It's understandable why people would instantly compare this with Star Fox, the game that took on-rails space shooter to the next level back in the 90 's. But Star Horizon, despite being an on-rails shooter, controls and feels very different from Star Fox.

Star Horizon is a port of a mobile game, and was originally meant to be played with your finger on the screen, the ship itself works like an aiming reticule, so you need to have your ship aligned with the enemy to hit them, this, in the mobile phone, means you kinda have to hit the enemies with your finger, while in Star Fox the aiming reticule looks like it's far in front of your ship, in Star Horizon it feels like it's very close to your ship, so the ship moves instantly in relation to the aiming reticule, while in Star Fox, there's a visible delay and the ship is not always necessarily at the same spot on the screen where the reticule is.

Once you get that, you'll start enjoying this game for what it is, an on-rail shooter of it's own, and not just a Star Fox clone like you might have thought at first.

The thing is, while the main weapons are not very effective like in Star Fox, you have the secondary weapon called swarm rockets, guided projectiles that works kinda like the ones in panzer dragoon, and you don't need to lock on enemies, they follow automatically, this makes the game much more enjoyable and you'll rely on these more than the main weapon!

You also have the plasma rockets, a very strong guided shot that you need to lock on enemies, and need some time to be recharged before you can use it again, perfect for bosses.

You'll be graded after each mission and receive points based in your skills, you can then use these points to upgrade your ship between missions.

The story is silly, the choices you make between missions only changes some dialog during cut scenes or make you fight/avoid some boss fights. But the stages are always the same, in the same sequence, it's a very linear game, it's definitely not like Star Fox 64 with all those branching paths if that's what you're expecting, but it's fun nonetheless.

It's worth mentioning that the ship has an evasive maneuver, but honestly, it doesn't help at all, it's a barrel roll, but seems to serve no purpose other than being stylish, because it never seems to deflect any enemy shot.

On-rails space shooters are a rarity these days, we should thank the devs for trying to revive it! Star Horizon, although not perfect by any stretch, is a very good effort. If you like on-rail shooters check it out.