Lunar Ascendant

I am genuinely dissapointed by this game. I had great hopes it would be at least somewhat close to Suzeraine, but it fails on so many levels. I've played already the game almost 3 times, trying to just make sense of how the system and choice based consequences work. If for the very first few rounds you can still kinda make sense of it and the balance of resources vs choices is good - you still need to make sacrifices and need to be strategic repending on which route you want to take - by round 4-5 it just goes entirely bonkers. Resources are nowhere near what you'd need to make even the most basic choices, because the cost is extraordinarily inflated. There is no strategy here that can help youregardless of how you might try to gander to one side or the other, even when you go all in. Not to mention there's no way for a middle ground whatsoever. This game has some real potential but unles the dev goes back to the drawing board and makes some pretty hefty patches, this is unforunately a sellout.

Wasted potential. I was very hooked with the game for the first few rounds. The setting of a lunar colony and the premise were very interesting. However, after 4-5 rounds suddenly nothing matters anymore (I'm left with a lot of resources and nothing essential to spend it on) and the game changes from a political sim to some visual novel where all choices are bad and no decision I can take satisfies me, also the choices I made in the beginning don't seem to matter at all. Very frustrating, I quit before the end.

I wish it were better... even after the hotfixes, bugs are still evident; typos, grammatical errors and dialogue scenes abruptly ending. Quite a far cry from 'Suzerain', a noble attempt in imitation. I applaud the developers for their efforts, and hope the best in future endeavours. I can't help but feel rather frustrated and disappointed that a wonderful idea has fallen quite far from its mark, due to poor execution... Perhaps down the line, Lunar Ascendant will become better... it just doesn't seem believable that you're a 'Mayor', it just seems like a random selection of an individual... nevertheless fingers crossed there's always room for improvement.

I really wanted to like this game, I love Suzerain! and the Rizia DLC which is also great. So despite the mixed steam reviews I picked it up on the spring steam sale. I have played the game through a couple of times and made different choices along the way. However I found this game is nowhere near as polished as suzerain and feels more like an early access/demo rather than a finished game. it starts off pretty strong with multiple interesting story layers, characters that appear to have engaging depth of character and factions pulling in different directions but towards mid to late game I found myself jarred out of immersion multiple times with repeated lines of dialogue, responses from updates from projects or replies from characters that appeared to be replies to dialogue or decisions that had not been something I had selected. It left me feeling a lack of confidence that the choices I was making (the main mechanic to the game) where not having intended impact. Additionally I also found a couple of save files wouldn’t load properly meaning I would have to load an earlier save file. But I genuinely think I am pretty forgiving when it comes to bugs and hot fixes however my biggest issue is the game feels way too short. I find it abruptly ends (10 turns total) leaving me with the feeling of loose ends not being tied up to what I felt was going to be the slow build up to a climactic ending, key points of intrigue that were talked about, characters that I wanted to explore, interact with and a couple of characters I really wanted to deliver some righteous justice/karma to but I never got the chance to despite different reattempts with different choice selection. But If your looking for a game that will scratch that ‘suzerain’ itch I can’t recommend this game as it will leave you wanting. However if you love ‘choices matter games’ and need something to tide you over while we all wait for ‘The Conformist’ to be released😊I would recommend, that you try out: ‘The Succession of Changing Kings’ ‘Road Warden’ ‘Ixion’ ‘Heads will Roll Reforged’. ‘Citizen Sleeper’ 1 & 2 ‘Yes, Your grace’ 1 & 2 ‘Pentiment’ & ‘Ken Folletts - The Pillars of the Earth’

There have been seven hotfixes at the time of writing, and the overall quality of the game has greatly improved. No crashes or gamebreaking bugs in my most recent playthrough, but the last four turns need some additional polishing and content; they are noticeably weaker compared to the first few turns and become increasingly linear in presentation. The writing is quite good with several rough spots, especially in the later turns. Not as good as Suzerain, but there is room for improvement. After the devs polish off the game, I would recommend that they add more content to the later turns. More decisions, more conversations and interactions, more of everything, really.

If you were a fan of Suzerain, this one may be for you. While there was a rough release, there have been some consistent fixes over the week. The developers are actively fixing what they can, and are making the experience a better one for the people that have spent money on the game. This may be a turn off for some, but for me, this shows me that they are not letting the game die. I give them a LOT of credit for that.

The game's incomplete, late game turns have the game hallucinating things you have never done. Calling this game early access at its current state would be generous. Mechanical failures and the god-awful soundtrack of this game aside, I guess this game kinda scratches the Suzerain itch, just without any of the aesthetic or artistic polish. Many, many plot points of this game happen as one-offs and never get addressed down the line. Give this game a couple of years before buying.

It's like Suzerain, but boring and badly written. Cheap cash grab.