FTL: Advanced Edition

There is nothing I can improve in this game - it's lightweight, has a range of challenges, awesome atmosphere (in space!) and enough diversity to keep coming back. As a rule, I hate roguelikes, but this one I love.

The extreme random elements of this game take it from being a potentially fantastic game and make it an annoying experience. The Good: The music is great and really sets the atmosphere. Combat is seemingly simple on the surface. As the game progresses, new challenges appear that add difficulty but also opens up new strategies which makes combat engaging and satisfying. The various upgrades, ship hulls, and options make progression fun and interesting. I love the element of the unknown and the mystery of exploring the various sectors of space. I love the encounters and the choices you are presented with. The Bad: The random encounters that you come across are just that: random. The difficulty of an opponent is random. The outcome of a choice is usually random. This isn't bad in itself. It keeps the game interesting and adds replayability. The problem is that a lot of these outcomes are so detrimental, it only takes a few bad rolls in a row to kill you. And this can happen very quickly and very easily. Despite all of the choice and the skill that comes in to play, the outcome of the game is ultimately decided by the roll of a dice. Sadly, this absolutely kills the game for me. It's a frustrating waste of potential. I want to lose because I made bad choices or because I wasn't good enough. I can get better and try again and that's what makes a game fun for me. In FTL you can certainly lose for those reasons, but you're just as likely to lose because a random number generator decided it.

I picked this up yesterday, and I have pretty much played this non-stop since. Here's why this is such a good game. 1) The decisions you make, with personnel and strategy, MATTER. 2) Upgrading your ship is a blast. 3) Deciding what path to use to maneuver through the cosmos is infinitely better than a path chosen for you. 4) Randomly generated universes..every game is different. 5) Permadeath ... hard as hell to win (I am 0-15), but I LIKE it this way! 6) For the money, I see endless re-playabilitity. To paraphrase Martha Stewart, this is a GOOD thing!

This is my most played game on Steam, and I am glad to also own it on GOG. The amount of different ships and strategies in the vanilla game is definitely enough to keep you busy for a while. The game is a challenge, but I wouldn't say the RNG is a deal-breaker for me, because it requires the player to adapt if a run is not going according to plan. Once I realized that, I fell in love with the replayability. Maybe I don't find the best weapons, and at first I might think I'm screwed. But that's an example of having to adapt. Ok, I can't find another Burst Laser Mk 2, but I did find a Heavy Laser and Hull Laser 3, so that's what I'll have to use. Maybe one of my guys died early on, and that can suck, but the next sector might be pirate controlled, meaning free crew. It can seem unfair sometimes, especially to new players, but with how many ships you can unlock, not every loss will be a complete loss. It might even allow new players to find their preferred way to play the game. And that's all without even discussing community made ships, expansions, and other mods. I would personally recommend beating the game at least once without any mods before messing with them, and unlocking other ships would be a good idea since some modded ships replace existing ones you may not have yet. But different community-made ships are why this is my most played game in my Steam library. They offer even more replayability, and have their own "quirks" to work with/around that aren't always there with ships in the vanilla game. For under $3 on sale, this game is a steal, and I would argue is a must if you're a roguelike/roguelite fan, or if this is your first game in the genre.

I first attempted FTL back near its original release back in 2012, and I had a hard time with it. After failing my first 10 attempts to complate a run, I put it down. Didn't pick it up for nearly a decade. Now that I've spent more time learning the tricks of the trade, I can tell you it's a very satisfying game. A plethora of ships, crew, weapons, accessories, and a randomized universe make an endless number of experiences. If you enjoy real-time system management and are willing to invest the time to learn the mechanics, you won't regret it.