Sophstar Review: Bullet Heaven

Hypnotic. That’s the word I think best describes a great bullet hell shmup. All shmup fans have been there, in that trance, you enter as you become fixated on the screen, your surroundings fading into black as the controller becomes an extension of your body. All you can see is the deadly dance of death occurring on the screen as you weave in and out of wave upon wave of projectiles while dispatching your foes with pinpoint accuracy. Of course, it doesn’t always pan out that way, as death comes quickly in all the best shmups, but you instantly jump in to do it again in pursuit of that next high score and adrenaline rush. If you relate to any of the sensations I just described, then I can almost guarantee you’ll find something to love about Sophstar, because (spoiler alert!) it’s fantastic.

An Intergalactic Threat

Sophstar does have a narrative propelling its vertically scrolling shmup action along, but, as is pretty standard for the genre, it’s more of a vehicle to move you from one level to the next rather than something compelling that you’re expected to get invested in. To be honest, once I had completed the first few levels and established that Soph, the game’s protagonist, was a top-tier space pilot whose skills were needed to fight back an alien invasion, I largely tuned out of the rest of the story. That’s not to say the narrative is awful or poorly written, if anything, it’s more of a commentary of how damn addictive Sophstar’s gameplay is and how compelled I felt to simply get back to the excellent moment-to-moment action.

A Difficult Delight

As I’ve alluded to already, Sophstar plays like an absolute dream. Picking it up and jumping right in, you’d be forgiven for assuming that this was just another vertically scrolling shmup with nothing to separate it from the crowd, but dig a little deeper, and you’ll realize Sophstar does more than enough to elevate it above much of its competition.

In terms of the standard feel of the game, it’s everything you could want and more. Ships are responsive and pacey for the most part, an absolute must for any game built around bullet hell. In a welcome addition, there are a total of nine spacecraft to choose from, and I was genuinely surprised by how much variety the developers over at Banana Bytes managed to pack in between each vehicle. Some are designed to be small and nippy, but sacrifice raw firepower in exchange for that maneuverability, while others do the opposite and come with beefier weapons. Then there are the more creative options, such as those that sacrifice having any weaponry attached to the rear or sides in favor of having front-mounted cannons capable of wiping out foes with ease.

It’s a truly inspired selection of ships that makes jumping into new runs with a fresh choice an exhilarating experience, as it feels like learning the game from scratch all over again. I also really appreciated that there isn’t a one size fits all option that felt as though it would become the default for most players. See, Sophstar’s enemy and boss variety is nothing short of great, and each craft almost feels like it was designed with specific enemies and boss fights in mind. While you can’t change craft in the middle of a playthrough, this variety does force you to dig around and get comfortable with all the different options, until you find one that suits your playstyle and compliments the levels which you personally find most challenging.

Based on the quality of the moment-to-moment bullet hell combat and the ship variety, Sophstar would already be an easy sell to genre fans. However, that isn’t all it has up its sleeves, as Soph comes equipped with a teleport mechanic that enables her to pick a spot on the screen and teleport out of danger. It’s the type of mechanic that I thought, at first, I would probably largely forget about and inevitably not use, but it became clear very quickly that much of Sophstar’s action is built with this ability in mind. Bosses, and normal enemies for that matter, can often hog enormous portions of the screen, which, when combined with the vast number of projectiles on screen at any given time, can prove hugely overwhelming. That’s where the teleport comes in, as you’ll start to notice expertly placed gaps in the chaos that can often only be reached through using teleportation.

While it presents a bit of a learning curve initially, you are soon forced to get comfortable with teleporting as Sophstar grows increasingly difficult. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that much of Sophstar would feel nigh on impossible without this mechanic, and I love that the developers really hung their hat on making sure that this mechanic was baked into the encounter designs of each level. It’s what takes Sophstar to the next level and makes it a truly special experience.

Minor Drawbacks

So Sophstar is great and a must-play for genre fans. There are, however, a couple of gripes that I do think impact upon the experience slightly.

My main complaint coming away from my time spent playing is the lack of progression. The ship you start a run with will never grow more powerful as you progress. In-level upgrades are virtually non-existent save for score multipliers, and whilst the overall ship variety does mitigate this issue somewhat, it would have been nice if you could have perhaps had the option to chase power-ups or purchase upgrades that helped plug gaps in each ship’s arsenal. As mentioned, Sophstar is a tough game, so some sense of your combat abilities progressing in a manner that scales with the challenges presented to the player would have been welcome.

The topic of difficulty brings me to my second gripe – that being that even Sophstar’s easiest difficulty can be absolutely brutal as you move up through the levels. It’s not a deal breaker by any means, as Sophstar is just so damn fun to play that I felt compelled to keep jumping back in to improve my performance, but I would have certainly appreciated a more relaxed difficulty level that would have better enabled me to suss out each ships nuances before committing fully to one.

A Shmup Fan’s Dream

Even with those gripes, however, there is nothing here that would stop me from recommending Sophstar to shmup fans. It takes a familiar genre, nails the fundamentals, and then builds upon those with unrivaled ship variety and its teleportation mechanic that is so core to the experience and blows the genre wide open to the extent that I’m not sure I want to ever play another shmup that doesn’t have this feature. If you’re not put off by the lack of progression and are up for the immense challenge presented by Sophstar, then I would encourage you to not let this little gem pass you by.

Final Verdict: 4/5

Available On: PS5, PS4, Switch, Xbox One; Publisher: Banana Byte; Developer: Banana Byte; Released: October 28, 2022; Players: 1; MSRP: $9.99

Full Disclosure: A review code was provided to Hey Poor Player