Good, but not good enough
This game had a lot of good things going for it, but before I address them I have to point out some of the very fundamental flaws I encountered.
First of all, the lack of animation was horrendous; I was very bothered by bosses like the Ice Dragon having absolutely no kinetic motion, and just being a picture of a dragon floating around the screen. This issue was uniform with all ofthe other bosses as well. They lazily drifted around the screen firing their weapons, but their guns never moved to point at the player, they never really angled themselves, and they simply weren't very visually impressive. However, I find that to be completely forgivable. The real isue with the animation is the lack of STORY animation, with the entire arc of the game playing out completely in text. The cutscenes, which often portrayed important and exhilirating events were never more than two character portraits opposite one another on the screen, unmoving. I was extremely bothered by the copious times throughout the game when something would appear in italicized text like "The battle played out, the cannon ripped through the shields, a giant wormhole appeared, etc." Without the player ever seeing this take place. Yes, the story was good, but this isn't a novel, it's a flash game, and I really expected it to be more than text. The lack of story animation seemed to drain the story, and often I was eager to skip through dialogue that wasn't key to the plot. Unlike the lack of enemy animation, this one is not forgivable, and really ticked me off.
The second fundamental flaw is repetition. During the first few levels on Home Planet I was impressed with the environments; an underwater level, a city level, an asteroid field, the game was full of variety! But even in the early stages of the game I couldn't help but notice that the same music track was repeated throughout all of the zones. I thought of super mario, and the distinct music that accompanied the undeground levels, the water levels, bowser's castle, and how much they added to the game, but in Starwish, the one track that existed throughout the main gameplay levels got very stale. As I progressed in the game I became bewildered with the more extensive recycling. Another city level, with the same boss, another forest level, with the same boss, and just like that, the awe I had experienced from the vastly different environments was gone. I also couldn't help but notice that throughout the entire game the base enemies never really changed. After only a few levels, I had seen every single non-boss enemy that I would see for its remainder, the mines, the ground cannons, the drones... It seemed that with a few small exceptions the enemies were irrelevant to their environment as well, and for the most part I saw the same array of foes underwater as I did in the acid swamp. Again, I was very ticked off. The only that makes this forgivable is the wonderful amount of variety found in the weapons and the wonderful ability to buy modulators and level and really make the game your own; I was very puzzled that part of the game could have such unique and nonlinear aspects while the main levels became so dull and repetitive.
I believe the key issue here is laziness, which everything can boil down to. You could have put animation in, but didn't; you could have made new enemies, but didn't, and you could have had a unique environment and unique boss for every single zone, but you just didn't do it.
My final grievance before I can get on to saying some nice things is how the levels related to the story. After the dramatic arrival of the firebolt on enigma, the cutscene ended with the dilemma of having 4 days to evacuate the planet. Then, the next mission was just killing a bunch of enemies and the recycled Monolith boss in a ruin level, after which the plot advanced. That left me thinking, "What the hell did what I just do with my ship have anything to do with the plot?". Like so many other things, I was ticked off.
I have some more things to say but I'm out of room; message me for more.