assisted aim' i always disable this. This gives me more focus on the acrobatics and platforming

Gun Fu Acrobatics - It feels like a 2D Bayonetta at times. The movement and animations are very good. Lots of acrobatic moves while shooting stuffs

Level Tilesets - This adds even more replayabilty to the game because even if you have to replay the first level/mission, the tileset will be different from the previous run, making things a little bit more unpredictable

Crafting / Loot/Weapon/Item Pickups - Is another cool feature that I wasn't expecting. Is possible to craft new weapons, miracles and other things that grant certain passive skills. Another big Plus in my book

Daily/Weekly challenges - These can really help with getting relics/loot and adding even more replayability to the game. There aren't that many different challenges at the moment, maybe 4 or 5 different ones for Daily and the same for Weekly I think? However the random tilesets again adds more replayability

Whats Icky about it?

Hmm, to be honest the only thing that bothered me about this game was that the main character, Seraph HAS NO SHOESS!!
-Thankfully the dev has addressed this critical issue as we all know, every butt kicking angel deserves to be wearing some awesome heels or boots (=

On a serious note, the only negative thingy I can find about this game is that sometimes the level design can be a tad confusing at times while moving throughout.

If ya are looking for a fun 2D shooter with uber replayabilty, then give this title a go for suree.

Do I recommend it?

Yap Yap

9.5/10 (=

Seraph is a well-done and very challenging platforming shooter that kind of makes me think of a mix of Bayonetta and an old Xbox game called Gunvalkyrie, but as a side-scroller. You also have an upgrade system like that of an action-RPG, where enemies drop resources that can be used to improve your weapons, spells ("Miracles"), and special limited-durability items that are the closest thing you get to armor. In addition, your character gains passive buffs, either from gathering the game's equivalent of experience points or from using special items called Shards, which interact with Seraph's three skill trees--Munitions, Defensive (which I recommend focusing on first, because your very limited health needs all the increases it can get) and Holy, which is a mix of offensive and defensive bonuses. Shards work similarly to combining metal in Team Fortress 2: three of Shard A makes Shard B, which is stronger; three of Shard B makes Shard C and so on, and Shard strengths and rarities are represented through colors, similarly to a loot system.

The game doesn't really "have" a loot system per se, as other than finding resources and Shards that enemy Daemons drop, you are responsible for what you want to earn and upgrade. You can't make crafting decisions while you're in the middle of playing a section, but you can do so in between levels, as well as (smartly) from the main menu, which comes in handy if you know you're facing one big enemy instead of many little ones. However, you also don't have true weapon loadouts: other than your dual auto-pistols, which are always with you and are your only infinite-ammo weapon, you can carry a second weapon by gathering one from numerous lockers spread throughout the game. Which weapon you get--shotgun, assault rifle, submachine gun, railgun--is randomly generated, though some lockers might instead just offer extra ammo for the one you already have. Weapons don't have randomly generated prefixes or suffixes that determine their capabilities, so their power generally depends on your investments into upgrading their stats. Don't neglect your pistols, as they're invaluable when your stronger weapons run out of ammo.

Even basic enemies can severely damage Seraph, and health pick-ups are very rare and rather meager when they do appear; in some cases these will barely replenish the equivalent of taking one hit. The game's central mechanic is its 360º evade system, whose two quickly recharging uses also function as a quadruple jump. You're meant to rely on the invincibility frames this gives you. Seraph targets enemies automatically and is generally smart enough to prioritize the close ones, though you can also lock onto them if you want the camera to focus on enemies instead of you. At times I'd like to zoom the camera out before blindly jumping into an area I can't really "scout out" beforehand. Along with replenished health, you get three lives per level, each of which having a significantly smaller maximum health than the one before it, so you effectively have 200% health spread over three lives. Lose all of those, and--this was forewarned but may turn a lot of customers away--you resurrect at the last checkpoint you activated, even if it was in a previous level. Many levels, which individually are small despite their nonlinear design, have secret areas that have these checkpoints and health/gun/ammo refills, so after you complete an area, you might not want to make a beeline for the exit without also looking for a secret checkpoint, unless you're already about to die. The game's few major boss fights thankfully auto-save at their beginnings.

You can also find text logs, and for its genre the game actually bothers to tell a decent story; its writing style is flowery yet sometimes vague, but the story tries to be more complex than just a straight good-versus-evil tale despite its techno-religious motif. It's even a bit touching when it's not being cynical. These logs, which can be read during gameplay or accessed from the main menu, do a good job of setting up the complex relationships of the game's small cast, especially between Seraph and "its/their" vessel--intriguingly, but never ham-handedly, a Middle Eastern woman, whose interesting backstory brings up a lot of ethical questions. Character dialogue can be skipped but is worth reading. Even the weapons, the various Daemons, and the resources they drop have their own little bits of lore, which is a really nice effort despite the weapon designs lacking creativity. All these bits of story do a good job of explaining concepts other genre entries might take for granted: why are there Daemons, and why do you in particular want to fight them? How does gameplay death work if you're an angel? How do experience points work? Some of the Daemons, however, look like they came out of Dead Space and were then run through a grayscale filter--some more color and design variety would have been nice. The ending gives you two choices but doesn't really explain much afterward, even if I still had fun overall.

Many enemies also have icons over their heads representing their abilities, but the game doesn't extensively explain those unless you look them up in the main-menu manual; the ones that really matter, however, will probably become obvious during gameplay. The procedurally generated level designs function well (except for the one time a mandatory enemy spawned inside of a wall, forcing me to exit my Survival run) but don't always have a lot of 'art' to them. Graphically there's not as much style as something like Transistor or Mark of the Ninja, but the setting concept is thoughtful and interesting. The soundtrack, which reminds me of a mix of Frozen Synapse and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, is a lot better. On smaller notes, some of the platform supports can be jumped through while others cannot (not sure why), and the "Motes" you gather sometimes look a bit too similar to the light fixtures.

The single biggest reason to play the game, besides its defense mechanism, is its difficulty, numerically represented in a corner of your screen. This adapts to your playing skill and singlehandedly keeps the game fun: the early levels might seem too easy while the game calibrates, but that won't last. You can also choose starting difficulty from a few options. The main story may only take about four hours, but the last boss fight was INSANE even compared to the rest of the game and took me yet another four hours' worth of attempts, with the difficulty never decreasing all the while. I'm not complaining--it was amusing and even somewhat welcome to see a game so utterly unapologetic about its challenge, and I most certainly never got bored. However, (this will hopefully be fixed) that last fight could use better optimization, since the bullet spam repeatedly slowed down my framerate--devastating in a high-speed game like this--and caused one of my two crashes. There's also a funny but minor glitch where Seraph's graphic got stuck in a prone position but otherwise played fine. A controller is highly recommended, as the keyboard technically works but makes directional evades a bit of a pain. Most actions can be rebound, except for pausing and (on a controller) movement and enemy focusing, though the left and right stick functions can be swapped.

You also have daily and survival challenges you can do, complete with leaderboards, and some select rewards from these challenges carry over to the main game. If you perform well (e.g., top 75%/50%/etc. of players), you can get extra items.

Other than some issues with the art and the game's stability, I've been very happy with this little game that takes a simple concept and keeps it exciting. Time to start New Game Plus!

Disclaimer, this review is for an EARLY ACCESS product, this means the review should be deemed provisional, and will change as the game evolves over time. Key supplied by developer.


Seraph, from the developers of Ironcast, a rather interesting game in its' own right, is in essence a side on shooter where you play an acrobatic angelic/human host, bound up in a prison explicitly designed to hold said angel, for reasons unknown, and at the start of the game, your prison is opened. The guards are well, they're not doing so good, you collect a pair of pistols from the ground, and set off to find answers.

As an angel in a human host, you have access to miracles, most key of which is the ability to despatch demonic invaders with a flash of your wings and a touch of your hand. This requires you to be in -close- proximity. Considering that everything in the local area wants you dead, and you've a limited time to make this happen, this can be rather dangerous. You also have your rather human tools to hand - guns, lots and lots of lovely guns. They come currently in two flavours, the default twin pistols, which can be aimed at two seperate targets, and primary weapons, which range from the straightforward (Autopistols, shotgun, submachine gun, AR) through to the nutty (Railgun... RAILGUN?).


These primary weapons are categorically more powerful than your plink plink pistols, but they have limited ammo, and as a consequence you have to budget your use of these powerful primary weapons carefully, saving them for the much more powerful demons that can regenerate, and the multi stage demonic champions that require multiple smites in order to bring down.

This arsenal is all fine and well, but it doesn't touch on the signature element of Seraph's core gameplay, a "smart targetting" system that takes the hassle of finding enemies for you. Seraph will auto-lock the closest threat and direct her fury at them with whatever firearm you've selected whilst you focus on moving, using miracles, and generally not dying. The not dying is important, see, these enemies will throw a LOT of nasty attacks your way, and as the difficulty ramps up, the attacks not only increase in damage output, they'll also increase in variety.

Enemies gain -new- tricks as your difficulty dynamically cranks up, matching your skill as you go. Finding things too easy? As you mill the enemies, you'll see the difficulty counter in the bottom counter begin to race upwards, and before you know it, your opponents will have new toys to play with, will hit harder, and need more ammo to bring down. The reward however is more components, and more experience.


Currently the game only offers a subset of the possible blessings, oaths and miracles that will be in the full version, we've a lot more to look forward to, but the moment to moment gameplay is absolutely excellent, providing a good cross between spectacle shooter and bullet hell where your management of the blink resource and your positioning proves more vital than targetting and dealing damage. This is a game that rewards good placement and evading your foes, before surging forward to deliver lethal strikes in a real hurry. You need to be fast, elegant and acrobatic.

Graphically, for a two dimensional game it is highly reminiscent of ACE's Abyss Odyssey, but with a very futuristic touch, and a matching soundtrack to boot. The soundtrack having a very electro-industrial feel puts you in mind of things like Equilibrium and the Matrix, which is very fitting given the gunplay involved.

There's also suggestions and bug fixes being worked through by the developers, and more good things will hopefully be on the way.

At this point my final judgment is -

Verdict : Highly recommended

Seraph is a great Early access title... it's not complete and i feel it's mostly missing a ton of additional content which is the games current biggest issue: Lack of variety. But the core gameplay is VERY good so it's all expanding, which is positive

Full video review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBRmKFBlhBk&ab_channel=GuyLogic

Textual summary:
A bit of text will never compare to a long video in dept of detail, so i always recommend watching the video.

The game has a ton of cool stuff to it, from the various procedually generated levels, the 3-tries system before a death and the many arcobatic moves it all fits together.

The main thing that drives this game is the smooth animations and platforming experience, both in terms of completion, unlocking new content as well as the "lite" crafting system. The various mobs are well designed and the abilities they have are all pretty great.

Sadly, the lack of variety and limitations to the number of mobs, unlockables and aspects to the game do limit it's replay-ability.

Lastly, the game runs at a smooth 60 FPS at all times, no drops or dips. But this comes appearantly at the price of rebindable keys or a proper keyboard layout. The game recommends using a controller, but i'd go so far as to say that the experience on a keyboard is below sup-bar. definitely needs work.

Overal, i feel a few months in early access will do the game a ton of good both in fleshing out it's content and fine tuning the PC port and it's options, but even now, if you ARE interested in early access, this is an amazing title right out the gate. just light on the content.

This is a bit lengthy so I'll put my conclusion in first.

In Conclusion
This game is just frustrating to play and it wasn't until I tried writing this review that I realised just how much is wrong with it. It's the procedural generation that fails this game the most, I could probably overlook every other flaw I listed if the devs just took the time to craft a compelling set of levels to play.

13 Things I Don't Like About This Game
All the levels are procedurally generated, often badly. By this I mean more often than not the game will place a variety of enemies in an awkward space that makes it very difficult or impossible to evade their attacks. At the beginning of the game this isn't a problem because you can kill everything quick enough before things get awkward. The game doesn't really give you enough tools to help you avoid damage, just a dash with invincibility frames.

Levels with large vertical sections you have to drop down. You take a leap of faith there aren't a bunch of enemies waiting for you when you land, there's no feature to see what's down there. Just another problem with procedural generation.

Odd procedural generation that will place a background under/over a platform and make it look like a wall you can jump off.

With the exception of the last 3 levels in the main game, the other 22 all look very much the same with the same greyish blue color pallette. The last 3 levels has a red color scheme. The screenshots on Steam are a good indicator of all the variety you'll ever see.

Some platforms you can shoot through, some you can't. All platforms you can't jump/fall through. If you can shoot through it then surely you should be able to traverse through it? A confusing design choice.

You stick to walls. The game has a wall jumping mechanic and when you hit a wall you'll briefly stick to it before very slowly sliding down. The problem? a badly generated level means you'll encounter enemies in spaces that are awkward to fight in, so you'll find yourself jumping to evade an attack but then stick to a wall and get hit.

Offscreen attacks. Firstly all enemies will announce what attack they are going to use by showing you an icon relating to that attack somewhere around their body. Of course you can't see this if the enemy has made the attack offscreen. There is one particular enemy who can summon a pillar of flame under your feet, by the time you notice it's already too late. This could have been remedied with better sound design whereby enemies can make a particular noise before they attack or just not make any attacks offscreen.

In total there are 7 enemies. They all look very similar to each other. Look at the screenshots, faceless, naked, pale grey pinkish skin. They all look like that, that is as interesting as the enemy design gets. There are elite enemies like in Diablo where there are modifiers that give them an extra attack and considerably more HP to give a little more variety.

The game makes itself more difficult by increasing enemy HP, attack frequency and maybe decrease the warning time before an attack. Enemies don't get smarter, they just get more spongy. This is especially bad when you encounter an elite (lieutenant) enemy that can spawn in more enemies.

This game increases the difficulty by measuring how many enemies you kill without getting hit*. Why is this a problem? Well you can breeze through a section of the game because the procedurally generated levels were in your favour, then when you get a more awkwardly generated level you'll to have a much harder time.

*it's actually the amount of xp dropped from enemies that you collect without getting hit.

When you die you don't go back to the start of the level you failed at. You are taken back to where you last collected the glowing green checkpoint item. Though not every level has a checkpoint item (procedural generation) so you may be sent back a few levels.

Bad enemy AI. The Serf demon, at certain positions doesn't know how to traverse from a higher platform to a lower platform to attack you, it will just walk back and forth on the edge of the platform until you lead it off. Other flying type enemies sometimes get stuck on wall sections not knowing they need to fly down to get through a doorway. This is just bad AI and I am very surprised it wasn't picked up in testing because these things don't happen rarely.

There's too much for your eyes to keep track of in combat, this isn't a problem until the higher difficulties when enemies become bullet sponges. The game relies too heavily on visual cues to tell you danger is coming. Example, you need to watch your character center screen to see if there are magic attacks that spawn in at your location (flame pillar, damaging teleport) you need to watch all around your character for enemies and keep a sharp eye out for the attack indicator (at higher difficulties this disappears very quickly). If you're using the alternate weapon you need to keep an on the bottom-right for ammo count. If you've used your magic then you need to check cetner-bottom for your cooldowns.

Shockingly fun, frantic, deep, and suprisingly tactical little scrolling shoooter. When you're on the prowl for those "diamond in the rough" indie games THIS right here is exactly what you're looking for. Really a ton of fun and incredibly high quality and high value.