Star Vortex

Solid base. Has the potential to become something much nicer. It's like a 2D version of Everspace 2, but much less content.
- Quite repetitive
- Shop selection underwhelming
- Extremly repetitive sectors. Basically empty with the same ships over and over.
- No exploration so far, nothing but ships to kill
- A bit overpriced for current content
Definitely one to keep an eye on, but if you're into exploration or meanigful progress, I would go for Everspace 2 instead.

Remember Diablo 2 or Sacred?
Of Course you do.
Alltime classics!
What that has to do with a space game like this one, you ask yourself?
Let´s find out.
Welcome to STAR VORTEX!
Well, in the Beginning it is lways the same.
Bad Aliens attacking humans, humans defending and striking back.
That is Nothing new, but also Nothing bad, when it leads to a lot of Gaming Fun.
And oooooh yes it does!
In STAR VORTEX Humans are in War and out of nowwhere a new Enemy attacks.
Your Job is to make a way back to Earth for your Mothership.
At the beginning, you pilot a small spaceship that is destined for something greater.
You need to go through large sectors which are divided into many small ones.
Clean them one after another and make your way through.
Complete also Missions and get big Rewards.
Which way you go is your Choice. Find the Portal for your Mothership to reach the next Big Sector.
Of Course there are Bossfights waiting for you, because just going through the Portal would be a Little bit too easy wouldn´t it?
STAR VORTEX is a 2D Top Down Shooter RPG that Shows how DIABLO 2 or SACRED would look like if you Control a Spaceship instead of Warrior, Gladiator or something.
Enter a Sector, clean it from Enemys, loot it and use your Loot to upgrade your Ship with better Equipment to stand a Chance against harder Enemys.
Also create your own ship and equip it how you like this.
You can also trade and sell in your Fleet.
Play via Mouse and Keyboard or with your Gamingpad. Both work fine.
It is amazing hooooow addicting STAR VORTEX is.
It has this "just one more sector" Feeling and you feel you can´t stop playing.
The Graphics are very nice, a mix of Modern and old School and the Soundtrack and Sound Effects are amazing.
Everything in the Game fits perfectly in.
IMPORTANT!
STAR VORTEX is in Early Access, what means there is more to come.
After 5 Years (!) in the making it finally entered Early Access today.
3 very big Sectors can be entered, but if i read it Right there will be 5 in the End.
This is a Single Developer Project, who made this amazing Pearl in his free Time.
Yes STAR VORTEX is a really addicting Pearl in the Ocean of Games.
Don´t get blinded by my Playtime, i got this Game already last year, a big thanks to the Developer,
and played mostly offline, got around 30 Hours.
09/10 (Because of EA. I´m sure it will get to 10/10 when its complete)
A big thanks to the Dev and thank YOU for reading!
This review is presented to you by the Claws of the Wyvern for the AWG Curator! We would be happy if you
visit and follow us. You`re always welcome.

I enjoy the combat of this game very much, along with the customization of not only your ship and equipment, but the difficulty of the game and the enemies you face! The ability to turn this game into either a high octane dogfight simulator where the slightest mistake can lead to your demise, or a more relaxed methodical approach utilizing your positioning and terrain to your advantage to divide you foes, or anything in between; is something that I rarely see in a video game.

As a lead playtester and trusted moderator of the game's Discord, it has been a blast to witness this game develop over the years! I am very excited to see how it fares. Buy the game damnit! We could always use more feedback!!!

Very fun game. Dev is super active making updates.

I got this game after playing star valor and I must say this game has some extreme potential to take steams attention and make it BIG. It just needs lots and lots of content. It has the grounds for an ultra SMOOTH high frame rated game with tons of content. I played this yesterday for the first time and was actually stunned at how it was actually over 200 FPS and everything just felt SOOOOOOOOOO buttery smooth.
Suggestions: More Content. More Gear. More customization. Just MASSIVE amounts of content. You add this to the game with its current engine this game will take the world by storm literally.

This review in video form!
Star Vortex is A solo dev game that's simple, complex, and deviously addictive. It might be only in early access, but I'm comfortable recommending you keep this space RPG looter shooter on your radar.
Your journey begins with a surprising amount of customization options for your starting ship, and initial difficulty, which quickly transitions into a brief tutorial of the game's controls and mechanics, twisted together with an introduction to Star Vortex's overarching narrative.
The controls are quite simple, and if you're familiar with twin-stick shooters, you'll feel right at home. The ship has basic movement in any direction, a small dodge, and a boost. Then there's your weapons, which you can aim independently of the ship. Later you can pick up, or spec into, other utilities that activate on a button press. Lastly, there's a tractor beam, for picking up dropped money or items, and that's it! Like I said, pretty simple to pick up! You'll feel comfortable controlling your ship in no time at all.
But, Star Vortex makes up for these simple controls, by being complex in all of its other systems, which I'll get into in a moment.
Opening the map for the first time blew me away. 159 different nodes to explore, was crazy to see. I figured that most of the nodes were going to be optional or for try hard completionists, but what I found quick was that I needed to play many of them in order to level up my ship. Over the course of my time through with my first save, I actually did end up completing every single node there... and in the second sector as well.
Levelling up is one of the most satisfying aspects of Star Vortex. You gain an upgrade point that you can allot into a sprawling tech tree. These upgrades can affect anything from major changes such as what types of equipment your ship will be capable of using, to minor stat bumps like overall hull or shield capacity.
Most importantly, at certain level thresholds, you're awarded with MORE weapon slots. But, I'm getting slightly ahead of myself.
These nodes contain a selection of randomly generated events that affect what type of activity you'll do when arriving at any given node. Of course, the common DNA is: Kill the bad guys. The space dogfights are one of the foundational pillars of Star Vortex, so it's good that they're fun.
There are several different factions of enemies you'll face, and each one has a proper combat identity, both visually, and in what they prefer to use against you. Some face you in swarms. The stand-outs are certainly the boss encounters, which really shake things up and can wreck you in an instant if you're not careful.
During your travels, you may obtain loot for various different parts of your ship, weapons included. All loot has a rarity, and they come bundled with random stats, the rarity determining how many modifiers the item can have. Find something with a better random stat? You can actually transfer it to a similar item if you'd like, but it will consume that one in the process. I imagine some joy in the late game comes with min-maxing all of your stats with this feature.
But as I said, this system is in place for all other pieces of loot, which can include your shields, engine, utility, passives, and whatever else you have on your ship. It's fun to inspect all the loot you get, piecing together your ship, and using upgrade points to make a truly formidable, bespoke hunk of space metal.
If at any point you're not happy with how your ship is shaping up, or if you find a legendary piece of loot that you want to immediately use, you can, for a small fee, respec your upgrade tree and try a completely different configuration. It's pretty easy to experiment if that's what you'd like to do.
So, combat is the first pillar of Star Vortex. The other foundational pillar? Customization.
As previously mentioned, at certain levels, you can equip more weapons. But this isn't an automatic system, no. You must BUILD your ship to have the capacity to equip those weapons. And not only do you decide what types of weapon or utility slots to put on your ship, you decide where they go and how they look. The ship builder is where you must do that.
You unlock the builder pretty early on, and it's a robust system. The controls, even on mouse and keyboard, are a little iffy, but you can make your ship entirely custom, so long as you keep within whatever limitations your current level has you at. Initially this area will be pretty small, but by the time you're level 35, you can make a real gargantuan battleship.
Don't feel creative enough to make your own ship? Steal a "familiar" looking one from the games' community, directly inside the game. I'm very impressed with how robust this system is, and the more I played, the more attached to my rust bucket I became.
Another bright spot for the game, is in how consumable it is as a Steam Deck game. Playing there with it being a second screen game, time flew. Before I knew it, I had completed every node in sector 1.
The subsequent cross saving to PC allowed me to, in more dedicated play sessions between the Steam Deck crusades, manage my ship with a little more finesse. Move some modifiers around. Customize the ship a bit. Throw some items into storage (of which there's a ton of space for, by the way). Plot out a course or do a node with an elite that may require a little more focus. Later in the evening, back to grinding the nodes, then rinse and repeat. I love that interplay there.
Zorg has a roadmap right on the home page of the game, and I like where the game is headed! Zorg is also very active in his discord, and comments on his development progress intermittently as he includes updates or otherwise. I'm very excited to see Star Vortex grow and mature as a full-length, feature complete game, and I wish Zorg all the luck in the world.
At the time of writing, I'm nearing 20 hours of play time. With the game currently sitting at $25.00 USD, I'm anticipating playing until I hit 25 hours played total at the least. Even in early access you don't have to strain yourself playing Star Vortex to hit that mark, and I can attest that what you do play in that time is surprisingly solid in its gameplay mechanics, presentation, and overall performance.
Ultimately, Star Vortex is an incredibly promising solo-made game, and is one that I feel comfortable recommending you to check out. It's awesome to build your own ship, and grow in power as you fight across sectors in large scale space faring dogfights. If my impressions of this Early Access has stirred your curiosity in any way, I wholeheartedly recommend you check out Star Vortex for yourself, and join Zorg's discord if you'd like to participate in its active development.
(I received a free review copy of this game from keymailer.co, but neither Keymailer, nor Zorg had any editorial input at any stage of the review process.)

Currently loveing it so far and planing on playing more, loveing the ship building and the ability to have little drones and stuff, also the controls for twin stick shooter, a little personal of mine kind of wish navigation was also set to the m hotkey would make traveling easier lol, but ya
Edit: so far still enjoying it but i do find balanceing a bit tough, it feels like if enemys are even one level higher you can destroy them still but there mite be one enemy that destroys your shields and hull instantly if they hit you, haveing a hard time going though sector 1 im around level 15 now as of edit *could just be me being bad