Unless you’re old like some of us, you’ve probably never heard of Sigma Star Saga. You’ve definitely heard of the creators of it though. Developed by Wayforward, makers of the Shantae series, it was originally released on the Game Boy Advance back in the olden days of 2005. 20 years later, Wayforward has partnered with publisher Limited Run Games to bring Sigma Star Saga back with some updates and polish for a new generation! Say hello to Sigma Star Saga DX!
You play Recker, an ace pilot who helps to thwart an alien invasion on Earth. While things are grim for the planet, humans are still hanging on but it’s Recker’s job to take the war back to the invading Krill. That doesn’t mean a big space battle however. Instead your job is to get captured by the Krill and join them as a slave soldier in their army, fighting against your fellow humans! That’s right, this is a double-agent scenario where you’ll be betraying the aliens to save humanity.
Unfortunately you’ll have to make a couple of sacrifices though. One of those is to accept a bizarre alien head parasite that fits you like a helmet. Another is to prove yourself to the Krill by fighting humans. It’s a tough gig but there’s really no choice for humanity. The Krill parasite also has a telepathic link to the fleet of living Krill ships and if they feel threatened, they can teleport you into the pilot’s seat of combat from anywhere. You see, Sigma Star Saga DX isn’t just an action game with a story, it’s also a shmup!
This weird hybrid gaming system is what makes Sigma Star Saga DX stand out. As you explore the various planets that the Krill are desperately investigating, you’ll occasionally get sucked into shmup combat. This consists of horizontal shmup mini-levels where you have to kill a set number of enemies to clear the stage. Ships and their speeds vary, but your firepower stays the same and as you find gun data, you can modify your weapons in a number of ways in order to decimate the enemy…um…humans. Usually there are only about 10-20 ships to kill before you’re whisked back to the exploration portion of the game, but you’ll also level up by collecting experience globes, making the next ship combat easier.
There are really three games here. One is a series of shmup battles, one is an exploration game a la Zelda where you wander about and solve simple environmental puzzles with accessories in order to progress and collect items, and a final heavy story portion that has some decent writing. Eventually you’re going to be joined by Psyme, a female Krill and Scarlet, a human woman. These women (*cough* waifu *cough*) are both fairly complex characters adding further depth to the story and there are a lot of Krill political machinations going on as well. Oddly, all the Krill talk and act a lot like humans, so it’s easy to understand them. This is no Mass Effect after all, even if the plot is surprisingly good for an old GBA game.
Plot and gameplay are tied together to give you objectives to complete on various planets and you’ll be busy wandering back and forth and trying to figure out what to do next because the tutorials are very limited in Sigma Star Saga DX and if you miss the right person to talk to, you’ll have to figure it out on your own. Sure, there are key points where you have to talk to the right person to proceed but not when it comes to weapons explanations. There’s no conversation log either so if you miss something you’ve missed it. That’s where the DX part comes in. Sigma Star Saga DX is the revised version of the game and has a number of added functions that improve the playability of the game. The original Sigma Star Saga was widely panned for its high difficulty and encounter rate but those issues have beem somewhat ironed out in this new release.
The difficulty here is lower thanks to a reduced encounter rate and a equally reduced difficulty. Part of that is due to changes in enemy patterns and strength but part is also directly due to the new rewind and save menus. Tapping a shoulder button lets you save anywhere instead of spending ridiculous amounts of time getting to a save point, but be aware there’s only one save slot so no save spamming! You can also rewind the action at any time with another shoulder button, allowing you to check recent text if you accidentally bypassed it or make it through every shmup encounter with no damage. How you play is up to you but the options are there if you need them, and you probably will.
The visuals in Sigma Star Saga are intact from the original but upscaled a bit. The game looks a bit pixellated on a full-size TV but amazing on the Switch undocked. Anyone familiar with Wayforward is going to get exactly what they expect here. Psyme and Scarlet are both far too scantily clad for it to even make sense compared to every male character and that’s very much on brand here. There are even slow reveal body shots of questionable taste and a few scenes that have both slightly too mature and spectacularly immature romantic asides that are a bit odd. Wayforward has a penchant for large detailed sprites and they look great here with vibrant colors and creative designs though and this is a beautiful game.
Sadly, it’s not the best sounding game however because you’re constantly being dragged fout of exploration to fight, even with the lower encounter rate. Music abruptly shifts and the shmup music is wildly repetitive. Regular game music is decent but nothing special and since this is a GBA upgrade, there’s no voicework at all. We ended up turning the music down for this one and the sound effects also eventually became repetitive, especially in the shmup portions of the game. Sound and music are both perfectly serviceable here but there’s nothing special about either.
There are a few other failures in Sigma Star Saga DX as well. Top among these is the shmup design. It’s clever to have shmup combat pop up like a random battle in a turn-based RPG. Unfortunately, the more you play the game, the less fun these encounters become. Even with a wide variety of bullet patterns and modifiers available, most of the combinations aren’t all that effective and you’ll end up finding one or two that work really well and ignoring the rest. Being dragged away just as you’re trying to get to the next story point is irritating too and to have it happen for lackluster combat is just unpleasant.
You’ll also probably find the level design in the exploration portions of the game more than a bit weak as well. Most of your exploration consists of walking into a new screen, fighting the enemies that arrive, and then looking to see if there’s anything to do or if you should keep going. There are interaction points where you can use the various items you receive over the course of the game to open up new pathways, but there aren’t that many of them, so you won’t be using your Krill Boots or Scanner very often. The worst are the actual missions though. Planting a bunch of flares or looking for a box that’s just sitting there in a far away map point is just irritating. The tasks you’re given are not very engaging and you wander around a lot just trying to find the next point to go to without map indicators. These are the equivalent (and sometimes actually are) fetch quests that add nothing to the game itself. Exploration is decidedly thin on substance as a result and that’s a shame because there’s a lot of potential here.
There are a couple bonus items in Sigma Star Saga DX. From the menu screen you can access an art gallery that includes concept art as well as complete sprite libraries and maps of every planet with labeled locations, a definite bonus. There’s also a jukebox if you’re into the music from the game, but that’s definitely going to be a personal choice. It’s not that the tracks are bad, it’s just the way they’re used in the game. Regardless, your mileage may vary there. You can also change the borders and screen size of the game in the trigger menu in addition to saving, loading and resetting. You can save within the game as well, but this is much easier and faster. Some of the borders are kind of fun, but we ended up going with a full-screen 3:2 aspect ratio and no borders for this review. There’s even a How to Play tutorial included!
Sigma Star Saga DX is a mixed bag. On one hand, there are a host of improvements to saves and difficulty that improve on the original game, making it much more playable. On the other hand, some of the core issues with the game such as repetition in shmup fights and weak quests can’t really be fixed. Fortunately, the story is surprisingly fun even if it’s a bit cheesy here and there and it ends up carrying most of the weaker gameplay through all six chapters of the game. At $20, you’re getting pretty good value with that story and some moderately fun gameplay as well as a nostalgia boost if you’re a fan of older games. Wayforward fans will likely get a bit more mileage than others here because this feels like Space Shantae in some ways, but either way, it’s going to be up to you whether you feel like Sigma Star Saga DX is in your wheelhouse or not!
This review is based on a digital copy of Sigma Star Saga provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and played equally well on both. Sigma Star Saga DX is also available for Playstation and PC on Steam.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.