Ancient Frontier: Steel Shadows

Ancient Frontier: Steel Shadows builds off of its predecessor as another entertaining strategy space game. As before the series draw is the myriad options for building up the perfect flight roster in order to tackle the next challenge. Strategy mainly comes from deciding on which ships to purchase and enhance, but improvements always come with a cost. Just upgrading everything can often lead to only being able to bring one or two ships into a critical mission, so choices must be made wisely and planning for future missions should always be taken into account as resources for deploying ships can run out. The game has a nice polished feel to it with smooth animations, a rotatable playing map, options for varying difficulties, and an enjoyable rock soundtrack. There is also an option to play with a save game mode or an "every mistake counts" mode depending on how hardcore you want the game to get. All in all this is a nice little space strategy diversion that can really draw you in and keep you playing for hours at a time.

I own the first Ancient Frontier, which is a good game, but so far I am enjoying this one more across the board. The RPG-like aspects are fun, the little random events are a nice touch, and the missions are enjoyable. Good soundtrack. Enthusiastic recommend. Only thing I've noticed so far that's not quite right is some funky behavior with switching into windowed mode.

This is a follow-on campaign to the first game, Ancient Frontier, and is just as good as the first one. I don't have as many hours in it, as I got distracted when Total War - War Hammer II came out, but plan to revisit it. Below is my review of the first one: Ancient Frontier: Great tactics game along the line of Panzer General. It is 2d in space, but actually I prefer that, makes it a little more simple. The graphics are very nice, and the voice acting is great. The User Interface is very clean and easy to use. The tutorial is one of the best I have ever experienced. If you liked Panzer General but hated Space General as it was too boring, this is a much better version of Space General. It has RPG elements, it allows you to do research to tech and ships, upgrade ships, purchase ships, officers, upgrades, etc. You have to manage and balance the use of 3 elements (metal, energy, data) which are used to purchase everything and to launch ships during missions. There are 3 types of missions, story missions continue the plot (get both experience and resources and occasionally depending on how you answer questions, etc., a free mercenary or hero ship), bounty missions (get both experience and resources) and experience missions (get experience but no resources). There are many hours of replaying the two campaigns just to try different strategies. There are 3 levels of ships and 2-3 types of ships per level: Fighters (light and heavy), Escorts (Corvettes and Frigates), and Capital Ships (Destroyers, Battleships, etc.). 5 stars all the way. And a newer version just came out, but play this one first and then play the other one so you follow the story line. Great games!

I must admit I missed out on the original Ancient Frontier, however I will now be revisiting this game. This is a turn-based RPG and is stand alone to the original game so you don't need to own that which I like! I think that was a good mix by the developer. I liked the graphics even though they are a little basic they function well for the type of game it is, gives it that table top game feel which I enjoyed. Sound design is decent and the AI seems to function well. Also, I liked the way the turn-based gameplay is random and shows you which units will move that turn so you can plan accordingly. I would like the tutorial to be a bit more interesting as I skipped it much to my cost I think the first mission could have been the tutorial. Games like this the tutorial is so important and to present it the way they did isn't to everyone’s tastes. If you are into turn-based games and space combat you could do a lot worse, asking price is spot on and you'll have fun, I am going to keep playing. I recorded my first gameplay impressions below if you want to check out what you are getting into. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je7ddTHq7AY

Another fun turn-based space combat sim from this indie developer. If you enjoyed the first you'll enjoy this one too. If you never played the first this is a completely stand-alone sequel that you can jump right into. The turn-based combat requires a decent amount of strategy on building up your ships and their assigned abilities to make it far in the campaign. There are also 3 difficulty settings and an ironman or save game mode to choose from. Customization is really the defining factor in this game as it is all about choosing which ships to buy, which equipment to install, and which crew members to assign each with their advantages and disadvantages. Whether you are a fan of the turn-based space sim game or a first time player it is an easy game to get into.

Nice follow up to the first one. Cool space strategy game, pretty involved choices for building up a fleet. Pretty good difficulty level, there are different options to set game to. Yes, would recommend this game.

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I've really enjoyed this sequel to Ancient Frontier, and it's a great game even if you haven't played the original. It's easy to jump right into this turn based strategy game and I like the ability to choose from the different missions. The story lines are interesting, the graphics are detailed and the gameplay is enhanced by the music and sound effects. I like that there are different levels of difficulty to choose from, so there is a lot to offer both beginners and advanced players.

I am really enjoying playing this standalone tactical rpg! It is an expansion, but you don't need to purchase the original to get this one. Their is a lot of customization that you can do with your ships. You can purchase upgrades with resources you can either acquire as quest rewards, or picking them up as they are scattered throughout the battlegrounds. You can also equip your ships with special crew members, that have unique stat increases. In the combat, you have flexibility in how you want to complete a ships turn. Each ship/squadron has varying levels of move or attack points for that particular turn, and each ability will cost you a point, depending on what it is. The graphics and 3D modeling are top notch, and really enjoy the zoom in which happens randomly so you can see the detail in action! The voice acting is also very good, and helps bring these characters to life. I am interested to see how this story is going to turn out!

Do not waste your money on this "game". Crush after crush. Totally unbalanced. Compared to the presented level of graph it's to resources-devouring.