Cleared on May 2nd, 2024

First of all, this review or even my knowledge of the game would not have been possible without @duhnuhnuh. You’re really generous for gifting the steam key gift.

Strikey Sisters is a fantastical and energetic take on a genre of block breakers that is so simple that even a middle schooler with Scratch could develop. Instead of a paddle, you have magicians swinging magic balls, clearing blocks and taking on enemies and bosses on a quest to get their pet bat back.

Surprisingly, the game not only has a premise, but also cutscenes and even voice acting. The bad news is that my feelings are very mixed. It’s not that I have a problem with an Arkanoid/Breakout style game having a story or anything, it’s designed to be a comedy that doesn’t take itself too seriously which makes it good for chuckles in-between stages or more specifically before a boss fight begins, and I did get some amusement here and there. The problem is that the main leads can feel very predictable and repetitive after a while. Marie is a diet Lina Inverse where she’s brash and rude with a pursuit of luxury and a confident magician attitude. The problem is that some of her jokes feel kinda mean and she’s just picking fights for no reason other than just because. Though to be fair, Elene tries to be polite to the bosses, and still ends up rubbing some of them the wrong way. As for Elene, she whines a lot. I know she’s concerned about her pet, but they could have cut it down by half, and we’d have still got the point of how over-sensitive she is. The rest of the characters consist of the bosses which have one scene and a few lines of dialogue during boss fights. This makes them fairly one note although you may remember a few for very bizarre reasons such as that one monster that name dropped Monsters Inc. No, not some parody of the movie, but Monsters Inc. straight up. To further drive home that point, in the credits, we have Mike and Sully watching the movie with the monster in question. And moments later, on an unrelated note, we could see another boss with… Wile.E Coyote… huh? Monsters Inc I guess I get since they are monsters, but the hell does Wile.E have to do with Strikey Sisters? I hope the royalties they have to pay are worth the joke. The biggest problem I have with the story is that some of the cutscenes take a bit too long, and it wouldn’t be such a problem if some of the dialogue didn’t feel deliberately padding.

The voice acting is something else I should bring attention to, and depending on your standards for voice acting, you might either think it's fine or really grating. As someone who watches anime exclusively with English audio, I’m definitely on the side that thinks it's fine. It’s very amateur, but it does have charm to it. Even though I kinda ragged on Marie, her voice actress wasn’t too bad, and I even thought she was voiced by Sarah Wiedenheft at first because of how similar they sounded. Omri Rose voiced all of the male characters, and he did a good job making me convinced there was at least one or two other male actors involved.

As for the game itself, it takes the usual block breaker genre routine and puts a lot more action into it. Each level has enemies that will stand in your way of clearing all the blocks with means of trying to mess with you. You have enemies that will try to waste your time with defensive tactics while others will try to attack your character directly either through melee approach or through projectiles. They are well varied which means you’ll need to take note of what they do and strategize accordingly, and luckily you have your own arsenal of skills to help you. You can not only bump the ball with your body, but you can swing your sword at the ball to increase its speed and width in which you are able to hit the ball, and it's also useful for enemies that get too close or to just block projectiles. You can even charge the attack to launch the ball faster and give it enough force to take down a block in one hit when it would take two, and it does more damage to enemies and deflects projectiles. In addition, you have spells and buffs which drop off of enemies and you’ll need to pick up as it heads toward you. Here’s my ranking from least useful to most useful.

Slow Ball can be usable in more frantic scenarios where you need better reaction time, and allow you to better aim your swing at the ball. The thing is, it doesn’t always come at the best time which slows the pacing of the game, and even contributes to an issue that I have with all block breaker games. That one moment where the ball is just bouncing around the field making no progress while you slowly wait it out like the DvD logo bouncing around the screen. If you could actually control when you activate it, it would be so much better.
Fireball is one of those “better that you have than you don’t” power ups where it's nice to have, but it isn’t always practical. When it bounces around, it leaves trails of fire that when touched, will damage the enemies. The issue is that it only works on grounded enemies, and if you accidentally get it while Iron Ball is active, it overrides the buff.
Monster Trap is another “better than you have than you don’t” spells except it's more useful in that it lasts indefinitely which means that the chances of them landing on it are better than Fireball flames, but the positioning of the traps are randomized and monsters move so slow that you might end up taking them down already before they can get close to the traps.
Lightning is a nice spell to have for randomized damage across the board, but the downside besides its randomness is that it can make 100% runs more difficult if you aren’t careful. You don’t have to collect all of the coins that come out of the blocks, but you do need to collect at least 60% of the coins for the green gems, and sometimes 70% for hidden levels.
Speed is a good power up for covering more ground, especially in single player mode where the board distance feels much wider, but very few times has it ever come in clutch for me.
Spread Shot gives you more controlled damage compared to Lightning, but it only hits four targets and sometimes may not land where you intend to, at least concerning narrow spaces.
Double Ball is a great power up to have, and it's easier to maintain in this game compared to others in the genre. It still takes a bit of skill, but it does synergize really well with the other ball power ups. Even Slow Ball since it gives you more time to react.
Bombs are launched towards all enemies on the field, and after a few seconds detonates and blow them up. Generally, they can avoid it just by getting out of the way, but most of the time, they would be too slow and get hit.
Dark flame gives you more controlled damage in a straight line and pierces through all blocks and enemies. It is very useful for harder to reach blocks and if positioned well can take down up to two columns of blocks.
Both Shield and Chicken give you extra protection and healing which is insanely invaluable as you only have three lives before you have to start the level from the beginning. Not much to say there.
Iron Ball is the ultimate power up and should be acquired with every chance possible. It will go right through blocks, allowing you to speedrun levels. It doesn't always swing in your favor, but at least early on in each level, you are bound to gain some value out of it.

And you’re really going to need these powers because the game is hard. It does translate the level progression format better than pinball games when they try to adopt the idea, but this is a game where you bounce balls on bricks, so precision, foresight, and even luck play a hand in the game. Not only can certain layouts be a real pain, such as when blocks are behind multiple pillars, but some enemies can be difficult in their own right. The hardest ones are the set of enemies during the final area and the mechanical area. There are units that take a lot more damage than normal and explode if they get close enough, there are units that burrow underground and strike with little warning unless you keep moving to avoid the attack in advance, and there are units that will shoot faster than you can block with your swings. The worst part is that oftentimes these harder enemies will force you at a major positional disadvantage. If they attack while the ball is heading in your direction, you may not be able to deflect the ball at the risk of taking damage, and of course, let’s not forget the accuracy of your shots when dealing with enemies will not go in your favor, and they may be positioned to where it’s even harder to hit them and they will infinitely spawn until you clear the blocks or in the case of the boss, until you defeat them.

The bosses are really difficult. Well, a good majority of them, anyway. What many of them have in common is that you cannot hit them up front as they will deflect your shots and need to hit them from the side or back, or with a spell which is a tall order as is, but combine that with all the blocks and enemies in your way, not to mention a barrage of attacks you need to worry about. Get comfortable because it’s gonna take awhile. That said, most of the bosses have only two attacks and one enemy type to worry about, but those attacks may be enough to give you serious trouble such as the succubus that can teleport to you and strike which will force you in a very bad position. My favorite fight in the game is Erin, the policewoman as she is the only boss fight (maybe aside from both phases of the final boss combined) with four attacks and for some reason uses one of the final boss themes as if she was meant to be a superboss (when in reality she’s one of the easier fights from what I remember)

The soundtrack adds to the game’s enjoyment with each zone having its own theme, and the upbeat tune really blends well with the world and its cute artstyle and colorful pixelated graphics. Some highlights include Valdia’s Theme, Elysaid’s Theme, Odavius’ Theme, Lord Vanik’s Hideout, and all of the boss themes.

And when you’re done with the game, there are a bunch of extra levels that you can do, and while I’ve yet to do all of them, I think I’ve played enough of the game to give my assessment.

TL;DR: Strikey Sisters is a great way to experience block breaking to make it more dynamic while minimizing the inherent repetitiveness. Instead of keeping you engaged for maybe 3 rounds at most, it can keep you engaged for over 60 levels with its enemy variety, powerful spells in your arsenal, and the pursuit of mastery through collection of green gems and filling in the bestiary. It took me 7 hours to clear the main game, but I imagine that it’ll take me more time just to clear the extra levels with all 3 stars each. If you see this game on sale, it might be worth looking into, and there’s no harm in keeping it in your storage since it only has 60 megabytes.