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.

First off, this game runs incredibly well on the steam deck and feels made for it.
This game is not only well polished in Early Access, it combines some of my favorite things from Hack and slash games as well as Roguelites.
It's really more like Diablo 3s portals though. You go to a new location with your upgrades, take down the enemy ships or complete the objective, grab your loot and upgrades, and then either head back or keep going deeper to the objective. And the customization of your ship is really well implemented and incredibly customizable.
The dev is also super engaged with the community and listens to their feedback, which bodes very well for the longevity of the game.

Very fun game. Dev is super active making updates.

Star Vortex is essentially a 2025 rehash of ShellCore Command mixed with elements of Star Valor and Reassembly. If any of those words mean anything to you, then you'll like this game.

The building system is one of the most fluid and easy-to-use building systems of any spaceship builder i've played - You drag blocks onto a grid, and you're free to place and order and color them however you want. Stats are determined by ship size and radius, thruster and weapon placement is (mostly) irrelevant.

The gameplay is pretty similar to shellcore but with heavy emphasis on debuffs. You strafe around and dodge enemy fire, firing a myriad and in a panic - using battery packs and nanobots to quickly regenerate lost hull. Most attacks are telegraphed, however some will do a lot more damage than others and it can be hard to tell sometimes what's going on, especially in the lategame with nearly hundreds of ships and thousands of projectiles. Some deaths will not feel like you did anything wrong.

The game has an in-depth upgrade and modifier system. There's many different builds you can do - coating the whole map in toxic fumes, using on-crit effects to stack up on armor until you have hundreds of thousands of effective health, covering an area in turrets, fusing modifiers together until you get a pulse with enough radius to cover an entire group of enemies... all the while taking modifiers on dropped weapons and equipment, and throwing it on your own to make a build capable of defeating enemies with 800% damage output in the lategame on the hardest difficulty.
The subtle changes in your abilities throughout progression are one of the defining features of this game - a 5% here, a rarity change there...

Nitpicks: I wish there was greater variance in ship sizes - A dreadnought, the largest ship size in the game, is only really about 5-6x the size of a little frigate. Larger ships do not really *feel* larger, they feel more like medium ships with how they control and move. You will notice throughout your progression that the size leap between a frigate and a destroyer feels huge, but the leap between a battleship and dreadnought isn't really that much.
In addition, there's about 6 categories of weapons and you'll absolutely feel that some (Pulses, beams, lightning, drones, AoE projectiles) are better than others (Projectiles, turrets, non-AoE projectiles) - this is because there's significantly more small enemies than large enemies. For every cruiser or battleship you fight, you'll have to fight a hundred frigates and destroyers. Weapons that obliterate elites and bosses will not see much use against the swarms of small enemies.

The asking price is sharp, but this is because the game is in development and will absolutely get more sectors and more action in the future.
And while it's not totally bug-free, I experienced zero freezes or crashes throughout my playthrough.
Overall, really nice! I'll probably look over this review and change this when the game is fully released.

Can't recommend this game enough. The weapons all have their own feel, and the ship builder is easy to understand, and fun to mess around with. I noticed certain things that limited my enjoyment and kind of ruined my build idea; left a comment, and the dev responded. Those build restrictions have been removed. This dev listens to feedback, that alone is enough to support the project. Definitely telling my friends to pick this one up.

Played a bunch in the 0.6.X patch - Great game! Looking forward to the full release. Never thought I'd see a spaceship arcady ARPG, but here we are. The "just one more mission" is strong with this one :)