Game Review: Sentry City

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch

Sentry City is a cyberpunk side-scrolling shooter that takes the retro 8/16-bit aesthetics to heart, especially when it comes to difficulty. It's launching soon on the Nintendo Switch and we're here to take a look and see if it's worth picking up. Does it have more to offer beyond its style and visuals? Is the difficulty a bit too much to overcome? Will AI eventually consume us all? Well, read on and find out!

I was actually surprised by how much story Sentry City actually has. It's an indie title with a very low price point, so I assumed it was just going to be a collection of stages with very little connecting them together. I was wrong. Sentry City drops you into the shoes of Chris, our protagonist who is starts the game drinking the night away in his favorite local bar. Suddenly a rogue robot shows burst in and proclaims that the city's AI is taking over. Chris isn't one to just accept that kind of nonsense, so he quickly dispatches the robot and sets out on his mission to destroy the AI Brain in each sector of the city. Deep plot or not, sorting out the AI takeover, and figuring out why it happened in the first place, is a good enough reason to run, jump, and shoot your way through several Nintendo-hard levels.

Damn AI always gotta act up these days!

This is a cool level select screen.

Each stage begins with you on your Akira-esque bike, traversing the highway, and choosing your next stage. Things are pretty linear though, so don't expect that bike to take you anywhere interesting. Well, besides the cool loading screen I guess. The levels take you all across the city and after every five levels or so, a special boss level will appear. Our hero Chris can move, jump, shoot, and reload. That's it. While his small repertoire of moves is enough to take out most of the AI-controlled enemies, there are also stage hazards like electric barriers and bottomless pits to avoid. While it's pretty obvious that something like falling into a bottomless pit would kill you, just about everything can too. Chris can only take one hit before he's sent to the big AI Brain in the sky. This probably sounds like it would make for a pretty difficult game, and it really does, but there are a few things that make the experience a bit more palatable. For starters you are given infinite lives to complete any stage, with the only penalty being a clock that continually ticks up as you progress. There are also checkpoints in each level, but towards the end of the game these become far less common. Hopefully you're not a gamer who gets frustrated easily.

Since you're unable to take more than one hit, you have to go through each level very carefully. This boils down to most levels being a loop of you dying several times before realizing what it is the game expects you to do. This can feel a little cheap as I can't imagine that someone would ever be able to complete a level without dying their first time through. It doesn't help that Chris isn't exactly the most nimble of protagonists, and you'll often find yourself unable to react fast enough to keep him alive. His only means of defense is his gun, but his limited moveset rears its ugly head there too. The opening cutscene shows him diving and shooting, but in game he can only fire his gun straight ahead. That means no shooting while crouching or aiming diagonally, even though enemies can often do both. His gun also only has five bullets, though he can reload an infinite amount of times. Too bad that reloading your gun consists of a very slow animation that pretty much ensures that you'll be dead before it completes. Things get worse when you realize that if you try to fire an empty gun, you'll be placed into that reloading animation with no way to stop it. Whenever this happens you just have to hope that redoing the entire section you're on will be easier the next time around.

Our Hero: Chris!

Moving platforms... my favorite...

Trial and error is the term of the day and you'll be stuck in one section for a few minutes only to progress ever so slightly and repeat the process again a bit further down the city sector. Random sentry robots, flying drones that come in for kamikaze dives, armored giants that you can only push back, and several other robots will always be around the corner to make sure you have a bad day. They do a really good job at that too, far better than Chris does in his job of staying alive. I may sound like I'm complaining a lot about the difficulty, and I guess in a way I am, but I don't want to make it sound like there isn't a feeling of accomplishment when you finally do clear a touch section. A little noted thing about ultra-difficult games is how good it feels to finally conquer them, or even discover shortcuts to sections that previous took several tries. Sentry City walks a fine line between difficult and frustrating, and I'd be lying if I didn't say that it got tiring after a while. There are some levels where the AI Brain is within view at the start of the level but you have to go through a roundabout way to get to it. Add in the dozens of deaths you're sure to encounter along the way, and suddenly that roundabout route feels like little more than padding. There are definitely some gamers out there that enjoy this level of difficulty, but this feels a lot less forgiving than many other overly hard games I've played over the years.

The first boss.

The only time I got good time ratings.

I mentioned that the game has a few bosses, and they provide some neat changes to the gameplay. If only you somehow got more than one hit to last through these they might even be fun. I found the boss levels to be the most annoying in the game by far. They always have mandatory dialogue that you're forced to see each time you die, and each of the bosses have multiple stages to defeat before they're dead. That last part wouldn't be too bad if the boss levels had checkpoints, but nope, you have to do each fight perfectly without dying. One stray hit and you're dead, and you have to reload with a boss trying to unload all over you? It's a wonder I didn't give up after the first one. Something about Sentry City kept drawing me in though (and no, I'm not just talking about this review), and I'd put it down in frustration only to sigh, say: "Okay, one more level...", and then pick it up again. This was a cycle that saw me through to the end and I'm glad I didn't give in and toss in the towel. Thankfully those AI Brains at the end of each level are nice and defenseless, so taking them out was quite cathartic.

Sentry City has some neat retro visuals, and the pixel graphics look great both in normal gameplay and during cutscenes. Enemies are pretty varied too, and the bosses are impressive for the most part. Unfortunately the entire game takes place at night, and in a very dark cyberpunk city. This means that it doesn't take long for everything to look a little same-y. I found myself wishing that we'd somehow leave the city, even though that makes no sense story-wise. Another thing I found myself wishing was that there were more cutscenes throughout the game. We pretty much only get the one at the beginning and the one at the end. This is probably a bit much to expect of a game this size, but it would've been a good way to shake things up a bit. Oh, and the game runs at a very smooth 60FPS. I don't really tend to care about such things, and honestly only barely understand why 60FPS is better than 30, but there's a type of gamer who will only play 60FPS games, so there you go.

I hate these flying gun drone things.

DON'T CLICK "START GAME"!

I played a few hours of Sentry City and was about to completely write off the music as being all but nonexistent. Then I went into the menus and noticed that the music is turned down very low by default for some reason. I turned it up about double what it was set at, and was then blown away by how good the soundtrack was. Now I don't want to make it sound like it was the most unique thing I'd ever heard, but those who dig darker synthwave will definitely enjoy it. And I definitely dig darker synthwave. I don't think it's to the level that I'll be adding it to my next playlist, but it definitely is too good to be just buried in the game as it was. Why they set the sound like that is beyond me. Oh, and there isn't much else to talk about sound-wise beyond the music. Sound effects are minimal but work well, and there isn't any voice acting. No one was expecting voice acting though, right?

Sentry City is a rather short game, with much of its length due to having to repeatedly replay sections until you clear them. Also, if you leave and come back to the game it doesn't start on the "Continue" option. If you accidentally click the option the game starts on it saves over all your previous progress. It does warn you about this, but the text was so small that I managed to do this twice while playing the game for this review. This was actually far more annoying that anything the actual game threw at me and I hope it somehow gets patched out to start at "Continue" by default. Besides accidentally deleting your progress, the only reason to really go back to the game once you’re done is to get some good times on the levels. This isn't something that interests me, but I can see why speedrunners might enjoy it. Just be careful not to accidentally save over your 100% perfect run.

So many deaths...

It's all worth it to kill some AI Brains!

I have mixed feelings on recommending Sentry City, I found it quite fun, but it also made me want to punch a hole in my wall more than once. It comes in at a low $4.99 price point though, so I feel like I pretty much have to recommend it due to price alone. At that low price of entry you're sure to have some fun with it, even if it's just digging the awesome soundtrack and visuals. Now I don't want to make it sound like I'm handing out that rec in a grudging fashion, Sentry City is a fun and unique game and I'm glad I stuck with it. Just don't come in thinking that you're going to breeze through it and you'll be fine.

For More Information on Sentry City:
https://www.flynnsarcades.com/sentrycity/

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Story: B+
Gameplay: B-
Graphics: B
Music/Sound: B
Value: A

Overall: B

Pros:
+ Mixes together action and puzzle platforming gameplay styles into a unique cyberpunk adventure.
+ The retro style visuals and synth soundtrack add to the 80s aesthetic.
+ Moves fast and features new challenges throughout, complete with impressive boss battles.
+ Infinite lives and checkpoints take a bit of the edge off an otherwise very difficult game.
+ A low price point makes this easy to casually pick up and try on one's own.

Cons:
- Difficulty spikes often come from challenges that feel unfair.
- Sentry City would be quite a very short game if it wasn't for the one-hit kills and trial-and-error gameplay.
- While the graphics look cool, there isn't a lot of variety to the visuals.
- Gameplay can get really repetitive towards the end of the game.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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