Ranking of Roguelikes #7: Steredenn: Binary Stars

For what this series is all about, check here. You can start with the first entry here and the latest entry is here. With all that out of the way, let's head to space for our next entry: Steredenn: Binary Stars.

I've spent a little over 20 hours with Steredenn. I've beaten the Mothership once and got to a second loop. I played on Switch 1.

Roguelikes aren't known for their compelling stories, though our last entry, Nowhere Prophet, is a notable exception. Steredenn: Binary Stars is not. You're treated to an opening cutscene of a capital ship being destroyed by massive lasers as your ship escapes at the last moment. You see some of the best pixel art explosions ever created and barely have time to appreciate them before the thumping metal soundtrack begins and waves of enemies try to turn you into just one more pretty explosion.

Every piece of audiovisual design in Steredenn is immaculate. It's a feast for the eyes and ears.

This is a Platonic arcade game: don't think, just react. Let the music wash over you as you find your flow state. Identify the threats, predict their course, decide what to do, and then execute flawlessly.

Execute less than flawlessly, and perish in the vacuum of space.

What does it do?

They chose an interesting way to implement a roguelike formula in an STG. As far as I can tell, the levels are shuffled each playthrough as well as what enemy waves will show up. You'll start to see the patterns after a while, giving you a much-needed advantage over the relentless, merciless enemies. It isn't quite bullet hell, but you're never going to have time to get too comfortable. It will occasionally throw a rare level at you with even more hazards: meteors filling the screen requiring precise dodging and manic shooting; gigantic lasers coming at regular intervals; a debris field from a massive battle; even a minefield you need to navigate through.

Each stage ends with a battle against increasingly large and deadly bosses, culminating in the massive multi-stage Mothership. The bosses are almost pure bullet hell, filling the screen with a curtain of bullets, bombs, and rockets that require precision flying to survive. Beat them and you'll get to choose from a random assortment of augments for your ship.

Weapons are similarly randomized, and finding the synergies between ship, weapon, and augment is the key to having a good run. It's challenging no matter what, but it's a consistently great game and a stellar STG. But is it a great Roguelike?

One of the things that makes a good Roguelike is being able to tackle its challenges in creative ways. Steredenn is very solid here.

There's a fair amount of variety in your toolkit. There are about three dozen weapons across all the categories. They're fairly well balanced, making it difficult to say any are "must choose." The game does a good job at giving you a variety of them on any given run. I rarely saw repeats.

Drones, energy weapons, heavy weapons, and kinetic weapons each feel different enough to significantly change your experience with each build. You have two weapon slots and can freely switch between them, opening up possibilities for finding and exploiting useful combinations. Weaker weapons are rapid fire, while more powerful weapons tend to have short cooldowns. Enemies can be weak to or strong against specific weapon types. It's possible to get through the game without paying attention to this, but it makes things much easier when you do. What's most important is to not limit yourself to a particular type. You're encouraged to improvise and experiment with what you find, learn their strengths and limitations, and store that information away for future runs.

The next layer of complexity comes from the different ships available. You can unlock four by completing challenges. Each one requires that you rethink how you approach the rhythms of the game. Your starter has good all-around stats and a handy melee ability. My favorite for a while was the bulky Fortress, a beast of a ship that trades speed for armor and starts with a strong fire cannon and a missile barrage. Lately I gravitate towards the Specialist, which doesn't have any direct fire but instead protects and augments drones. This ship is much more about positioning and patience. It was tough to figure out what it wanted from me, but once I did I felt like I had opened my third eye. It has a shield that makes drones under it invincible. Drones block shots and enemies, and have pretty low health, but making them invincible turns them into unstoppable turrets that shield you as well as put out significant damage. It changes the game into something resembling tower defense and it rules.

The Fury has a teleport that creates a small explosion around the teleport destination. It has my favorite design out of all of them. It's agile and fragile and I'm terrible at using the teleport so my runs with it tend to end early. It's a lot of fun to use, I just wish I was better at understanding how to use it.

I haven't been able to unlock the Red Baron yet. You can't take any damage for three stages and then you have to beat the Red Baron boss. I've reached it several times but it's a frankly rude fight. I haven't given up yet but I'm not optimistic in the near term.

It's to its credit that even after a disastrous defeat I almost always start up another run immediately. The "just one more run" factor is extremely high.

If there's a weakness in Steredenn it's the enemy variety. There are a few categories: smaller fighters, melee ships, stationary turrets, and heavy cruisers. Each one has predictable patterns and once you've seen them you know what they can do. After a couple of hours you've seen more or less every enemy and wave type except for the bosses. To its credit, the game offers several variants of each boss with unique looks and attack patterns. There are also several secret bosses to find. I just wish it would have done more with the standard enemies.

Maybe this in an inherent conflict between the different genres being blended together here. Side-scrolling shooters are about memorizing enemy placements and patterns, mastering each level through repetition and patience. Most of them limit enemy variety and instead change up wave composition and number to increase the challenge without being completely unfair. Most roguelikes tend to go the other way: lots of different enemy types, several variants of each one, and unpredictable, sometimes unfair combinations to keep you challenged. I understand why Steredenn leans more towards its STG roots and I think it works well. They've created a hell of a good game that expands the possibility space for the genre. I'm honestly surprised it hasn't been more influential in the space.

Where does it rank?

It fits squarely in between Has-Been Heroes and Caveblazers. Has-Been Heroes does more with the formula, and while Caveblazers might be more faithful to Rogue it's just not as polished or fun as Steredenn. It's the new number 4. Congratulations!

As of this writing, Lists aren't enabled so I can't adjust or link to them. Here are the updated rankings:

1. Shiren The Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate

2. Nowhere Prophet

3. Has-Been Heroes

4. Steredenn: Binary Stars

5. Caveblazers

6. Dicey Dungeons

7. Crown Trick

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! I have a couple of ideas for the next entry in the series, but if you have a request I'm happy to entertain it.