STRAFE is a 2017 rogue-lite FPS. Its plot is simple: you play as a scrapper, sent on a scavenging mission to the space ship “Icarus”, when something goes awry. That’s as much as the player needs to know. Shooting monsters is the story.The gameplay revolves around blasting your way to an exit. Sometimes this entails unlocking doors through finding keycards or similar devices, after which the player proceeds to the next stage.
In typical rogue-lite fashion, each playthrough presents you with new, procedurally generated levels. Additionally, there are no checkpoints – you die, you start over from square one.
It is a jaw clenching affair, considering health and armor pickups are dispensed conservatively, while enemies deal a great amount of damage.
STRAFE tries to incorporate modern design ideas with the old-school FPS feel, harking back to the likes of Quake. This presents itself in the title – easy-to-do strafejumping is a central pillar of the game’s movement, allowing a high-speed style of play. Balancing out its simple core design, STRAFE offers a variety of power-ups, different game modes and the ability to collect teleporter parts, allowing the player to skip zones at the beginning of a new playthrough. Secret areas and charming easter eggs are no rarity, either.
STRAFE’s number one selling point is its flamboyant outward appearance: Simple, early-3D style graphics paired with fast-paced railgun action. Flying through dark, horde-filled corridors, hard electro and acid splatter in your ears. The primal excitement of running low on health, masses of enemies oncoming, 180° turnarounds, going for headshots, all taking part at breathtaking speeds.
It is easy to buy into the marketing material, having been tightly woven into the fabric of the game itself, as to almost invoke the feeling of purchasing an experience, rather than a program with fully functioning and complimentary systems. And that’s STRAFE’s problem. It isn’t fully functioning, nor are its design ideas complimentary. The random level generation’s big promise of endless replayability is there – 1/10th of the time. On those occasions, you truly can get into “the zone” playing this game; fully immersed, heart pounding, eyes chasing blurs. Though, the vast majority of playthroughs are composed of uninspiring stages, and backtracking that would make Agatha Christie nauseous.
Procedural generation is a confusing choice here. It’s the sole culprit for the game’s main issue: inconsistency. You never quite know if RNG is on your side, creating a flowing, enjoyable playthrough or a jumbled mess. Hand-crafted levels could have proven worlds superior in terms of replayability and in fact ensuring high-speed action. Because, as ironic as it seems, if not speedrunning, playing slowly and creeping your way towards the exit will prove more successful than rushing.
STRAFE tries mixing orange juice and milk by combining two already niche genres: rogue-lites and old-school FPS. It doesn’t appeal to either core crowd, though. The game merely dabbles in the rogue-lite pool; adopting permadeath and random level layouts, not committing to the roleplay essence of the genre. From the old-school FPS puddle, it picks strafejumping and unlimited weapon pickups. No more. There is frequent reloading, random weapon spread, an overall feeling of modern gunplay. Building an own framework and deviating from the norm is a great ideal. What can’t be forgotten in the pursuit of uniqueness is putting gameplay first and not purely checking off a list of buzzwords to include. It’s a true shame. The game isn’t deserving of overly harsh words, it is fun at times. Yet, its potential lies in the clouds. To achieve that, though, one would need to drastically rethink the concepts present.
Nonetheless, STRAFE keeps its “Launch Game” button attractive. Not because it is a refined shooter with a clear vision and flawless execution, it is not. But because it has personality. You won’t forget STRAFE.
Its base price of 15 dollars begs the question: What are you looking for in a game? The best experience that particular genre has to offer? Then STRAFE might not be a good purchase. Are you looking for a simply good time, knowing fully well there are better alternatives out there? In that case, STRAFE provides plenty of monster-shooting excitement.