Galactivore

Another game that doesn’t exactly strike the proper balance between difficulty and fun gameplay.
Update: the fourth boss' difficulty has been updated. I also forgot to mention that beating the game once unlocks a new game + where you get to keep all upgrades from the previous run.
Story is simple; you’re a mercenary who gets hired by the space police. Their excuse is that you have the expertise to handle everything.
Because the entire game is simple, the controls do not attempt to confuse anything. Aside from basic movement, you only have three buttons: shoot, jump, and ammo switch. While the basic gun has limitless ammo, all additional weapons require ammo, which can be replenished with ammo canisters. This becomes far more difficult if you select the highest difficulty, which reduces the frequency of pick-ups (ammo and health) dropped by defeated enemies.
Difficulty also raises the amount of damage you receive, in some cases, modifies the situation in a stage by making it more difficult. Although your life bar cannot be increased, you can acquire armor enhancements that allow you to take a little more punishment. You can also find additional lives.
The game has five planets that you must go through in a linear order. The reward for completing a stage is a new special weapon, such as rockets or bouncing balls. You can choose which one you want, but you will eventually get all of them. These usually help you get armor upgrades because they're constantly behind an obstacle that your basic abilities can't overcome.
Stage progression is linear, involving shooting and platforming. Deadly holes are everywhere, and they kill you instantaneously. If you've played platformers before, you'll recognize the main challenge and cause of frustration: knockback that throws you into pits.
Fortunately, stages do not take long. Each includes mostly the same enemies with only a handful new ones. What's nice is that the graphics are quite gory. Most enemies die in a pool of blood, such as a worm from which bats emerge or a soldier with a flamethrower that explodes, leaving arms and legs on the ground.
Each stage ends with a boss fight. There's usually a plan for beating them, but it's all pretty obvious. You defeat them by avoiding their shots while firing at them or their weak point. They start out easy but quickly become unbearable.
The boiling point is hit with the fourth boss that has a weak point that can't be easily reached. You have to wait for blocks to drop, but they always fall at random and kill you before you even get a chance to shot at a boss.
You can replay a stage to find the missing armor upgrades and extra lives. There is no need to remember what you already have because icons in the lower right corner indicate what you are missing. Another cool feature is that you do not have to defeat the boss again.
Lastly, the price is far too high for the content it delivers. It’s very basic and doesn’t bring anything new. A more realistic price would be 60-65% lower, which is also the discount I recommend you wait for.

Beautiful snes, mega drive/Genesis era design and graphics.

Tight and Responsive control and gameplay.

Really good soundtrack.

Multiple levels, all with its own different environments and secrets to find.

Unlockable Weapons.

Awesome bosses.

Cool and gory design and animations on the enemies.

Challenging gameplay (especially on hard difficulty).

It even has a good story in which you can choose side to fight for.

I strongly recommend giving this a try!

Great game! Nice colorful pixel art graphics, great soundtrack and the bosses are fun and challenging. Highly recommended for fans of old school platform shooters like Mega Man.

Galactivore is a very charming retro action game with all the right ingredients. Fun, violent animations, secrets to find, a crazy storyline, big bosses, weapons to unlock, and very catchy music.
If you're into Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, and other vintage shooty platformers, this is for you. There are some hard levels and you need to be prepared to fail a little and do some practice and level retries, especially towards the end. But if you stick to it, you get a real sense of reward, because this game has that distinct feeling of achievement as you keep playing and your skills improve.
Some tips:
Go back and look for armor and health upgrades. These can really help in the last stage which can be quite tough otherwise. You can see on the map screen which levels still have something to pick up. Sometimes you need an ammo type from a later stage to get to the upgrade, so make sure to return and look around when you've got a few ammo types. When you replay a previously finished stage you don't have to fight the boss again.
Learn what the special items do and don't be afraid to use them. Some situations become vastly more managable with the correct special item.
In the same way, make sure to use the special ammo. Some enemies are only reachable to kill by means of special ammo or items, and it can mean life or death to get rid of them, especially in jump-y situations.
There are some things that can be destroyed that weren't fully obvious to me, they kind of blended in to the environment. So listen for that sound of bullets landing, especially towards the end. I'm talking specifically about the things that spawn little flying robot orbs in level 5.
I had a lot of fun with Galactivore and it is one of those games that has a lot of personality, so I know it will stay in my brain for a long time!

Seems promising so far. I recommend using controller, but works on keyboard.
The big downside is my own lack of talent for this type of games. :D

Decent storyline, nice physics, great music and awesome graphics. I find it just challenging enough on the easier settings. I prefer playing it with a controller, but using keyboard works just fine aswell. I would recommend this to anyone who likes classic retro games.

Disclaimer: I got this game as a review copy for my curator page
Great beginning, mixed middle, and straight up awful end. Galactivore is one of those games that really make you wish there was a neutral review option because my feelings towards it are really mixed...
On one hand, we have the beginning stages, which can be a bit too easy at first, but still bring a lot with the presentation, are fun to traverse through, and are also fair. Once we reach the middle point, the game starts showing some signs of unfairness, in which enemy attacks can be near impossible to dodge, even if you know they're coming. And then, the game splits into two possible endings, with a different level each and... yeah those are straight up bad. Enemies everywhere (some constantly respawning unless you destroy they're spawning machine... which is straight up impossible sometimes), tiny platforms on top of that, and they introduce some of the most annoying mechanics so far: Disappearing platforms on top of bottomless pits, and giant beams. At least the beams don't insta kill you... If the most reliable strategy I found was to abuse invincibility frames to proceed, we have a problem. These two levels alone have genuinely made me consider giving this game a negative review: They're just not fun at all... but I still feel like the game offers enough for it to well, not be a thumbs down.
The story was alright. There's this chemical that enhances the capabilities of individuals with two X chromosomes, which leads to the overexploitation of earth, and the exodus of the planet (only by those affected by the chemical, I guess people who weren't enhanced by it wouldn't survive such trip... and I also guess they found a reliable way to reproduce, whether via cloning or thanks to said chemical). It all evolves into a regime, and and the enslavement of a whole alien species. Because of it, a terrorist group rises to try and stop this... sort of dictatorship, and that's when you show up: It is now up to you to either end this tyrannic regime run by the I.H.C., or put a stop to the terrorist group known as the U.L.F.
It's alright, though it's not like the factions are all that good... The I.H.C. is spoiler territory, but yeah, not good; and the U.L.F. literally blows up a whole city in the third level, and then has the audacity of keep a tally of the organic lifeforms you've put an end to (I don't know I found that kind of stupid). And if you're looking for all the achievements... just don't... I did my best not to kill a single organic enemy up until the very last level, where I only killed the minimum I needed, and then was greeted with "You've killed 47 enemies"... you must kill 40 enemies or less to get one of the achievements... I give up!
Presentation-wise, it has this certain 16 bit look and feel to it, inspired by classics like MegaMan and Contra, but despite that, reminded me more of the Sega MegaDrive because of the instrumentation on the soundtrack. It's not spectacularly faithful to said style, but to be fair, nowhere on the store page does it say that it was influenced by that console alone: it was just a feel I got.
So, as you can see, quite a bit to say, and the final veredict... is still the same: It's quite nice at the beginning, okay in the middle, and straight up dreadful at the end. It's worth a go if you're in the mood for this sort of game, but... wait for a sale at least...