Review – Star of Providence

We’ve seen a lot of games like Star of Providence in the Nintendo Switch’s lifespan. Buzzwords like “roguelite,” “top-down,” “dungeon-crawler,” and “twin-stick shooter” are all commonalities when it comes to a listing on the hybrid console’s eShop. Some have been legitimate hits like Enter The Gungeon and Nuclear Throne. Others have been doomed to hidden gem status or, at worst, deemed derivative shovelware. 

Star of Providence isn’t the latter. It’s actually one of the Switch’s best examples of the roguelite genre and a great arcade-style twin-stick dungeon crawler. The game has seen a few iterations with it originally being put online in 2017 under the name “Monolith.” The long journey of content updates, rebranding, and nailing a publisher in videogamedunkey’s BIGMODE has led us to 2025 where Star of Providence has found its most logical home: the Nintendo Switch. 

The developers, Team D-13, have been credited with working on some stunning indie titles, namely narrative shoot-em-up masterpiece ZeroGunner and even Toby Fox’s Deltarune. They’re experienced bullet pattern commissioners and that’s abundantly clear when hopping into a run of Star of Providence. 

 

 

While Star of Providence isn’t quite as narratively-driven as ZeroGunner, it frames the action quite well. The world has faced a colossal devastation and humanity has been wiped out. Years later, you, a spaceship, are descending deeper into an industrial facility, the dual-towered skyscraper that gets blown up at the beginning of the game, looking for the source of Power Eternal. 

Guiding the spaceship into a room yields anywhere from one to 15 enemies and 15 sure can feel like 500 when there’s a hail of bullets covering the screen. This bullet hell assault is well-treaded ground by now, sure. What Star of Providence provides that has kept me wanting to keep playing it its fantastic atmosphere. The combination of a gritty pixelated NES “space” primary color palette mixed with industrial overtones and spooky enemies is quite unique. Combine that with the Game Boy-reminiscent vertical aspect ratio and this is one heck of an intriguing game just from its locale alone. 

 

 

Star of Providence is run-based. You navigate five floors of randomly generated room seeds (of which there is over 2,000!), blasting enemies, looking for better weapons than your default pea shooter, avoiding traps, acquiring upgrades and modifiers, hitting shops, and destroying sealed enemies to unlock the boss door. There is nuance in how you navigate each floor thanks to some unique additions to the formula. Gold keys can grant you access to locked rooms. Green doors and terminals can be hacked open by succeeding in a set WarioWare-style microgames. Otherwise impenetrable walls can be destroyed with specific bomb types or a digging mechanism. While Star of Providence is a bullet hell roguelike first, it doesn’t forget its roots in Legend of Zelda-style dungeon crawling and the kinds of secrets that come with it. In that way, it reminded me a little of last year’s Mini Shoot Adventures (which would also be a perfect fit for Switch!).

Destroying the same five enemies over and over again gets old, especially when you can only shoot and dodge. This is not an issue in Star of Providence because there is a wealth of 120 enemy types, and this is where the game especially shines. Your little spaceship will fight ghosts, monks, bats, sorcerers, floating skulls, and all manner of haunted ghouls in addition to mechanized drones. The game isn’t afraid to get Lovecraftian either. The mini-bosses are numerous and you’ll fight a different one at random each time. Bosses are even more impressive, screen-filling and life-ending threats with multiple phases and a real creepy Metroid vibe. One of which even reminded me of the O2 fight in Kirby And The Crystal Shards. Say what you will, but Kirby nails surprisingly dark boss designs. Glad to see its nightmare fuel carry on here. 

 

 

I mentioned nuance in Star of Providence’s variety, so let me describe its weapon system. It’s quite staggering really. There are about 15 weapon types ranging from lasers to swords, to repulsers — but where this gets interesting is in the Keyword system. Each weapon has a base form but Keywords provide the depth to their abilities. When picking up a new weapon, its name will be listed along with traits like “Freeze,” “Triple,” “Chain lightning,” “Phasing,” etc. These are randomly-generated and will be different each time. It’s actually possible to pick up a fireball that freezes enemies with ice properties! You can really get into the weeds with these Keywords as there are over 1,500 of them and really keeps finding new weapons interesting. 

When you die in a Star of Providence run (and you will), you get sent back to a decorative hub area that features a snarky, mysterious cat named Kleines. He’s the primary source of lore found in the game and also the shopkeeper that sells you any weapons or perks you may unlock along the way. He also likes to randomly perch himself on top of upgrade furnaces in your runs, just like your real life cat probably would. Other friends (enemies?) you meet along the way can also gather here, leading to some hilarious exchanges. One skull enemy talks to you about being traumatized from blowing up randomly before proceeding to do just that. 

 

 

So, this is a hard game. If you’re good at it, a run only takes about half an hour so it has the illusion of respecting your time. Then you realize clearing one run is only the beginning and you want to see more, for some reason. It’s the random Dune worm that comes crashing through the walls. The sheer variety of mini bosses, bosses and enemies to fight. The unlockable ships that play differently. The volcanic walls that are seemingly unbreakable. It’s the handheld game cartridges you can find. A standard run is often full of surprises and the spelunking objective lends itself well to a mysterious locale. How about the game’s music slowing down and pitching itself down when you end up underwater? The candles everywhere? Star of Providence revels in the small details and the minute details. I once finished a run with a laser that could wrap back around the opposite walls of the room I was in to backstab enemies. That was just the type of cool weapon pick-up that has kept me coming back to the best roguelites. 

If you like Spelunky, Xenocrisis, or Enter The Gungeon, you’d do well to check out Star of Providence. If you’re a regular shoot-em-up gamer and looking for score chasing, have at it with the multiplier system that is encouraged by frequently switching out weapons. If you liked Animal Well and find yourself longing for another interesting environment to be drawn into, you’ll appreciate the look, secrets and mysterious locale. Either way, BIGMODE is wise to publish this as their second game. Just prepare to die many, many deaths to a knight with a fire mace or two. Now on your Nintendo Switch. 

 

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