Hyper Sentinel is a retro arcade style shoot ‘em up from Four5six Pixel and Huey Games that is very reminiscent of the C64 days, and that you can check out on PS4. Learn more about it in our Hyper Sentinel review!

 

I had a C64 way back in the day, and as soon as I booted up Hyper Sentinel I was taken back to that time, and even the gameplay reminded me of some of the C64 classics. I suppose you could call Hyper Sentinel a love letter to the C64, with its art style, soundtrack, and gameplay mechanics.

Arcade is the beefy part of the game, and in this mode your objective is to fly your spaceship, dodging the enemy’s fire as you destroy all the components of a massive ship. You need to quickly react as the ship will fire off many different projectiles as on this overhead 2D shoot ‘em up. You can turn your spaceship around, or you can allow the blue lines to bounce you back as you take on increasingly harder stages.

At the end of every level, there are boss battles. The bosses are known as Guardians, and while the earlier Guardians pose little threat, as you progress in the game you will get to battle tougher and deadlier Guardians who are out for blood. If you play on the higher difficulty settings, then the boss battles will become absolutely insane as you try to stay alive while dodging everything they throw at you.

 

There are slew power-ups to collect as you fly around. Some will increase your firepower, others will recharge your shield, and there are also medkits that can restore your health little by little. Beating levels within a time limit will earn you medals, and for a Platinum run you need to earn medals for every available difficulty, so there is a decent challenge and some extra replayability in this one.

Some players may think that the game is a little short on content which only 12 levels across the entire game, but this being an arcade-style shoot ‘em up release, the amount of content feels right. Along with the Arcade mode, there is also a Survival mode in which you need to survive wave after wave of enemies. There is also a Boss mode which is what we’re used to seeing as Boss Rush in other games, in which you take on the game’s bosses.

While controls are simple and easy to understand, you will need quick reflexes and an almost Zen-like state of mind to overcome the challenges. And as I mentioned before, medals are also a big part of the experience. There are five medals per stage, and to get them all you will need to finish a stage within a specific time limit, destroy certain parts of enemies, and more, so you will probably have to replay some stages to be able to secure all available medals.

Hyper Sentinel allows you to toggle between C64 and Spectrum visuals, which is something I got a kick out of since I owned those two gaming platforms way back when. While the Spectrum option looks nice, I do believe this game looks and feels its best under the C64 option – still great for the team to have included the option for the good Speccy!

Hyper Sentinel is a fun arcade release on PlayStation 4 that offers more than enough content for its asking price. With Arcade, Survival and Boss modes, as well as the many trophies tied to them, there is plenty to do with this homage to the good old days of the C64. Go check it out!

Disclaimer
This Hyper Sentinel review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by Huey Games.