Oh man. Where to even begin with this one? Yet another game that came completely by surprise and has truly shocked me with just how much there is to it.
On paper the concept sounds simple enough. You have a starmap, and like in FTL, you need to get from the left side, to the right, where some sort of boss encounter awaits you. Defeat that in order to win. But the similarities to FTL end there. Where FTL was a rather simple, quick affair, this game is incredibly complicated and will make for very long runs.
Firstly, there is so.... much.... content. So freaking much. And so many different interlocking mechanics. It seems so incredibly daunting at first. I mean, just look at those screenshots on the store page here. No matter which one you are looking at, it has SO MANY THINGS on it. A bazillion icons and tabs and stats and who knows what. And every one of them matters somehow. Heck, there's enough stuff to fill up a 125-page manual, which the game does in fact have. Fortunately, I found that the tutorial did an absolutely fantastic job of teaching the game. It didnt take long before everything clicked, and I felt like I knew what I was doing, despite the incredible amount of complexity here.
You start out by selecting a race. There are 45 of them! But you'll only have a few unlocked at the beginning. You'll also choose a few "artifacts" to bring in, which are the closest things to roguelike "power items" you'll find here. Things with semi-global effects depending on which type of thing you are doing at the time. One might affect your fleet, another might be for your planet landers. You can bring a few with you right at the start, and you'll be able to gain more during the run.
And "gaining more" is really the name of the game here. The final encounter of each run is powerful. And your starting fleet of 5 sad little ships is not enough. You need to build up your resources, get more and better ships, equip them with powerful gizmos, and so on. This is quite the process. There are ALOT of things that you need to do if you want to win here.
Some of these tasks are actually done via minigames, and this is where the game is going to start feeling like something out of the 90s. Most of the minigames are simple things. When you're plowing through an asteroid field in search of power crystals (one of the things needed for ship upgrades), you'll be in a sort of "shmup mode", however it's the sort of restricted-movement sort that was actually quite common on PCs way back when, where you can only move left and right, not in all directions. That's just one type of minigame... there are a whole bunch of them. Generally, each one is completed in about 15-20 seconds... they dont overstay their welcome. The exception is the planet lander bit. Ever played Starflight? If you have, you'll recognize that bit here. You take your lander down to the planet's surface, and crawl around, avoiding hazards, looking for resources, and occaisionally stunning alien life-forms to bring back with you for research. It feels ALOT like the lander sequences from Starflight. Though, quite alot of the stuff in the game feels like it's from Starflight.
Now, these minigames arent random or anything. They're very dependant on what you're doing. Go into a nebula, and you'll do the "shoot at the lightning" game. Aiding a distressed ship will take you into the boarding party sequence. Each of these different things serves some individual purpose, and making choices on where to go and what to do is a big part of it. You do have a time limit, of sorts, though it's *very* generous. Your interstellar enemies, though, will also start researching and building newer and bigger ships over time, so you want to try to play at least somewhat efficiently. However, the most common minigame you'll be doing is the planet lander one. There are ALOT of planets and alot of reasons to drop down and explore them. Did I mention that this bit feels taken directly from Starflight? I love it.
It sure isnt all just minigames though. The minigames are just there to add an element of skill to things... so you're not clicking on an asteroid field or something and getting items based on a roll of the dice. They also break up the pacing nicely, keeping the game that much more engaging. The real meat of the game though is everything else. There is so much to this. This is one of those games that the word "deep" was made for. There is ALOT of strategy here, alot of thinking to be done, alot of problems to be solved and decisions to be made, in an absolutely gigantic game with an incredible amount of content (and more to come). Minigames aside, this game is definitely a cerebral pursuit.
The combat in particular shows this off. Combat is not a "minigame". It's a fully tactical experience, in a "pausable real-time" sort. Your fleet, VS the enemy fleet (each can have up to 10 ships). There are many different ship classes, and WAY too many different ships overall (each of those 4 bazillion races has their own set!). Each individual ship has different stats, different weapon types, different ship/bay modules to equip, and this all comes together in the fantastic combat system. It's very hard to explain how it works... and it's probably the most daunting part of an already daunting game... but "tactical" really is the key word here. You'll be choosing when to use weapons and special abilities, flanking enemies, setting movement paths (not just for your ships, but for fighters or guided missils that you may launch), and there's even a "crew" mechanic. Each ship has it's own crew, and incoming damage doesnt just knock off armor, but can also damage the crew as well. Some ship abilities are specifically designed to do just that, too. Eliminate a ship's crew instead of destroying it, and it becomes disabled. This is not an easy task and takes some careful planning to accomplish, but if you can do it, you can either dismantle the ship for research points or boatloads of credits afterwards, or add it to your own fleet if you have an open slot.
Not that that's the only way to get more ships. You can interact with the other races in the sector, and perhaps buy ships/upgrades from them. There are also all sorts of different types of space stations and civilian outposts to visit, each with it's own unique service it can perform, and even pirate outposts to attack. There are so many types of locations and events to be found that it can be a little overwhelming. Same with the sheer amount of different stats that you have to manage, and so on. But these things never really feel like they're too much. They're presented in an easy to understand way (even if the interface is bloody strange sometimes), and despite the constant barrage of numbers and stats, I've never really had any "I dont get it" moments. I might be overwhelmed with sheer choice sometimes, but that's a good thing in this type of game. It also means that there are tons and tons of ways to approach the run as a whole, and you can constantly adapt your strategy as you go. It gives tons of room for experimentation and improvisation. And while there is a time limit, I meant it when I said it was really generous. You have PLENTY of time to do lots of backtracking as you see fit. The time limit is more of a thing that affects your final score, rather than being there to kill you.
Not that this isnt a hard game though. Even on the easiest difficulties some players do sort of hit a wall after a certain point. Be ready for a challenge here.
I could just keep ranting about this for quite awhile. It's rare that I find games of this scope, it really is. Dont let the 90s-era graphics or the sheer overwhelming appearance of the game put you off of it. This is a game of incredible depth with an incredible amount of content that is very well balanced, interesting, and just well-made. Get it.
