izigame.me

Steel Assault is a very mixed bag of a side scrolling action game that's based on classic side scrollers like Contra and Strider, alright then the story. In the not so distant post-apocalyptic future of America a young boy loses his parents to a would be despot, now having grown up he vows to get his revenge against the evil despot and his underlings.
So then the likes, well the graphics are really good very beautiful with an incredible use of color, detail, character designs and backgrounds that feels like a homage to traditional side scrollers like Contra: Hard Corps and it’s an absolute joy to behold.
The levels are really good each one quite diverse with interesting scenery that just makes you want to stop and stare at it all and see all the detail and colors. The enemies and bosses are really good, each one has their own unique designs that does not feel like it would be out of place in a Strider game. The music is fantastic with very good soundtracks that fit the game very well. The story was good, a pretty simple get revenge on the bad guy story nothing too complicated. The gameplay well I'll get to the problem with it in the dislikes but the positive of it, I did like the idea of the grappling hook and the electric whip was a cool weapon.
So then the dislikes, the gameplay is god-awful, stupidly hard and complete bunk, now before anybody comments I should get good I played plenty of Souls like games and other games that are inspired by Contra and Strider and those games felt a lot fairer than this. The game just throws way too much at you even on normal difficulty and a lot of enemies, bosses and even some levels are extremely cheap, especially the final boss. Normal should not feel like extreme hard mode were it gets to the point where it's not fun, it's just torture.
I mean there's a reason why a lot of indie games inspired by Contra and Strider or hell even Contra its self turned down the difficulty and I know this game is short, but it doesn't have to be bullcrap difficult. I also feel like the grappling hook was not really utilize that well, I mean there were some segments where it was quite handy but those were few and far between and it could be difficult to use a lot of the time, like during the first level there's this elevator shaft were supposed to get up, but every time I tried to hook on something it wouldn't hook and I just fell to my death, seriously that was just a really painful experience to try and use the damn thing.
I also wish there was a way to skip certain cutscenes especially the cutscene for the final boss because after dying to him like 20 or 30 times and seeing the cutscene repeat over and over again that was really, really frustrating.
Okay now that I said all that Steel Assault is a very mixed bag of a side scrolling action game that's based on classic side scrollers like Contra and Strider, it has really good graphics, really good levels and really good enemies and bosses.
But ultimately what really hurts this game and prevents me from giving it a thumbs up/recommendation is the gameplay, again normal mode should not feel like hard mode/extreme mode. But if you do still want to get it I suggest getting it when it's on sale to save a couple bucks and also playing it on an easier difficulty.