A REVIEW BY TOM PARRY

First things first, Sisters Royale is fun. With that out of the way, why else would you be interested in playing this vertically scrolling Shoot ’Em Up?

At its core Sisters Royale is a fairly generic ‘Bullet-Hell’ shooter, however it is by no means bland, with its colourful visuals and cast of characters that are easy on the eye.

The gameplay mechanics work well too, you can choose from one of 5 characters (6 with the optional DLC) who each have a unique ranged projectile attack as well as an additional attack, usually geared towards a close quarters offensive. You also have access to bombs, which your character can store a total of 5 of at a time, once unleashed they can wipe out everything on screen. What’s especially nice is that all the characters attacks are different enough to encourage multiple playthroughs, adding some variety to the game.

The game also features story-elements, unique to each character that are told through the medium of text, accompanied by an illustration of the character speaking. Although I’m usually not of fan of this type of story-telling, the conversations between stages are relatively short and unobtrusive for those who just want to get stuck into the gameplay, also they’re completely skippable with just a button press, I only wish all games would give the player this option.

The game itself is relatively short, although offers plenty of challenge, especially for those who aren’t too experienced with the genre, such as myself. Playing on ‘Normal’ mode I used a total of 15 continues to get through the game’s 5 stages. If you play like I do and die constantly throughout, it’s very handy to have unlimited continues, relieving the kind of frustration that could potentially result in rage-quitting.

If you happen to be a master of this genre however I imagine you might be able to breeze through the game with ease on the default difficulty but perhaps the game’s ‘Hard’ mode may be enough to keep hardcore players challenged. After all, while I thought the game’s hitbox (safe area around the character) was a generous size, due to little in the way of audible or visual clues telling you you’re losing health, I quickly realised that this was not the case and it’s a good idea to keep an eye on your Life bar on the left of the screen as the enemies are most likely chipping away at it without you realising. In short, it’s probably a very difficult game when you’re trying to complete it without using continues.

All in all, Sisters Royale is a fun and colourful game with very solid gameplay, if not particularly varied (each stage basically follows the same routine). If you’re a fan of the genre, you’ll probably not find much new here but if you’re a casual player like myself this is an accessible way to get into the over-crowed ‘Bullet-Hell’ genre and have a bit of fun for half an hour or so and if you really want to challenge yourself , you can try completing it without using any continues…good luck!

- Tom

PROS: Solid Gameplay, Very Accessible, Colourful Visuals

CONS: Short, Lack of variety in Level Design

SISTERS ROYALE IS DEVELOPED BY ALFA SYSTEM AND PUBLISHED BY CHORUS WORLDWIDE AND IS AVAILABLE NOW AS A DIGITAL DOWNLOAD PS4 (£11.49) AND SWITCH (£11.69) AND WAS PROVIDED BY BROWN BETTY PR FOR REVIEW.