Well, the first from my top 10 most anticipated pixel art games of 2018/19 is out! Ranked in 5th place (primarily by how much I love the art) was Aegis Defenders a.k.a. @aegisthegame and it released to positive reviews from both the press (78 Metacritic for Switch) and players (as rated on Steam for Mac/Windows).
The art in the game is just delightful with its smooth shading on top of a lovely, colorful palette. The use of primaries plays its own purpose for gameplay as different characters deal more damage to enemies that match in colors (very clever to present it that way!).
Oh, what is the gameplay, you ask? An action-platformer that turns into a (still side-view) tower defense game. Levels include ruins that you have to protect with a combination of placing towers and containing the spillover with shooting yourself. You switch between up to 4 characters, which makes the game really shine in co-op (although for only 2, not 4 players). On the flip side, it gets very demanding for the soloist (whether that’s good depends if you like hard challenges or not).
That’s the gist. The rest is exploring wonderfully designed worlds and learning about the protagonists, illustrated with usual digital art instead of pixels.
Check the game out in motion below and head over to the website to get it for Windows, Mac, PS4, or Switch ($20).
Woot, thanks for the shout out Retronator!