REVIEW: I never want to stop playing StarVaders
- Nate Hermanson
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
I recently moved house, and to cope with the anxiety that comes with packing up your life, I found myself diving into some creature comforts: deckbuilding roguelikes. Slay the Spire and Monster Train to be specific. Little did I know that those two long-time addictions would prove to be perfect primer for the latest game to enter their sphere of absorbing influence: the Space Invaders-inspired deckbuilder StarVaders.
Just the Facts |
Developer: Pengonauts |
Publisher: Joystick Ventures, Playworks |
Platform(s): PC |
Price: $24.99 |
Release Date: April 30, 2025 |
Review key provided by developer. |
StarVaders' developer Pengonauts brings us their brand of obsession-forming roguelike from Montreal, with the small three-person team working around the clock to bring this passion project to fruition and provide the next "life-consuming" game for the masses. Speaking of, award-winning Balatro creator Localthunk, who knows a thing or two about crafting a game you can lose yourself in, keeps going to bat for StarVaders. Just an observation!
In StarVaders, players suit up as one of the frontline saviors of Earth against an invading force of aliens, piloting one of three unique mechs to protect the planet. No matter who you suit up as or what mech you bring to the battle, you will inevitably fail. But every time you do, a strange figure cloaked in pure darkness and spotted with glowing holes throughout its body somehow manages to pull you back and send you back to the start of the invasion. Each time you're sent back, the timelines diverge and something's different as you once again attempt to hold off these invaders; but that small change might just be the thing that pushes you through in the end.
Narratively, there are small bits of lore attached to each pilot that you can unlock at the end of runs and the overall mystery attached to these aliens and why they're invading. It's just enough story that those who truly lose themselves to StarVaders will have enough to fill Wikis with, but not enough to compel you otherwise.
But the anime-inspired vibes are so present and perfectly tuned. Mecha-based media feels innately tied to anime, and StarVaders certainly pulls from the medium for its art style and riff-based rock soundtrack. Whether it's moody, goggles-wearing Shun or starry-eyed Iris, all 10 pilots embody anime protagonist energy, and the tiny windows into the cockpit that you get on the battle screen add a ton of personality to the battles.
One missed opportunity: The pulled-out, top-down perspective that only ever shows your mechs from behind robs them of the imposing scale I love so much about mech media. Past the character selection screen, there’s little sense of that fun towering presence.
The anime-inspired vibes are so present and perfectly tuned.
Sonically, plasterbrain's soundtrack bottles the chaotic feeling of mecha combat with high tempo melodic electronica and amps up the tension of these alien chess matches brilliantly. The stabbing synths, mile-a-minute piano, and some incredible string usage make this soundtrack a perfect backing track to these giant robot battles — and it's channeling the energy of DDR tracks, it's giving Mega Man soundtrack. It's a key piece of the puzzle in selling these tactical moments as something grander.
So, while the nitty-gritty story is lighter than I usually like, the presentation package does a lot to elevate the experience. And, besides, with games like these, the stories they usually tell are about the emergent moments: barely pulling off your first win, or succeeding against all odds during a challenge run. And that's where StarVaders certainly thrives.
StarVaders really is its inspirations. It's Space Invaders in that you are fending off waves of enemies slowly inching downward toward you on a tile-based grid. It's Into the Breach in that there is a turn-based tactics feel of chess-like movement and anticipation of maneuvers on the enemy's side. And it's like Slay the Spire in that all of these actions are played through a deck of cards you assemble piece by piece, alongside some unique artifacts, that create beautiful synergies resulting in the ability to wipe the board of enemies in one turn.
Getting hit doesn’t deal damage to your mech; instead, it clutters your deck with junk cards. Some of these can also carry modifiers, like giving a random enemy shields. Your main goal is to stop the waves of invaders before they creep into the bottom three rows of the screen, because if they do that, they generate Doom — and if they generate enough, your run is over.
Survive three encounters, head to the shop, and then face off against a boss to get through an act of StarVaders' story. Do that three times and you've got a winning run.
Enemy units have all kinds of unique variations. There are Swarmers that attack in large numbers, taking over almost the entire board, but must be adjacent to at least one other Swarmer or else self-destruct. There are Airships that, when destroyed, create three tiles of cloud cover that now effectively add a shield to those tiles for enemy units, requiring you to first blast the cloud away before killing the enemy. There are Virus mushrooms that infect your card set and will multiply if you play a card that has a virus modifier added to it. And so much more. Each encounter is ultimately about crowd control, and StarVaders keeps you feeling constantly on the brink of failure in a way that always makes survival feel satisfying.
And if that sounds overwhelming, it really isn’t. StarVaders includes an in-depth glossary you can pull up at any time. New mechanics, terms, or enemy types you haven't run up against before are explained clearly and with examples, helping you focus on experimenting with your strategy instead of memorizing everything.
StarVaders keeps you feeling constantly on the brink of failure in a way that always makes survival feel satisfying.
StarVaders has clear inspirations, but exceeds them all by making every single run feel uniquely fresh. In many deckbuilders, runs can inevitably feel like they favor one specific strength of the deck. In StarVaders, every single run is about being malleable with whatever the game ends up offering you to achieve its simple-to-understand but hard-to-master synergies and win it all.
It starts at the top with your choice between three mechs with radically different playstyles and card decks. From there, each mech has three distinct pilots who further tweak how that mech plays.
Take the Gunner, for example. Its deck revolves around managing heat — each card you play builds up heat during your turn, and your mech has a certain threshold for it. Hit your limit and you can end your turn. But in a fun risk-reward system, you can choose to overheat your mech in order to push past that limit — ending your turn abruptly and burning the card that caused it, making it unusable for the rest of the battle. But the approach you take varies depending on your pilot.
Playing as Roxy, I'd build up high damage turns by purposefully overheating my Gunner mech to get a higher heat limit in a subsequent turn. With Shun, I'd pick specific cards to overheat, because his ability lets overheated cards be “deconstructed,” unlocking a whole suite of cards that generate no heat. For Noel, on the other hand, I'd rely on her ability to freeze and unburn cards alongside a deck full of "Flurry Shot" cards that will all unleash at once for a particularly explosive turn.
And that's just the possibilities for one mech. The other two have completely different ways to play and their own host of pilots that further tweak how you approach deckbuilding. Additionally, as you progress, you'll run into those "timeline divergences" I mentioned earlier that change up which bosses you'll face and what fights each of the game's three acts will throw at you. All said, it leads to a lot of variety.
It feels a lot more freeing to constantly shift strategies and try new things, even when I'm grinding runs on one mech. And when I fail, the metaprogression of unlocking new cards for the mech or unlocking a new pilot keeps driving me forward.
I think where so many pretenders in the genre fail is in overcomplicating things or not offering enough unique modifiers to keep it fresh run after run, but StarVaders manages to hit the sweet spot that avoids both pitfalls.
I won't claim to be a smart man, but some of the turns I've been able to pull off because of the decks I've built have felt so satisfying that, even after telling myself I'd limit my playtime, I found myself clocking 25 hours in less than a week.
To be frank, I'm not naturally wired to immediately find these perfect deck builds and lock into synergies the moment I read cards, so games like StarVaders probably feel more challenging for me than for those who've beaten Ascension 20 in Slay the Spire a few times over. But even then, some of StarVaders' late game challenges felt pretty punishing. Any minor lapse in judgement or misclick could quickly doom a promising run and become a sharp, frustrating edge as you chase down run wins and late-game unlocks.
But all of that is nothing compared to the game's final and biggest boss challenge. Without giving anything away: The game's final main story challenge requires you to not only complete a full run on the highest difficulty, but also face off against an extra difficult boss challenge with multiple phases that pushes you to your absolute limits.
It feels appropriately epic and like the kind of monumental challenge you'd hope for at the end of a game like this, but the jump in difficulty can be a bit deflating and overwhelming in the late-game.
I otherwise find the difficulty progression to be quite nice, and the fact that I can test out concepts or learn new pilots and mechs on lower difficulties first before ramping up was something I appreciated. And none of that gets in the way of how fun this game remains or has kept me from playing it every day since its review code reached my inbox.
Over the years, I've played hundreds of dime-a-dozen deckbuilding roguelikes that try to achieve what the best in the genre have pulled off. Most of the time, they get a quick little nod out of me, an "oh that's neat," and then I move on.
StarVaders is a unique game that not only captures that special energy that titans like Slay the Spire and Monster Train have, but even finds ways to take a few steps forward and chart its own place alongside them as a new standout of the genre.
Video Games Are Good and StarVaders is . . . GREAT. (9/10)
+ so many variables that make each run completely unique, anime-inspired presentation package hits, completely absorbing gameplay loop
- lacks narrative impact, true final boss is A LOT, you stop unlocking things sooner than you'd expect
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