FTL: Advanced Edition

I can't believe I missed out on FTL for a decade. It's a tricky, tactical experience that you will want to run over and over again.

So many hours not wasted not playing this wonderful game.

The RNG gods will, on a regular basis, beat you with the statistics mallet. But when the plan comes together and you pull it all off? Super satisfying.

I played this for several hours over a weekend and found it quite fun. It has a little bit of a learning curve beyond the tutorial. However, it's easy enough to grasp the core mechanics. The game is a randomized series of encounters and mini-quests that push along the narrative of you being a starship captain chased by a rebel navy. There are some light RPG elements, such as upgrading equipment and leveling up your crew members. However, most of the game is crisis management--literally putting out fires, fighting off ship invaders, and repairing damaged systems. The visuals and music are minimalist but adequate enough. Combat is a core mechanic of the game, and it never got old. The randomized maps also keep things interesting. Be forewarned: the easy difficulty setting is actually what I think will feel like normal for most players, so I would recommend starting there. Also, the last fight is ridiculously hard, and nothing prior to that point really prepares you for it. This is the only reason the game loses a star in my rating. You can look online for tips and videos that I guess would help you with this last encounter. However, since so much depends on random elements regarding your equipment, crew, available stores, and other variables that change from run to run, do plan on losing FAR more games than you will ever win. Overall, I enjoyed this game over the three days that I've played it. I'm putting it down for now, given my cluelessness and frustration over how to win the final fight. However, I'll probably pick it up again at some point. Also, there are some good mods available for improving graphics, adding more ships, and so on, thus replayability is good.

I have had some enjoyable playthroughs on this game, and I enjoy the random nature. From the encounters to the naturaly hazrds, this game throws a lot at you. No two playthroughs play the same, and that is rather fun, as it adds challange. But this game is unnecessarily difficult. I have yet to beat this game, I have only made it to the boss once, and that was pure luck, and I wound up facing it severely underarmed, and underpowered. Easy mode really isn't easy. It plays more like a Soulslike than any other kind of game. I also find that the procedurally generated nature of this game is in itself a limit as you can go from doing nothing but finding scrap and no shops, to finding nothing but shops and no scrap. 3 stars because I keep playing the game but two stars taken off because of how difficult it is, with little to no reason for it