Rogue Sentry is a twin-stick adventure shoot ’em up developed by EastAsiaSoft and Mapledev. It features an old-school, 1-bit pixel monochromatic art style and delivers a challenging, unforgiving experience. In the game, you play as a sentry bot that gains sentience and abandons its post to save humanity from a robot takeover. Your mission is to rescue imprisoned humans, guide them to safety, and help them escape.

Gameplay

Depending on your performance and the choices you make, you can unlock different endings, which in turn unlock additional game modes. The game features around 80 unique screens of action to conquer during your playthrough. While some areas involve minor puzzles, most are packed with enemies and an overwhelming number of bullets.

The main objective is to destroy four generators located in the southwest, southeast, northwest, and northeast corners of the map. Taking down these generators disables the laser beams they control, which would otherwise block your path and halt your progress. To destroy the generators, you'll face challenging boss battles. Be cautious"”laser beams in the game will instantly kill you. There's no dodge mechanic, but you move faster when you're not shooting, so sometimes, as the saying goes, you've got to run away to survive another day.

As for the gameplay itself, it's tough. Your only actions are shooting and walking/running. If you die, there are save points scattered across the map, indicated by floppy disks you can walk over.

Art Style

My biggest issue with this game is the monochromatic art style. It can be quite hard on the eyes, and unfortunately, there's no way to change the colors except by inverting them. You can switch between black-and-white or white-and-black, but neither option helps much. At times, it becomes difficult to distinguish enemies or bullets from the environment. A feature that allowed players to customize colors, or even just add a third color to highlight enemies, would make a big difference.

Final Thoughts

The additional game modes that can be unlocked add to the replay value, making it more enticing for multiple playthroughs. However, the game’s difficulty may be off-putting to some players. That said, I've seen speedruns completed in just 15-20 minutes, which is quite impressive. For the average gamer, though, it would likely take around 10-15 hours at a minimum to finish the game.

While I typically enjoy twin-stick shooters, this game didn't quite resonate with me. The monochromatic style, paired with the overwhelming bullet-hell mechanics in some areas, made the experience less enjoyable.

For a game with such a simplistic style, the $10 price tag might seem a bit steep to some. Still, it's affordable enough that you might be tempted to give it a try. That being said, there are definitely more polished twin-stick shooters available.

Rogue Sentry was reviewed on an Xbox Series X. A review code was provided by EastAsiaSoft. The game released on October 9, 2024 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation and Xbox following an initial PC release date of April 15, 2021.