Sine Mora

I’m not a big fan of “shoot`em up” (“bullet hell”) games, as many of them tend to quickly get overly difficult and frustrating.

After having rather unsuccessful experiences with Luftrausers, Syder Arcade, Super Killer Hornet: Resurrection, or even the highly-praised Jamestown, I was pretty reticent when I decided to give Sine Mora a try. Anyway, I was eventually glad I did, even though Sine Mora comes with the same, typical gameplay concept as many other shoot-em up games on the market.

Sine Mora is a horizontal shoot'em up whose main advantages reside in other areas than the gameplay, in my opinion. One of them is the visuals. The graphics of this game are truly impressive, some of the best I’ve ever seen on a game of this type. 3D cinematics and other additional scenes that smoothly transition into the default 2D gameplay field represent just an example of how cool this game looks. The bosses also look intricate and interesting, and it’s obvious that a lot of time and effort has been put into the graphic style of this game. Simply put, the game is eyecandy in every little aspect.

There’s also a lot of variety and complexity when it comes to levels (backgrounds), enemies (bosses and not only), ships, and so on. This game successfully makes sure that boredom won’t get you easily. There’s always something new to see or to discover.

Even the gameplay has some interesting original elements, such as the health and progression system based on both time and checkpoints. The background sounds are also fitting, though I have a serious problem with the language spoken throughout the game, as Hungarian is not exactly something you hear a lot in games. Though original, it also made me lose a lot from the story, as I didn’t have the time to read the English subtitles so that I could figure out what the storyline is about.

Anyway, this is pretty much my only beef with Sine Mora. I really like the game, as it looks jaw-dropping and it comes with plenty of cool features. Even its name is cool and original, Sine Mora meaning “without delay” in Latin.