FTL: Advanced Edition

I absolutely love the simulation aspect of this game: you really feel you are in a spaceship, with its crew bustling around while you, as captain, shout orders for Scotty to go repair the propulsion drive while the rest of the crew stand firmly on their jobs in order to get through yet another challenge in your quest. The space navigation, both in each system and in the larger scope, feel crips and engaging - if somewhat repetitive. The gameplay, however, is badly tuned. I am a huge fan of roguelikes: I'm certain I've put more hours into them than half the people here, easily. I'm not stranger to their difficulty curves (both in learning and in play) nor their inherent randomness and all the ups and down that come with it. The major issue with FTL: Advanced Edition is its balance. Unless you're playing easy (which, really is not what a hardcore roguelike fan would), the strategy pretty much boils down to finding a good scenario early on. If you do, you're set. If you don't, it's game over, no matter how good your strategy is. Roguelikes (and procedural games in general) should be informed by randomness, not dictated by it. A player with a solid strategy shouldn't lose a game because of a single overpowered encounter even when he immeditaly decides to run away ("make an FTL jump") and this happens way too often on FTL. In fact, that's what the gameplay is about. Even the best strategy is 80% at the sole will of what the RNG will put in his way, for good or bad, and while this makes FTL a roguelike, it doesn't make it a good one. Other than this major gripe with the game, the rest of gameplay is very repetitive - but also very enjoyable on its own. The brief texts are nice when you start but you'll find yourself ignoring them and just looking at the outcomes pretty soon since they're only for flavor and not really interesting. 90% of the prompts boil down to a "risk your resources for a possible reward" or "play safe and move on". Since you'll be given a prompt following this formula most of the times you take a step in the game, it gets old fast. Each of these having more options; more randomized (or even better, skill-based) outcomes or even them being less common would have done the game a service. As with these events, most of the gameplay is easy to figure out. Exploring a system boils down to "try to move through it as fast as possible because you're low in resources" or "since you're high on resources use them to explore". The larger exploration is also the same: "do I have enough resources to take a high-risk, high-reward sector next or should I stick to a friendly one since I'm low"? Can you see the pattern here? Most of the decisions in the game (except during combat) are binary and revolving only around how many resources you have to waste (or, conversely, to protect in order to stay alive). As with the event RNG, exploration is also dictated by randomness and not player strategy: you can get lucky and get a map with plenty of friendly sectors or one almost fully made of perilous, sensor-interfering, plasma-bombing nebulas which even the best player will be hard pressed to survive early on. The combat is amazing and it's a perfect blend of the best type of roguelike strategy, top-notch simulation and space opera that owes nothing to Star Trek and the like. I think the combat being so engaging is why so many people disregard the flaws of this game and look only at its good parts. If you like space operas, simulation and strategy, this could be the game for you. If you don't think that buying something where the random generation plays a more important part in the game than you do, better stay way though.

I would describe the game as one where your decision-making is what determines your success, it's not mechanically demanding. There is a lot of room for customizing your strategy, in the way you equip your ship, which crew members you have on it and how you decide to deal with hostile ships. You have to adapt to what you find at times and do the best with what's available. Eventually you may find a trader who has what's needed, so you can buy and sell some things in order to make things come together into your desired strategy. My advice is to start the game with little to no knowledge about it, just learn as you go. I have a lot of fun developing effective strategies through trial and error and sometimes through pure chance, by using what I find. A relaxing game with high replay value, highly recommended if you enjoy these types of games :]

It's a nice little spaceship sim. I like directing the crew about and it's very challenging to actually win. Mostly, it's a lot of dying and restarting, but each time is fun... for a while. After a couple dozen play throughs, the game does get pretty repetitive. So 4 stars for the game overall. Well worth the money, but a little more variety in the encounters would be a welcome addition.

I was looking forward to this game for quite some time now and it is very addictive and very fun. It is not without it's problems though: - No resolution options what so ever, if I play in streched mode I can't see all the UI and if I play in deafult it is very small - Galaxy can screw you over as in if you take a path, it does not indicate if it leads to the exit. I just played, had rebels on my tail and turns out I cannot jump from where I though I could... This all can be fixed and I hope it does get fixed, these are impressions from first hours after launch and no bugs what so ever. Can reccomend to any and all sci-fi fans.

Like some of the other reviews say, this game is hard even on easy. It's addicting, challenging. It has elements I like from a game like Moo2 where you have full control over the gear on your ship but right down to managing your airlock doors to repel boarders and stop the spread of fire. There are only two reasons this charming and awesome game is not getting 5 stars from me. 1. This is the kind of game I 'personally' have a difficult time enjoying without multiple save slots. It allows you to save and resume where you left off. If you jump into a system with an asteroid field and a random event or attacking ship beams four attackers onto your vessel early on while you only have 3 crew you're done and you have to start over from the beginning. The game would still be plenty challenging if you could at least restart from the beginning of the current sector in case you back yourself into a corner. And you have a lot of time to back yourself into a corner or land in a plasma storm or get lit up by solar flares and fending off an enemy vessel. 2. The random elements are fantastic but harsh even on easy. In other words this game is not very balanced. For that reason it will always have a very limited audience. Still. I'm a glutton for chasing distress calls and have a lot more to figure out before I will be finishing the game. FTL gives you a modest yet ample tutorial without patronizingly holding your hand like a lot of games. Like many 'good old games' this means you learn the procs and cons of various strategies through trial and a lot of error. When you feel like getting defeated repeatedly, by this game and enjoy well more than 1,000 ways to die. Eventually you'll stop chasing distress signals and figure out how to beat the game.