The Quadsphere’s Icarus-X: Tides of Fire, which we talked about back in March, is complete, and it’s ready to launch next week on iOS and Steam on Thursday, June 25th. This shoot ’em up will combine elements of dungeon-crawlers with a loot system, roguelikes with a permadeath “Hardcore" mode, and bullet hell games, what with all the bullets flying everywhere. It may just be one of the more comprehensive shoot ’em up genre hybrids yet. It’ll be $2.99 on iOS without any in-app purchases, and it will be universal at launch, despite initial claims that it would be iPad-only at launch and made universal later on.
I’ve gotten to play pre-release builds of the game, and this really does feel like a roguelike/dungeon-crawler in terms of structure. Enemies drop loot, which can be equipped after levels if it’s better or sold to buy better equipment. You level up your ship, which can be used to unlock skills on a skill tree, and eventually unlock additional special attacks. It’s possible to get as intense an experience as you want, playing in Casual mode where you keep all loot and XP earned even if you die; Normal mode makes you complete a level to keep it, though you can grind earlier levels for more XP and loot. Hardcore mode gives you one life to get as far as possible, and if you die, that’s it. Oh, and you can’t exit the game and have to be online (for making sure hardcore scores are authentic), so make sure you’re sitting down for that one. If you want a more familiar shoot ’em up experience without any RPG elements, then Arcade mode is for you.
This should prove to be a rather interesting shoot ’em up for fans of the genre to check out when it launches next week on June 25th for both iOS and Steam.
