Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition

I would recommend Sunless Skies only to the most hardcore Hufflepuff-pilled daydreamer, lost in the weirdest of fantasies. Anyone else will find the game lacking. The atmosphere is top-notch, art and music great for the most part (excluding human drawings that are sometimes comically bad). I would argue that the first two areas, Reach and Albion, were noticeably more interesting and finished than later Eleutheria and the Blue Kingdom, but lets call that personal preference. Player locomotives feel, sound and look great. The UI is almost entirely great apart from the quest log, which becomes especially horrible to navigate later in the game. The meat of the game is the writing. The stories - player victory Ambitions are very interesting, as are stories of crew officers, places which sometimes contain situations that are evolving based on player choices and so on. There is a lot of reading in the game and the sheer magnitude means that there is an inevitable range in quality, but even the most uninteresting ones in the game are ,,good enough or eh tier,, whereas the better ones are stuck in the back of my head permanently (I never before wrangled sentient human skin of a former princess into non-Euclidian prison) . The game is ostensibly just a vehicle (pun intended) to get the player to experience these stories, which is understandable and a shame because there isnt much else to it. The trade system encourages more opportunistic than a dedicated approach. Fighting is also more of a necessity than lifestyle - enemies respawn and the game doesnt provide enough content or challenge so there isnt enough for a combat-oriented player. Politics storylines do not have enough to them, the list goes on... My latest playthrough took 60ish hours and spanned around 5 years irl, interrupted by tasks which required excessive grind such as learning about and getting shekels for a locomotive that does not suck ass, getting correct stats, meta-game knowledge and special currencies for best gun and so on. These were bad enough that I uninstalled the game and returned year or so later each time. I will probably never finish the game since it looks like I soft-locked myself on a quest stage before finishing section in one of the endings. I do not enjoy grinding for the sake of it and the game sure as ♥♥♥♥ has a lot of it. The player grinds money, stats, special currencies to be used in dilemmas, there is just so much time wasting and ultimately for what? I wish the game incentivized multiple playthroughs by for instance not making me run around the map for 15 Moments of inspiration in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Caduceus since I could You know try other choices, endings and stuff in choices heavy game but when I remind myself of how I last time grinded for Wrath of Heaven cannon, I fight the urge to remove SS from my Steam account. Its such a shame. Failbetter went and did a... dating sim game set in the same universe as their next game, bought and played by almost no one and with its own share of issues from what i gathered and look I understand that they probably did not want to do third exploration game, so they went in another direction but damn. I will always be haunted by what could have been if they went for expansion addressing the long known player criticisms or maybe Sunless Sea/Skies 2. We will never know...

I'm a bit torn about this game. Fundamentally, I like it, but beneath the fun is a bunch of tedium. Managing fuel, supplies, crew, hull, AND terror when the world constantly wants to strip all of them away from you is just tiresome. But the atmosphere and world are maddeningly fun to explore. The combat is clunky but there's a bit of charm in that I think. Sometimes the horror elements hit hard and beautifully, then other times it just feels like word salad with no soul behind it. This is a game that doesn't really care if you understand it, but madness is most unnerving when it starts to make sense. Also, just do Mercy, don't do Legacy difficulty. You will die for numerous and stupid reasons, and you can always choose to pass on to the next captain whenever you feel like it. Having the option to return to the last station is very important in the early game. The game costs you enough time as it is trying to get to the good bits, so don't bother trying to be authentic about the experience.

Traverse a fascinating and nightmarish expanse of skies on your trusty... locomotive. Don't ask; it just works. Set in a Fallen London universe, it greatly expands upon the narrative-driven mobile game, and delivers a proper 'video game' experience, although I have to say the game and its quirks would definitely be more interesting and comprehensible if you've made proper acquaintance with FL prior. Gameplay loop goes like this: you explore the map, encounter and resolve quests and stories, chase your ambition hidden among the gloom, doom and cosmic horror, and try your best to not die to clunky controls and random events. The game heavily relies on grind, which basically bolis down to you making rounds around the map, and also makes a point of not respecting your time whatoever. There's no minimap. There's no fast travel. There are no markers. Truly, what an infuriating specimen! (all of this is actually ok). Thankfully, there's a merciful option to forsake ironman mode and just reload your latest autosave if you absolutely don't want to lose all the progress you've made on a particular character. The RPG elements are nicely integrated into the whole process, and RNG isn't exceptionally cruel. The visuals and music do a great job of painting the game's setting as a horror-steampunk story, with its unique twists and turns here and there - every map is split into various biomes that feel exciting to uncover and explore. My main complaint about the game is how clunky the controls are... But at the same time I suppose it's also fitting, given how a locomotive isn't supposed to be the most responsive vehicle of choice. The grind gets annoying, too, but it's fine if you don't treat the game as something you're supposed to complete ASAP. It's all about the journey, the british-ness, and the morbid fascination with the underground sky and its secrets.

Great game, peak atmosphere and writing. I just hope if we ever get a sequel or another proper rpg in this universe they make the meat of the gameplay a little less tedious in the endgame.

THE SUN! THE S... THE SKIES? / 10

A step up from Sunless Seas in every way possible! If you're already familiar with the second "Fallen London"-Entry and you liked it, then you H A V E to play this as well! If you're familiar with Sunless Seas, liked it, but you felt like it's mechanics where a bit too frustrating and why the hell is there no reload option??, then fear not, this one is def easier to handle :D Now you can reload your old save, when your captain dies, money comes a lot easier, so does terror-reducing-meassures. All these QoL-improvments AND still awesome world-building and writing - hell yeah!! If you're not familiar with any of the Fallen-London-Games, then you just discovered something great! Sunless Skies is the prequel to Sunless Seas, which is in turn a Prequel to the Web-based Game Fallen London from Failbetter Games. But no worries, you do not have to play any of other the entries, before playing this - you'll miss some callbacks but the story is fully enjoy- and understandable on it's own! So what actually do you do in this game? You travel with your locomotive through space, discover different locations and read amazing little storylines, which you can influence by your decisions. Like all the Failbetter Games, the writing is topnotch, the worldbuilding (still) one of the best well-rounded things I've ever come across. The only "downside" is, that you have to spend a lot of time traveling bewteen different ports, as there is no fast-travel option. While this can be indeed a bit tiring (I'd whish you could purchase an item or something...), it also just fits very much the theme and you can marvel at the pretty skies again and again. ---- Similar Games: - Well duh, Sunless Seas | like this, just harder - and you're a sailor. - A House of Many Doors | similar vibes, similar gameplay :D - Cultist Simulator | VERY different gameplay, but also topnotch writing and similar atmosphere - Dredge | Setting out on a voyage, same vibes, less Choose-your-own-adventure-based

I'm running Win10 IoT LTSC, and while I understand that might not be a 'supported' OS version, the hundred-odd other Steam games of mine all run perfectly on it. Sunless Skies is the only one to get the permanent Unity error "Initializing Microsoft Media Foundation failed." To their credit, the devs admit this in their FAQ, that this error may not be able to be bypassed. I understand that supporting a constantly shifting web of OSes and dependencies is challenging, but it's also part of what makes making video games challenging. Every other game works, but not this one.

Kind of a side-grade to the first game, with some improvements, and some things being worse, but mostly the same. If you liked the first one, you'll probably like it, and if you didn't, you probably won't. 8/10.

booooring

Excellent writing, immersive hand-drawn art, improved combat system from the first game - what's not to like? If you liked Sunless Seas, you owe it to yourself to play this.