Walking into your grandpa's cabin in the woods will surely be fine, right? There'll be now eldritch horrors from beyond the void to encounter. For some reason you know magic and can cast while strafing, I'm sure it will all be totally fine and safe.

I kinda adore these little twin-stick shooter games. This one presents a big "Unity Personal" banner when it starts, showing off the era of that engine and the small team size. Surprisingly for a unity game, it didn't run super terribly. Props to the devs for knowing how to use the engine! I've seen large studios fail at this.

Razenroth's story is basic. You play Charles Carter, a name made from two Lovecraftian stories. Grandpa has gone missing so you head to the cabin in the woods where you find a note: Charles Run.

You don't run though. Charles has some magical aptitude and instead decides to blast the horrors that start appearing, intended to find out just where you grandpa ended up. A quick low damage primary weapon, and a slower secondary tied to a mana pool. These are your tools until you find something better.

Unfortunately...

I constantly felt too underpowered. While the controls are reasonably responsive, Charles almost always feels like his is not doing enough damage.
Either I should be avoiding everything and treating this like a survival game, or I need a little more grunt. A little more oomph. A little more shooting Cthulhu's meatballs in the face.

Items occasionally drop from the mobs for you to equip. There's no backpack inventory, so running into a drop will swap out the current comparable item for you automatically. It lead to more than a few cases of running back and forth into them to compare and decide on stats. This is worsened with the eventual shops found in the maps or after bosses, as you're trained to buy and test rather than hover the mouse cursor over the shop item. It's a small UI/UX thing that you do get use to eventually, but the whole thing needs more polish.

However each new item is weak, the damage adjustments barely being noticeable. In fact, the only one I did see a real change on was for the walking speed.
I did eventually get a slow-recharge super secondary attack power to swap out with. It made taking on the enemies much easier (though far slower). However on the eventual level boss fight I was still only scratching it.
This may the case with individual bosses. Some tank damage better than others. Some bosses also have attacks that are outright devastating to the player, and make the RNG involved in what one you get rather cruel.

Throughout each run you slowly accumulate coins you can convert into special objects to start upgrading your cabin. These upgrades persist over each run, slowly making the game a little easier. Options such as setting your health to full with each level do go a long way to making each start and easier one, though it is a real grind to get there.

I also didn't see any visual upgrades for the ones I unlocked and activated. A tiny little cosmetic would have been nice to see. Alas, your cabin is the same each time. At least as far as I got with it.

There's no inventory stockpiile, though you can unlock options to start with potentially better equipment.

Thankfully equipping stuff on Charles does change his visual appearance. Shoulderpads and capes stand right out. And weapons do have a visual difference when launching towards their foes. I was delighted to hear a pew-pew sound when I found a (weak) laser and started using it. A laser needs to go pew-pew, unless it is a big honking laser than I need a BAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZOW! sound.

I would have liked to see the devs put a little more work into this one. It showed a lot of promise, but does not quite make it there. It's not bad for $7.50 Ausbux, and worth a look if you like the theme and genre from indies. I'll probably play a few more rounds and call it quits.

Game Acquisition: Bundle Stars (Neon)
Platform Used: Steam
Bluesky Threads: 1 - 26 April 2025
PC Used: Scorptec Master-RTX2070 2019 MK1

OS : Microsoft® Windows® XP / Vista / 7 / 8
Processor: Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.20 Ghz
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: 512 MB, Shader Model 3.0 (GeForce 9600GT or greater)
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 1500 MB available space
Sound Card: Compatible with DirectX®: 9.0c
Additional Notes: keyboard and mouse required