FTL: Advanced Edition

I love Sci Fi games. Even more so when I get to manage a ship and crew. Given that, I was immediately hooked on FTL despite the dated looking graphics. The graphics and music give that old-school feel which fits perfectly with the kind of gameplay it offers. The sheer randomness of the map generation does ensure that no gameplay is exactly the same. There are a few things that keep it from getting a full 5-stars from me: 1.) Roguelikes. After dying 10 times without figuring out why I kept losing, it frustrated me to no end and I had to stop playing. I'm not a very big fan of the perma-death games but after finally beating the end boss, I can see why. On a "good" run, you can finish the game in < 2hrs. the RNG gods not with you? be prepared to "ragequit". A reload feature would be welcome but might not really be worth it given how short the game is. 2.) Additional stories. I finished the game 3 x as of this writing. The ending doesn't change and the only benefit to replays is retrying with different ships/crew just to see if you can. That to me seems tiring after a while. Overall, I got my money's worth out of the early launch of FTL. Great little game for the price and still worth replaying from time to time.

This game is very, very entertaining. You can play as the captain of a spaceship fighting your way through the galaxy, manning weapons, shields, etc with so many options to attack and defend that there is no single way to defeat your enemy, for example: you can destroy your enemy spaceship in several ways: you can blast'em with missile or mines that are not stopped by shields, you can disable the shield and then blast'em with lasers, you can set the enemy ship on fire and destroy every system in that way, etc. Or you can kill your enemy crew: you can board your enemy ship and kill everyone aboard, you can destroy the oxygen system and kill'em, you can create fires which will kill'em, you can kill your enemies with special weapons against living beings, etc. You have to win the game in one sit which is not as hard since the game is "short" but the achivements to unlock and the random events keep the challenge and the fun. So, one gaming session might last a few minutes or some hours if you reach the end. Besides, beating a hard game leaves you with a sweet sense of victory. Try it, you won't regret it.

A fun game, but unless your willing to play the same events and maps again and again and again just to unlock ships (most of which are random luck if events come together to unlock). Even with mods, there is a severe lack of variety. But if you can get it 75% off then it's worth it for a few hours fun.

FTL is the perfect example of what happens when you put a lovely and brilliant idea into play, and forgot about level design. The gameplay and ideas behind here are lovely and brilliant. Just, level design is terrible: it has nothing to do with the randomization, you could still have a randomized variety that still keeps the game going. Here instead, alas, there is true chaotic randomization in the difficulties you face, making the gameplay just frustrating. Add on top the impossibility to save, and you got a total failure, level-design speaking. But, but... the game is addictive, the idea so lovely, that you can't just give 2-3 stars to this one: 4 stars overall, for the great idea behind. And, really looking forward to an FTL2!!

Just buy it, at full price or at 2 euros!!! really, buy it, it's extremely addictive, fun and that music... and if you add captain's edition mod, you'll be playing this game untill the end of times. JUST GET IT!!