An insanely beautiful game that knows how to convey speed and scale. Not without some sharp edges (the battle with Argus is too drawn out and monotonous in my opinion, it really knocks you out of the immersion that the whole game you were flying to the goal at high speed, and in the final fight you just hang in place and you don’t even have the opportunity to fly around the main computer in a circle. I also expected that after all the repeated playthroughs I would finally get a full answer to where exactly the Arrow got another supply of fuel and why the main character suffered from side effects caused by the time loop). Beautiful music, stunning bosses. The game shows itself best on ng+, when it throws much more serious opponents against you, which are not there during the first playthrough, and thanks to this you really feel that you are fighting enemy that outnumbers you and has superior firepower. It’s a pity that this was not felt during the first playthrough. I highly recommend to play this game an to do so on a max difficulty.

On the whole, it's a fun and functional arcade shoot-'em-up with good writing and great levels and set pieces. It's fun to shoot in, fun to fly in, and fun to listen to. Special mention goes to the Drifting mechanic where you can attack enemies with a trail of your jet exhaust; that is brilliant and more jet games need this mechanic.

However, the game suffers from repetition. To get the good ending to the story, you need to replay it four times. The problem here is that the last story path is basically the same as one of the other ones but all ends up swell for no adequately explained reason. The dialogue doesn't even change much, if at all, in contrast to the first three story paths. It was rather jarring for Doctor Mason to say I "changed the mission path" when that argument didn't even occur during New Game+.

Besides that, the shooting and weapons aren't varied enough, nor are the bosses or stages dynamic enough, to sustain my interest for any more repeated playthroughs. If the weapons had more distinct functions and use cases, and the bosses had different tactics or environmental factors that I needed to consider from run to run, then that would've alleviated a lot of my growing fatigue. As is, it just shows me that ROGUE FLIGHT just doesn't have enough variety in its core gameplay structure to intrigue me in a roguelike/lite mode. Variety is key to rogue games but I've already finished this game four times, beating each boss a minimum of three times; I've gotten a bit sick of them.

Especially since the final boss is rather underwhelming, especially in contrast to all its more spectacular predecessors including the boss of the first level. The Stratos flies ahead and is incredibly intimidating with its afterburn, others bombard you with a variety of weapons and their huge bodies, and the final boss is... just a lil' ball surrounded by turrets. All it does is call in other turrets when the first are destroyed. It is by far the least spectacular or exciting fight of the game, and doesn't quite measure up for any game's climactic finale.

The game also has a system where you can unlock modules as you gain EXP. Honestly, it just feels like a system where you upgrade your weapons with use but with an extra step. I feel like the game should just automatically upgrade a weapon once you've gotten enough EXP to get the next module. You might think that the modules are there to make you think about specialising your Arrow but then you just get modules that combine all the previous ones into one package and it just makes one wonder about the point of it all.

Don't get me wrong; ROGUE FLIGHT is a good game and I had fun with it, and I was glad to reach the true ending. It's just that it doesn't have enough going for it to make me want to go back to the roguelite/like modes; I've seen all the variety there is on display and it's just not enough.

I have to say, this review will be extremely biased because everything, from the retro mecha anime vibe, to the crazy designs that remind me of shows like Yukikaze and the like are exactly my vibe. In fact the friends that recommended this game and gave me it me as such. To in my opinion, while short the narrative leaves me frustratingly wanting more. From the small fragments of worldbuilding you can pickup through inference and the database entries to the revelation of what each route tell on your first run through of the game. To the dialogue between Nadia, Griffith and Mason (Pretty good voice acting in both dubs). I love this game without a doubt and it just might be my personal favourite indie game I've played. Honestly the only regret is that I didn't pay for this game myself.

Initially the mechanics took me a good half an hour to adjust. Literally remember dieing so much initially but then it all clicked and I was tearing through the campaign. Healthy balance of difficulty, if you want it to be harder there's modes tailor made for that. Oh and don't get me started on the OST every track in this game is a vibe. Even the damn Menu's were cool for me. Would highly, highly recommenced for anyone on the fence ^^