Pulstar Review

‘Pulstar is a fast paced arcade game that brings back the basic of its genre’. Quoted directly from the game’s Steam store page. After forgiving the dodgy English, it becomes clear that this statement succeeds in summing up Pulstar in its entirety. It is a very basic and simplistic example of the ‘bullet hell’ or ‘Danmaku’ subgenre of Shoot ‘em ups and it is a fast-paced arcade game. In this sense, the game achieves what the developers were presumably aiming for, it’s just unfortunate that they didn’t have the foresight to realise that the result would be a game that lacks any kind of individuality or depth.

Not to be confused with the Neo-Geo title from 1995 with the same name, 2014’s Pulstar from Concave Studio is a totally new and unrelated game. For those who aren’t familiar with shoot ‘em-ups, players are usually tasked with taking control of a ship of some kind, destroying incoming enemies while dodging their attacks and grabbing power-ups whenever possible. The bullet-hell sub-genre ramps up the number of enemies and projectiles being fired at the player to ridiculous levels and so, vastly increases the difficulty.  

Controlling the small ball of light, which serves as your ‘ship’ in Pulstar, is simple enough, as with most twin-stick shooters, you can use one analogue stick to control movement and the other to control your direction of fire. However, if like me, you own a generic USB controller, and not an Xbox 360 one, you may well find, as I did, that the binding of the controls is screwed up which renders your gamepad useless. This would have, of course, been remedied by the option to re-bind controls but it seems that this is another area where Concave Studio has regrettably elected to take the minimalist approach. There are no options to re-bind either gamepad or keyboard controls in any way. Using the mouse and keyboard to play Pulstar is functional if slightly annoying. The arrow keys are used to move and the mouse is used to point and shoot. Later in the game when the screen fills up with enemies, it becomes difficult to keep track of the cursor and losing sight of it is generally followed by an unfair and frustrating death.

There are a number of power-ups to grab as you dodge and shoot your way around the level. These appear at various times and provide the player with a fairly standard set of benefits. One for upgrading your weapon, one for a point boost, one which destroys all on-screen enemies and a Timepulse charge which will temporarily slow down time. Trying to get across the screen to that desperately needed health or bomb power-up can be an intense and enjoyable experience. It’s just a shame that moments like these are so few and far between.

The biggest and most glaring problem with Pulstar is the debilitating lack of variation. The game features a total of three different enemy types and one level. For me, this is pretty inexcusable of the developers, really how much time and effort would it have taken to add a few more enemy types and a change of background? Not much is my guess. While the scenery does change colour and fancy lighting will flash as the action heats up, it’s really not enough to convey any real sense of progression or diversity.

Pulstar’s presentation is the one area (apart from fulfilling its promise of bringing back ‘the basic of its genre’) where the game has no real problems. The visuals are satisfactory and even at times impressive as your weapons flash across the screen and enemies are incinerated. At the centre of the level there is star which pulsates and changes colour according to the on-screen action as does the audio in the game. This means the further you get and the longer you stay alive, the more intense the music and visuals become. Not a unique or original idea by any means, but a welcome and well-implemented addition all the same.

Pulstar features an option for local co-op play which works well and should increase the replay factor for those who enjoy it. The game’s online component however, is disappointingly restricted to a worldwide leaderboard. The leaderboard is a nice feature but again, really just feels like something which should be expected in a game like this rather than a real talking point.

By now, you may well be asking yourself how anyone can really justify charging money for such a minimalist game, and a quick glance at the steam forums suggests that there are quite a few people who do, in fact, feel that way. However, when you consider that the game is relatively cheap (£3.99 on Steam at time of writing) and that the developers make no claims which Pulstar fails to fulfill, one could argue that the game, despite it’s shortcomings, is worth the asking price.

I’m sure that there will be gamers out there who will enjoy Pulstar immensely. The gameplay is tight and the action is fast-paced, the game is also very challenging. Fans of the genre, who are looking for a bare-bones bullet-hell game, and want nothing more than to repeatedly beat their high-score, should find everything they want in Pulstar. For everyone else though, the game is likely to feel severely underwhelming and is unlikely to keep their interest for long.

Pulstar is currently available on Steam for PC and Mac. A Linux version is also in the works.