Godstrike by developer Overpowered Team and publisher Freedom Games—PC review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Godstrike is an interesting take on the twin shooter style. With some interesting mechanics and some colourful visuals, Godstrike is an cool blend of a few different takes on similar genres. While the collision detection leaves something to be desired, the fights themselves tend to be rather fun.
In Godstrike you take on the role of Talaal, who has taken on the role of Herald. Long ago, there was a great God who divided his power into pieces. These pieces formed into masks, that would choose a bearer to be their Herald. All but one mask selected Heralds, but over time, one Herald/mask decided to usurp the power of others. The mask was eventually sealed away, but over time the seal has weakened, and the power of the mask seeps out and is corrupting the land. Talaal ventures forth to put a stop to this corruption.
Godstrike is a twin shooter isometric where your health is on a timer and you only fight bosses. You ever clear a game and unlock boss rush mode? Well, this is basically that, just as a full game instead of a feature. It's suggested to use a controller to play, and I can definitely say it does feel better. One stick moves, the other aims and fires your shots. You have up to four active skills that you can assign to the triggers/bumpers, and four passive skills. These active and passive skills are unlocked when you beat one of the bosses, and the active skill will reduce your time.
An interesting idea that is rather well implemented, your health is actually a time bar, with each hit you take reducing your time. Once you run out, you don't die, but you will only have one hit left. Each active skill you can assign has a different time cost, and will be deducted from your “health” bar. Passive skills are free however. Active skills aren't free to use in battle, however. Each skill has a “charge” that you need souls for. These souls are dropped from the bosses as you hit them, allowing you uses of the skills you have equipped. Your goal in battle is to drop each health bar of the boss until they are defeated.
Each boss has as many phases as health bars and they all have different patterns and function differently. While the game is pretty fluid and the skill combinations are fun to play with, there are a few glaring issues with the gameplay. First up is the collision detection. While being in a vertical line is fine, the problem with isometric shooters is that if everything is floating, it can get really hard to tell where the collision actually is. The hardest boss wasn't the last one for me, it was the third one, because it has these stupid skull things with a really dumb collision zone that I just couldn't deal with. The other issue has to deal with the souls that are used for the active abilities. Basically, the souls come out in a random direction. While this wouldn't really be an issue normally, the problem arises when they either fall off the map, or drop directly under the boss, making them really difficult to grab if you don't have an active skill that can help out. Thankfully each skill is charged individually, so even if you use one, it doesn't take away from the charges on the others.
During the main campaign you may find an enemy to difficult for you. Thankfully there's an easy mode available. I'm not entirely certain what it affects, but I believe it just cuts boss health. This is also rather important as you can't leave to reselect skills after you've started a fight, so if your loadout doesn't really work for the boss you're fighting? Well, too bad. In addition to the campaign mode, there is also a challenge/daily challenge mode and an arena mode. Arena mode lets you pick from any of the possible skills and you can choose whatever boss you want to fight. Challenge mode tasks you with clearing bosses without losing. The daily challenge is similar, but you only get the one shot at it. Godstrike is definitely on the shorter side, and even with the challenge and arena modes it won't take long to complete, but it does offer a decent amount replayability.
Summary
Overall, I have to say I had a lot of fun with Godstrike. It scratched that itch I didn't really know I had. While some of the hitboxes are wonky at best and table-flipping awful at worst, that's only for a select few bosses really. The gameplay was smooth, and it was fun to make different skill compositions. Godstrike definitely isn't for everyone, and it still has a few kinks to work out, but still promises to be a lot of fun.
Score: 7.25 / 10
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