Thank you Augmented Irreality for sending us a review code!

DreadStar: The Quest for Revenge begins with a spaceship getting attacked and the pilot sends his son off in an escape pod before the ship is destroyed. The young boy is devastated by the loss of his father and swears revenge on the alien ship that killed him.

This game is a 2D retro-inspired vertical shoot ‘em up that has RPG-like elements that let you upgrade your ship's weapon and shield systems as you gain levels. The levels are not random so with many attempts you’ll get to memorize your opponents' movements and counter them accordingly.

Your character is a broke mercenary with a low-end ship and equipment. You can travel to the merchant’s sector at any time, but the rest of the areas unlock as you complete the previous region. In total, there are six sectors to conquer. Once a sector’s boss is defeated, the next area will become available to explore.

DreadStar: The Quest for Revenge supports keyboard and game pads. Whichever route you choose, you’ll want to visit the Settings menu to confirm the mappings for your left, right, and main weapons. Be sure to note the shield and warp mappings as well. If you find yourself overwhelmed in battle you can trigger the shield system once. If that won’t suffice you can warp out of danger with no penalty, but if you’re defeated, you’ll lose some of the gems you’ve earned in that sector.

Money is not easily earned and upgrades are quite costly. Thankfully, you get a pretty good trade-in amount for equipment you already own. The ship hull you have equipped will determine the number of enhancements it can have equipped. There are different caliber shields that add hit points and can even auto repair your ship. You can equip up to three weapons and I would recommend paying attention to the amount of heat they produce as overheated weapons are unusable until they cool down. I had a modification equipped that reduced heat produced by weapons.

Each sector has unique enemies and bosses to contend with. You’ll encounter mines, spaceships, alien life forms, asteroids, and robotic creations. Some of the sectors have multiple bosses while others only have one. The bosses are intimidating and typically have a predictable attack pattern to adjust to while launching your own assaults. One of the bosses is named after an Hindu god.

There’s a decent amount of enemy variety and their animations look nice. When taking down the flesh blobs in the Betelgeuse sector, they will bleed and make a fitting squish sound as they breathe their last breath. The chiptune music is fitting for the retro feel this title is going for.

All in all, DreadStar: The Quest for Revenge is a fun game, but it has a serious fault. During my stream I experienced a glitch where I leveled up and died simultaneously. My uncontrollable spaceship made it to a boss battle and halted there. I had to restart the game from the last autosave. Thankfully I didn’t loose much, but one of my Steam friends encountered a glitch where he lost all of his money and recently acquired upgrade after purchasing it. Because of the stability issues, I would recommend holding out for a sale and keeping an eye on your gameplay time if a return is warranted due to glitches. If the game runs well for you, there's a few hours of gameplay and multiple levels of difficulty to enjoy.