Crying Suns

Gameplay is very much inspired by FTL, but with enough changes that it does its own thing. I like it, but it gets a but repetitive after a while. A few more unique fights and enemies would have been great. Story is great and way better than FTL. And almost everything is inspired by different Asimov stories, which is also a plus from me. Art style is very nice blend of dark pixelated 3d and very consistent. They had a vision and went through with it. In summary, its a great game and if you liked FTL than you will also like this one.

Imagine you are in a parallel dimensions, where Earth is almost the same, but game developers made some different choices, leading to "FTL: Faster Than Light" utilizing a 3D engine underneath, and completely different approach to battles ;) BTW, this is a review for the "Last Orders" - which added a lot of content, which I greatly appreciated. OK, so let's get the obvious out of the way - it is a rogue-FTL-lite. So, what's different? What's good? Not great: * Exploring the planets is very random. Yes, there's a a minigame in there: you need to have multiple officers with different specializations, and then by analyzing their skills and contributions to the mission you can buy from the broker the skills you are missing to get awesome loot and acceptable survival rates. But, after you spend a minute figuring this out, it's just tapping space to go "next", "next". Honestly I almost never found it worthwile to bail early - maybe once I could, and I regretted that I didn't while my squad was unhurt. What could have helped would be splitting the expertise skill into two, "Broker contacts" and "Medevac" - then you could invest in one or the other. THEN AGAIN: FTL didn't even have this layer, so this is something extra. Up to you, or about the same: * The theme is a bit darker, more serious. * Cartoony graphics of FTL are replaced by "hint of 3D" futuristic blue glow. I like both. But It's true that the bright colors of FTL sometimes allowed for quicker differentiation of different races/techs. * The travelling part is totes ripped off, including: "quest marker added to next sector", "when sector alert overtakes you, you get an extra hard fight", and "gather fuel when you ran out". Nice: * Space battles! I liked the ship management of FTL. Here you also have active pause, but scale is bigger. I cringed about the rock/paper/scissors, but then, a sector or two in...I discovered synergies! Aurora + nano drone! Protector + "10 dmg per shield bubble popped" tech! It works!

In case you're still wondering - yes, the game is very much like FTL. You're advancing through sectors consisting of star systems, can choose between several paths and are chased by an enemy fleet which can quickly wipe you out if you decide to take the scenery route or run out of fuel prematurely. The combat is pausable real-time with some rock-scissor-paper mechanics and arguably more chaotic than FTL but otherwise feels quite similar. You spend your resources (scrap) to upgrade ship systems, hangar and weapons, as well as for repairs and crew recruitment/replacement. Sounds quite familiar so far, right? The major difference is that this game tries to tell a story. "Tries" I believe is the most accurate word because it partially delivers in that area but it's a bit chaotic like the combat and seemingly can't decide how serious it wants to be. It's a mix between well-known universes and if you're a sci-fi fan you'll find a lot of references and recycled concepts. That's done decently enough, mind you, given the scope of the whole product, just don't expect anything really original. Some other differences from FTL are the exploration of star systems (i.e. you could have multiple encounters in each one, should you decide to spend some fuel for investigation) and the "planet events" - in the latter case you're sending a group of soldiers commanded by some of your officers to look at some point of interest on some of the planets you encounter and depending on the hazards of that planet and the officer's skills you end up either with a lot of loot or with casualties (rarely significant though, soldiers are easily replaceable). The game is definitely fun to play, even though it's not really groundbreaking in any sense. It's easier than FTL too which could be attractive or repuslive to you, depending on what you like. Recommended overall.

If you go by replay value alone, FTL is my favorite game ever made. Crying Suns is *very* much in the FTL mold, which is fine by me since FTL is so good it's worth being its own genre. Other reviews have said this is like a more story-driven FTL, and I think that's on point. Overall this game is a joy to play, with a lot of the same highs as FTL, some drawbacks, and a few really pleasant surprises. Some cons: - Pacing – I think one thing that most great roguelikes share is a snappy pace. Meaningful progress is made quickly enough that starting over and/or getting through repetitive scenarios are not too frustrating. FTL and Spelunky are great examples. In this game, repetitive events can take dozens of lines of dialog with long transition animations and fades to black. For the first couple runs it's no big deal, but it gets tiresome. It should be easier to just jump in and play. - Cruft – For my taste, there's too much unnecessary content. Events that can have no meaningful outcome no matter what choices you make, bad weapons that are priced like the useful ones, squadrons that just take up space, expensive ship add-ons with very limited use. There's stuff like that in every game, but there's just too much of it here (particularly w/ the events) And the pros: - STORY. I was expecting some minimalist indie game storyline and I was blown away. The story and the overall atmosphere are really powerful, especially after the first couple chapters. Some of the dialog was honestly novel-worthy. The games chucks a lot of lore at you in the beginning and it can feel a little overwhelming, but the payoff is well worth it. - Combat – Definitely very different from FTL, and in ways that I really enjoyed. FTL battles are like a metronome in some ways – wait for this weapon/system, use it, repeat. In Crying Suns, battles are typically longer and they feel more fluid. - Management – That same joy you get from optimizing your ship/crew in FTL is very much there in Crying Suns.

Too much "randomly" running into some super powered ship, ready for an ambush, just when things are going right.