StarCrawlers

I only found out this game existed on the day it released so I had no idea what I was getting into aside from one quick youtube video review. The game plays a lot like the Etrian Odyssey games (which I love) but with a sci-fi setting (which I also love). You build a team of 4 crawlers and you move about the environment like you are on a grid (similar to Legends of Grimrock). Lots of cool loot with random stats, weapons, armour, shields and accessories to collect. Three skill trees to invest points into to create a class with a playstyle that suits you (although you can unlock all the skills before you hit max level which is 100). The combat is turn based and has pretty good depth where you can setup combos that pay off in future turns. The music selection really suits the game and is pretty good. There is a lot of replayability with the first playthrough taking you to a max level of 30, then new game + taking you to 60 and new game ++ taking you to 100. There are 4 difficulties that change the games mechanics in several ways. For hard core players you can pick iron mode so you have perma death when characters die. I left my dislikes at the bottom so people can see all the good stuff is the short version of this review. Some times a battle can drag on for a lot longer than it should due to some enemies calling reinforcements which alone is not so bad. But when you couple that with your chance to hit, a fight can last a while. Even with 85% chance to hit you still miss quite often against unbuffed enemies. Missing an attack with a large wait time can be devistating. There are no healing classes which is OK as you get a lot of skills/passives that heal you or your party, but this is not a tank, heal and dps party setup like Etrian. Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to read my dribble and I can assure you that this game will give you a lot of bang for your buck and I look forward to more games like it.

I think by the time this gets released it will be the best blobber available (first person party based dungeon crawler). Why? As it stands, the combat is genuinely interesting. That's more than I can say for most blobbers with simply rehash basic attacks for physical damage types. Magic types in blobbers typically get the same spells you've seen in all of them (single target DPS, group DPS, heals, etc). The combat resources in StarCrawlers is time units which basically forms a combat queue. Each ability has an additional affect past "do more damage". Additionally, the lack of a healing class gives you more options for forming your party. IMO, damage mitigation and efficient combat is way more interesting than mindless battles with heals afterward. The combat in this game leads to a fantastic progression system. Every level in StarCrawlers is awesome because each ability (or ability upgrade) is awesome. Elemental damage and resistances were just added, and it's yet another improvement to combat. The randomized dungeons themselves are solid with fun loot to find, but are (as of this writing) lacking puzzles. I don't expect amazing random puzzles, but some things here and there would be fun. Events occur or open up in the dungeon based on your party members which adds a nice touch (like a smuggler assessing the high value of an object that looks useless to others). The main story seems interesting but will be a relatively short amount of the game time. Most of StarCrawlers is spent in randomized dungeons. You make your own story with those because you do missions for various unique factions. Factions that like you give you things, factions that hate you hunt you down. It should help with replay and help you "build your own story". StarCrawlers is still in development but the dev team is worth supporting (story, combat, dungeon randomization, etc all still work in progress). They're active on Steam forums and it feels like they really listen.

I'm a Kickstarter backer for this game and have been actively playing this game since early Alpha. It's grown leaps and bounds, the devs continue to work on improving this product at every iteration, and its been a fun time seeing the game continue to grow and change. Before they fixed compatibility on saves going forward, I had to restart so many times, lol. I do not regret it, and the game has definitely been one of my favorites since I got my hands on it. This is a good, fun RPG crawler game in space with graphics and sound; a die hard classic crawler fan knows ASCII is still better ;) Pick it up and enjoy the nuances of this game

I don't write a lot of these...particularly for games that are still in development. I decided to make an exception for this game because I think it's going to be absolutely amazing. (It' pretty amazing as it is right now) I bought Starcrawlers here on GOG literally an hour before XCOM 2 went live, a game I had been giddy about for a long while. XCOM EU/EW is on my top 10 list of all time favorite games, and I've logged hundreds of joy filled hours with the game, but I needed something to do while I waited for the XCOM 2 preload to unpack...and Starcrawlers was my choice. It was a fantastic choice as it turns out. I'm not shy about buying games in development, but I don't usually do much more than make a brief test run until the games actually go gold. With that in mind, I haven't logged a ton of time in Starcrawlers, but it managed to suck me in in a way that very few games do these days. With the exception of Darkest Dungeon, I haven't played an incomplete title as much as I have played Starcrawlers. Cheers to the devs for creating a tremendously interesting and entertaining game. Long story short, instead of playing XCOM 2 before bed that night, I ended up playing Starcrawlers the entire time...and was really bummed when bedtime arrived. I'm actually fighting the urge to play this every day, as I really want to get the optimal experience of the completed game. This game is a really fun classically styled dungeon crawler and it's well worth the price of admission if that's your kind of thing. Hell, it's worth a look even if this style of game isn't really your thing, but looks even vaguely interesting to you. Good on the devs for creating a game capable of shaking me out of the ennui that has become the sad hallmark of my recent gaming life...I am REALLY looking forward to playing this game when it's done. Also, thanks to GOG for providing the well curated environment that gave me the opportunity to buy this little gem with a sense of security.