Halcyon 6: Lightspeed Edition

While I enjoy deep, complex space sims and strategy games sometimes they feel like math homework and I want something simpler. This game fulfills the simple but not too simple/easy space game niche (it has base building, character level, diff ship types, status effects etc.) which is rare. Some are turned off by pixel graphics but I came up loving Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger and mostly play modern games so I enjoy some visual/artistic variety and nostalgia now and again. The aliens have some funny dialogue but the game isn't too silly and has some decent plot twists. Often strategy games have no real plot, this has some (without tons of reading) and it's pretty good IMO. You have time to build and explore but events move things along without feeling too rushed IMO (although still do some split saves just in case). Some say it feels rushed but I found it kept the game somewhat challenging vs grinding away for easy wins. 4/5 good but not mind blowing. It combines things few games do and in a world of endless franchises and genre clones I found it a breathe of fresh air....easily worth $15. Not for everyone but it has it's place.

Firstly I want to say this game is a $15 game; it's not a $90 AAA game. This game doesn't have deep complex diplomacy, long strategic tech, culture, and government trees. What it does have is a really well balanced mix of space ships, tech, buildings, skills, and a nice sprinkling of humor throughout the various engagements with the other races.

-It's a good time, just a lot more linear and less deep than I was expecting. But in some ways that made it more casual and approachable. -It's a combination of starbase management and battles, and a bit of storytelling here and there. -On the starbase you are building rooms to perform different functions that require being staffed by an officer to complete. For the battles your ships or officers appear lined up facing the enemy, and you shoot different abilities at each other until one side is gone. The strategy is in exploiting different abilities on top of each other to do higher damage. All the ability types are spread across different types of ships or officers. -Your officers level up with experience and you can choose different skill pathways for them so there is a bit of an RPG element that way. -The story is a "survival of humanity" type story. The point of it all is building yourself up to fight back against increasingly difficult waves of hostile aliens. I liked it, but it's an old idea. -There are other factions. Some of the interactions with them made me laugh out loud. But there is barely any real diplomacy gameplay and I think you could ignore it while still finishing the game and nothing would change. So that was disappointing. It's still a fun time. You can pick up and put it down again easily. I liked it enough to try a second play through with the "Precursor" DLC. Just don't expect a deep or complicated experience. It's a lot more linear than I was expecting.

It's a good mix of X-COM style base building and missions with J-RPG style turn-based combat. The game pacing starts out pretty good, but then slows down in the late game. Luckily, the game gives you some opportunities to skip to next story events in late game which somewhat compensates that. I beat the game in around 25 hours on my first playthrough on the default (Commander) difficulty. I only lost one officer once in ground combat, so I would say that if you are familiar with the genre you might want to select higher difficulty levels. In my experience it was: First 40% of the game felt good, always something to do, something happening or waiting for you. Next 20% was OK. The following 30% was a bit slow and repetetive, but the last 10% was good and fun again. The ship combat is solid, different abilities, effects and modifiers gives opportunities to adjust and optimize for each encounter. This lasts until you build max tier ships which have enough ability slots to cover enough effects to get you through almost all encounters unchanged. While the ground combat follows the same style, it becomes less fun much faster. Less abilities, less control and dealing with cadets made me prefer to skip it when I didn't need it. The main downside of the game are the technical issues. The user interface is clunky, inconsistent and bit buggy (acknowledging an event sometimes stops fast-forward, sometimes doesn't; sending a fleet lets you disable fast forward, but returning doesn't; clicking on notification sometimes shows you the event location, sometimes doesn't; technology screen becomes overcrowded and unreadable towards the end; and many more). After 3-4 hours session the interface becomes laggy, clicks can take 1-2 seconds to react, screen freezes for 1-2 seconds on scene switching. The game reliably crashes after 6-7 hours session. It crashed every single day I played at least once. Because of that I do not recommend using the Ironman mode.

small amount of a learning curve initialy, but there's lots of fans who have made lots of walkthroughs, so not really a problem as you can find answers to questions easily enough. Play is addictive, watch out! you'll discover time going by pretty quick once you start playing. That's testiment to the good game design and playablility. It's a well done game with plenty of humor interspersed throughout. Highly reccomend!