FTL: Advanced Edition

Low scores for FTL are very unfair & don't reflect the true value of this game. What is FTL then? It's a mix of real time tactics (with active pause) and RPG. You travel through the galaxy in order to get experience, upgrade your ship & recruit crew members before BOSS SHIP appears. There's also roguelike side - maps & many other things are always random and you can't save the game when you want! FTL is full of puzzles. In order to win you have to figure out best strategy for your current ship & available crew. Proper configuration is very important role in the final battle - you simply can't afford mistakes. However sometimes random stuff may break your strategy. You have to adjust to your current situation. And when your puzzle is solved eventually, there are new ships, which require different approach. There's no complicated main plot here - more interesting are little adventures during your voyage. They're like small little episodes of your life that make you smile, laugh and sad. And also choices. You'll make a lot of them. Let these pirates live or finish them off? Explore dark corridors of empty space station or ignore it? Rescue colony residents from fire or leave them for certain death? It's amazing how many emotions you can infuse into so few pixels. Most likely you will die during your first journey. You'll die in this game a lot of times. It sometimes means your ship will be destroyed by enemy cruiser, but death might also come in asteroid field. But that's fine. Single playthrough is short. You can try again - the puzzle is waiting & a lot of hidden stories too. Be patient. Satisfaction from victory is enormous - like in old arcade games. FTL has incredible charm emphasized by phenomenal music of Ben Prunty. You really feel like a space journeyman in vast ocean of little known stars. This atmosphere alone makes me want to play this game AGAIN, after so many playthroughs under my belt. I can't recommend this game enough. It's so great!

I liked this game for the first 4-8 hours. I was very attracted to the challenge it presented. Then I became bored and frustrated by its random nature. This is both a point in is favour as it is a bad thing. Randomness keeps the game re playable, but on the other hand it makes it...well...too random. For example, you might be trying to build an offence oriented ship, but traders sell random items and appear randomly in the map. If you can't find something or don't have the cash at the moment you get stuck with the weapons you have and get destroyed by the 3rd level. Nothing you do can prepare you for this, since the next trader may sell completely different stuff and there is no way to backtrack. I also feel the game needs a "true" normal difficulty: easy is too easy (and boring by way of not being challenging) and normal is actually too hard. You might play a great game and still lose horribly (and once you lose that's it, game over-permadeath). To some that might be great (and I guess it's what roguelikes are meant to do). To me it was frustrating and made me quit the game and never come back. The game felt like it was constantly dicking me over.

Not even 2 minutes ago, my Kestral-class cruiser ("The Defiance") was torn apart by a rebel ship. This game is absolutely incredible. I've been looking for a game like this for a lonnnnnng time. It's a space captain's dream. Normally, I am not a fan of the "permadeath" stuff, but it works out really well here. There really isn't much in-game fiction to give you a background or anything. However, I like this because each playthrough becomes my own little sci fi adventure story. You can name your crewmembers and your ship. As you travel through various sectors (of your choosing, to some extent) you can hire on new alien crewmembers that have different strengths and weaknesses. The game is a blast to play. Maybe I'm still on that "new game high" but I haven't really found anything to complain about yet. Other reviewers have already talked about the sounds (which are great). The roleplaying factor (which is also great. Anyways...this game is well worth the 9 bucks I paid for it.

FTL is a spaceship simulation with roguelike elements like permadeath and randomisation. You choose your path through an array of sectors along jump beacons, the enemy rebel fleet on your toes and ready to bounce on you if you idle too long. At every beacon you face an event, usually a combat encounter with an enemy ship, but you might also find things like a friendly base that provides you with supplies or a mining colony asking your for help. I actually wrote this review because of the many 1-3 star reviews I read here that referenced the "randomness" and "rolling the dice without having influence over the outcome". This is a very false assumption. The game has incredible depth and many underlying mechanics that might not be obvious when trying it for the first time (or even the 10th time, regarding some reviewers here). While the general structure of the game is random, you can influence the outcome in various ways. Just as an example, someone mentioned being boarded by 4 persons in the first sector while only having 3 crewmembers and was mad about this "random injustice" that makes him automatically lose the game. The truth is that advanced players solve this encounter effortlessly with micromaniging their crewmembers around the medbay of the ship and starving the enemies out of oxygen via opening and closing airlocks to fight them on your own terms. And there countless nuances like these that make you survive and win encounters without problem that you thought to be absolutely impossible. While it is true that advanced unlockable ship types rely heavily on a good start and may require you to start over some times, these are actually "challenge" modes. The game gives you some very strong and solid ships at the beginning, which are capable of getting about 95% win on Easy and 75+% win on Normal mode regardless of your RNG (if played properly). You just have to know your stuff and learn from your mistakes. Always remember, giant alien spiders are no joke.

More frustrating than it is rewarding, yet very addicitive and nice looking. But frustrating. As heck. Unfortunately for my taste, this is the kind of game where you never know how well you've performed until the very, very end of the game. Which takes more than 2 hours, which is a lot. I find it very frustating that there is no bonus whatsoever to your next playthrough, even if you almost beat the boss. I find the fact that luck plays a very high role highly disappointing, The "play 2 hours and find out if your build works" mechanics is beyond me. I find the game to be very unforgiving, very punishing, especially when the luck factor is so high, and even in the lowest difficulty setting. To me, there should at least be some room for mistakes. And I find it even more frustrating when I see all these guides on the Internet, and all the high ratings of this game. All this might be because I lack the patience or masochism or whatever. But clearly, this ain't no game for me.