StarCrawlers Chimera

[h1] TLDR [/h1] A “sequel” that plays like a DLC, feeling repetitive and uninspired. With a narrower focus and some questionable design changes, the Starcrawlers’ universe has shrunk, at the gamers’ expense. [h1] Intro[/h1] Starcrawlers Chimera The original Starcrawlers was a first-person dungeon crawler in a sci-fi setting. The game successfully combined RPG elements with rogue-like, turn-based tactical combat, and rival factions thrown in for good measure enhanced strategic complexity. In Chimera, the factions have been removed, and you play a mercenary tasked with infiltrating a single corporation (Chimera) to undertake various objectives. The sci-fi setting remains, but the game, while similar sounding in name, is quite different from its predecessor - and not necessarily in a good way. [h1] Likes [/h1] [b] + One of the UI changes allows you to transport immediately to your apartment/base. This can be a handy feature, especially for inventory management (see below) [/b] [b] + Based on the content available thus far, there is a LOT of loot to be had [/b] [b] + On-site vendor bots allow you to buy various items while you're on mission. This can be useful in various situations [/b] [h1] Dislikes[/h1] [b] - Factions have been eliminated. Your only contracts deal directly with evolving objectives as you infiltrate and crawl through the various levels in Chimera [/b] [b] - Current content stands at 3 massive levels. I found this exhausting as the mission doesn't seem to end. If this is the permanent format of the game, it would be very disappointing - having manageable levels and limits during missions create a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction for the gamer [/b] [b] - Movement is confusing. It seems like you can move diagonally, since you can rotate the camera, but in reality, you're still restricted to moving in straight lines - in the original Starcrawlers, the grid-like movement is intuitive and simple [/b] [b] - The combat phase is confusing and not intuitive. You can't really tell when it begins and ends, and it doesn't feel turn-based but more like simultaneous turns (almost real-time in some cases). If you listen to the music cues, you get a better idea when an enemy has been spotted (even if you can't see them) and when combat has ended, but it's ridiculous that you have to depend on this [/b] [b] - Your world has shrunk as well. In the original, you could upgrade/enhance your equipment/hacking deck, buy/sell black market items, hire mercs and take on a variety of jobs from different factions, and gain bonuses/rewards for advanced standing with these factions. While the game is still in EA, it seems like all those features are gone [/b] [h1] Undecided [/h1] [list] [*]Due to its present state, it's hard to tell whether companions will be joining you as the game is developed; thus far, in the 3 levels of crawling, I've not encountered any as yet. There also doesn't seem to be any way to hire additional crawlers [*]The "pause-to-heal" time forwarding feature can be useful if you've run out of food or med packs but can be repetitive and annoying [*]There's currently a bug in the inventory locker at the apartment - sorting the contents causes multiple identical items to appear in it. While I made lots of cash from this, it's nonetheless pretty annoying [/list] [h1] Verdict [/h1] It can be tricky reviewing a game in EA since Steam only provides 2 rating recommendations, however, I'm guided by the principle that I can only review a game for what is is NOW, not what it COULD be. Having said that, I'd be willing to update my review if and when there have been significant content/UI updates, but as it stands, considering that Starcrawlers was released in 2017 and Chimera seems extremely underwhelming right now, I cannot in good conscience recommend it at this time. The narrower focus on a single target, the long, boring, unending mission, the UI changes, the confusing movement and unclear combat phase are irritations that may seem surmountable if you are a true Starcrawlers fan, but even so, I believe you'd still be disappointed. After a 4-year wait, this "sequel" feels like a poorly-designed DLC. I cannot see myself playing this again any time soon, especially before a major content addition / overhaul. 4.0/10.0

Really enjoyable, just don't go in expecting Starcrawlers 2. It's much closer to a spiritual sequel to Dungeons of Dredmor.

While the "real-time" combat is more interesting than the JRPG approach from the previous title, and there's more skills and abilities to mix and match, this sequel or spin-off to Starcrawlers is really a step backwards from the previous title. The game mostly reminds me of the real classic Rogue, but in 3D in first person, where you can get insta-gibbed from full health depending on what's found behind the door and the RNG. This might intrigue some players, but I just found it bland. It really shouldn't be called a RPG at all because there's no story, no dialog, no choice, no characters besides mindless NPC's. There's no "town" hub, no proper vendors, no factions. You have a apartment, but the sole and only purpose to visit it is because there's a stash box there. Might as well just let players have a bigger inventory since you can teleport home from anywhere anyways.

[h1] Rough Crawling [/h1] [b] What I Liked [/b] Honestly, games like this don't come out that often. RPG, grid-based, etc. I tend to play most of them when they come out. Also, StarCrawlers is still one of my favorite grid-based dungeon crawlers out there, and it's a sci-fi game. So having another game in this universe is great. The skill system is certainly unique. Just pick a bunch of skill trees and go with that build. Very daring way of doing things. Otherwise, the graphics hold up decently. They aren't incredible, but for randomly generated dungeons, they get the job done. [b] What I Did Not Like [/b] It's a roguelike, but isn't. It's hard to tell. You could literally pick a build and beat the game on your first try. Good chance you won't, but there is a chance you will. Problem is when you die, you don't get stat points, etc. that carry over. Nothing that gets you stronger for each run. The skill system is almost too big for a game like this. The problem is certain trees won't work well with one another at all, and the skills aren't explained in the best way to know exactly what they do at all times. It's a monster task, and while it's done decently, it's not great. The UI is rough, very rough. The game isn't designed for ultra-wide. While the game does display in ultra-wide, the UI doesn't seem to like it. Even if it did, the UI elements aren't that great. I can move them around, but they don't look good. Same with inventory management, vendors, etc. The UI needs to be cleaned up. While I get it's the purpose of the game to clear out reach floor, I would have loved just random missions to do in between the main storyline. Sometimes I just want to hunt loot without caring about the story or progressing it. Progressing felt forced in this game. [b] Why I Stopped Playing [/b] I really think this game needs another year to get polished. It's decent in its own right, it just needed to sit in early access longer. I made the buy to try it and because StarCrawlers is a great game. I bet this one will be too, just don't expect it to be anything like StarCrawlers and don't expect it to be great until sometime in 2025 or so. [b] Disclaimer [/b] I have been a gamer for over 30 years. I tend to play mostly PC games. I also bounce around between games A LOT. I may purchase a $60 game and play it for 2 hours or spend $10 on a game and spend 50 hours on it. Even if I played a game a short time, it does not mean it is bad. It just means another game caught my attention. I also complain about flaws in games a lot, even about the littlest of things. Keep that in mind when reading my reviews. If I do not have a complaint, then the game must be special!

Geradliniger als sein ausgezeichneter Vorgänger. Man spielt hier sozusagen nur einen Agenten, der den Auftrag hat in eine Facility der Chimera AG (bekannt aus dem ersten Teil) zu infiltrieren. Es gibt ein kurzes Turorial, das Genrefreunde wohl nicht einmal anspielen brauchen. Danach kann man aus einer Vielzahl Charaktertraits seinen Crawler erstellen. Hacker, Soldat, Schmuggler etc etc. Alles was so gibt mit zusätzlichen Nebenfähigkeiten. Musste selber einige Male neu starten bis ich für mich passendes Setting fand. Der Einstieg ist etwas holprig und anfangs verwirrend. Aber nach zwei oder drei Neustarts passt das. Das Spiel ist straight forward. Glücklicherweise auch nicht viel zu lesen wie im ersten Teil. Einfach die riesige Facility losraiden und Spaß haben. Die Skills sind dufte. Die Steuerung nach bisle Eingewöhnung geht leicht von der Hand. Wer auf Crawler steht und endlich mal wieder einen spielen möchte, der mal nicht wieder im Bereich Fantasy angesiedelt ist, kann ohne weiteres zuschlagen. Der Preis ist topp und das Spiel nach bisher sieben Stunden auch fehlerfrei. Manche bedauern, dass es kein Gruppen-RPG mehr ist wie im Vorgänger. Mag ich auch lieber um ehrlich zu sein. Das macht aber aus Chimera kein schlechtes Spiel. P.S.: Bin bei Steam auch als Kurator unterwegs (bezahle meine Spiele aber aus Prinzip selbst) und freue mich über jeden Follower: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/2370797-7IDGaming.de/?appid=275290

(I played exclusively on the Steam Deck.) Unlike many, I don't hate the base concept of the game, or the change in direction from their first one. Quite the opposite. The idea is good and new, and the execution solid. A classic roguelike with a modern spin, in more than one way, is actually super cool. All the negativity that follows is due to the fact that I still think the idea is amazing, if only it was done by literally any other game dev. The controls are heresy. Even though this game, in gameplay as well as in the UI, is extremely grid-based, as one would expect from a roguelike, they force you to control movement in both with the analog stick. I'm not kidding. They have grids; Squares. But they insist on you using not the the D-pad, but the analog stick to move. This feels disgusting on the field, but it feels even so much worse in the menus. When you create your character, for example, and you want to pick your starting traits, it's a huge hassle to do so, as, if you want to pick a talent that is three spaces to the right and four down, you can't just press the D-pad right three times and down four times. No, you have to awkwardly flick the stick in the direction you hope to move the cursor to, and then see how many spaces the flick actually moved it. Sometimes it moves one space, sometimes two. Sometimes even three. Almost as if this wasn't the purpose of analog sticks. Can you change the controls? Actually no. You can't. There theoretically is the option to change the controls, but the dev deliberately ensured that you cannot map movement to the D-Pad, as movement options in the menus are locked to something like "analog stick y-axis" and "analog stick x-axis", so that you cannot re-map it to anything else. If you try, you cannot even map it back to the original, without resetting everything back to default, because, obviously, there is no input that is considered "analog stick x- or y-axis". X- and y-axes are concepts, ideas, not actual buttons you can press. The dev decided that, come what may, players will be forced to navigate menus with the analog stick. It feels disgusting to play the game. It feels wrong. Twisted. It's like as if Tetris forced you use the analog stick, or if Mario's jumps required you to press Select+A. It feels like a decision made by an AI, not by a human who understands what controls are for on a philosophical level.

I really enjoyed the original StarCrawlers, and while this game is similar, it's too different for me to truly enjoy. There are tons of softlocking bugs (which are so frequent there's an in-game error message dedicated to it) and polish is overall poor. There is often too much happening onscreen to tell what is actually going on, with the worst case being the last boss. Sometimes it's the exact opposite, where the player literally can't see the ranged enemies attacking them because of objects in the dungeon obscuring their vision. I was excited to see this game come out of Early Access, but it could have used a lot more polish. With only 36 other reviews as of writing this, maybe it just didn't get enough feedback.

If you played the previous Starcrawlers this game is much different, as it's a first person roguelike where you only control one character. You build your character with 7 skill lines that you can select from a pool of a few dozen. You then fight your way down floors of a building while leveling up and collecting randomly generated loot. There are optional bonus missions and bosses you can do for rewards on each floor and you can even return to earlier floors if a boss was previously too difficult. Enemy variety doesn't change much from playthrough to playthrough, so the incentive for replayability is to go with different skill builds. There is no progression in between games other than the fact that you can store loot in a storage that you can access with any future characters so you can start them out with more powerful gear. while I do wish we could see a Starcrawlers 2 this game is pretty fun in its own right.

I was excited for this one, as I loved the prequel and the idea sounded decent. It starts off kind of fun, and rapidly becomes more and more tedious, culminating in a series of awful, slow, drawn out boss fights at the end. I got halfway through the final boss's HP bar and considered quitting right then.

Amazing game with tons of replayability, provided you are good enough to beat it! Definitely has a difficulty curve, but in a good way! You will die often, learn the tricks to beat enemies better, perfect or tweak your character, scrap them and start a new, completely different, build - and then love that one even better! Honestly, this game has been so fun and I can't wait for the full release! There's a lot of pop culture references in here that had me giggling, and the need to explore every room is funnnn. If you liked Legend of Grimlock-style dungeon crawling and want it in a cyberpunk world with a robust roguelike style, here's your game!