FTL: Faster Than Light

One of my favourite games ever, I've been playing a pirated version since like 2013

simple but harsh game. Easy to die...but easy to restart and learn from those mistakes. Good depth despite as well as being easy to master

FTL is hard, and FTL is great. The most apt way I can describe it is a cross between HighFleet and Rimworld, with the better aspects from each kept and most of the frustrating parts discarded. You play as the ragtag spacefaring Federation crew of the USS Boaty McBoatface as you travel across the galaxy while being chased by the xenophobic space racist Rebels trying to stop you, all while defending against pirates, slavers, asteroid fields, and so on. You fight other ships, you scrap them for parts, you upgrade your ship, and you continue until you either reach the Federation base to deliver your valuable data or die in the attempt. Most likely, you will die in the attempt. There are many weapons to use, some being better than others. There are systems you can install to enhance particular aspects of your ship or give you an advantage in random events. In combat, you are free to aim at whatever system you'd like. Do you attack the shields to open them up to a beam attack for massive damage? Do you attack weapons to buy yourself time to jump away? Or attack their engine and navigation to prevent them from jumping away themselves and alerting the rebel fleet? Do you attack O2 and suffocate them? You have options, and they will all be useful at different times. You start out with only one ship available, and as you play more you will unlock more ships for subsequent runs, each of which comes with different crew members, different utilities, and different weaknesses. Your crew will do exactly what you tell them to do, so you get a good degree of micromanagement in how to best allocate them. Sometimes your opponents will teleport onto your ship, forcing you to engage in hand to hand combat and potentially lose crew members if you're not prepared to defend yourself, and especially if you don't have a full crew roster at most times. People say that the game appears to often send the exact ship type that counters your ship to fight you, and I can't say for sure whether that's true or not, but I think these people have it wrong. I think that most players only really [i]remember[/i] when they go against a ship that counters the particular playstyle of their own ship. When you're doing just fine you don't notice, but the second you get unlucky and start taking damage, well, you're gonna dwell on that for a while. The game is throwing a whole bunch of things at you and if something sticks it sticks. Hence it is prudent to generalize and not put all of your eggs in one basket. Is FTL hard? I would say it's difficult but manageable. You will get better the more you play. Easy mode took me a few runs to beat, and now I'm working on Normal. I can't imagine what Hard is like. From what I've read online no run is guaranteed even among the best FTL players on Hard. But it's fun to try, even when you lose horribly. I don't normally comment on music in games, but the FTL soundtrack goes hard. I bought it through Steam and it's only MP3s, but I like it enough to the point I might pick it up on Bandcamp just to support the composer more and get higher quality FLACs. The new Advanced Edition music is on BC as well for the low low price of free (!) including Hacking Malfunction, the best track, bar none. In summary, buy FTL. It is a reasonably priced game with a good scope, tons of things to do, a core gameplay loop that's simple to learn but hard to master, and a killer soundtrack. What more could you want? Not to mention the FTL Multiverse mod and the tons of brand new content and events that adds. I'd buy FTL again, even off sale.