If a randomly generated, dungeon crawler game with Zelda, rogue-like, and SHMUP influences piques your interest, this is a game for you.

A.R.E.S. is a hard game to recommend. On one hand, it has great shooter elements, great art style, and good level design. Unfortunately, it's plagued with a fair share of problems that kept it from being great. It's very short (took me ~ 2.4 hours to beat), and while having a few reasons to replay, like getting a better ranking or trying to Perfect bosses, the game itself isn't fun enough to warrant the extra playthrough. The fun of the game is hampered by clunky movement, heavy jumping, and overly frustrating bosses (at times).

All in all though, the short playthrough was fun, and the ideas put forth were promising, I just can't recommend buying this at full price. However, as part of a pack or at a discounted price, I would definitely recommend it for a quick, fun, retro-style sidescrolling shooter bonanza, as long as you don't hate not being able to dodge bosses' attacks.