Star Renegades

At a brief glance, the game looks okay graphically and mechanically, but I couldn't bear playing it for too long. The reason is that the dialogues are very badly written. It's almost like reading someone's very first fanfic attempt. Or maybe an around-bottom-tier VN. Or watching a very (unironically) pretentious anime, I guess. I cringed my way through first ~30 minutes and couldn't take it any more. Oh, and IMHO, from the looks of it, the battle system is more or less a variant of the one from Grandia 2 (or an ealier JRPG, if Grandia also borrows the mechanics from some other one, I guess) - but I haven't played that game for a long time, so I may be wrong. I remember there being a turn order indicator in Grandia, and the ability to delay enemy actions via your characters' attacks. Additionally, you were also able to move the characters across the battlefield itself - I think that could allow them to avoid some enemy attacks etc.

Ultimately this game is a Rougue-lite; however, it mixes up bits and peices from JRPG and strategy games, and integrates them into a clever and addicting package. This design ethos of mixing together clever combinations extends towards the player in the meat of Star Renegade's turn-based battles. There is nothing really "new" as far as gameplay, but all its borrowed bits are a greatest hits collection of similar past games. The meat of the game are JRPG-styled battles. Each round is a paused 60 second timeline for both sides of the battle. Enemy actions each round are telegraphed ahead like games such as Into the Breach. Attacks have little or possibly no apparent RNG, and also affect the enemy timeline by delaying attacks, allowing your characters to get a critical hit advantage if they can hit first. This makes the game a deliberate set of choices that become more and more complex as you progress further, expecially once you begin to grow your party with characters and items that add multiple layers of buffs and multiple actions manipulating the timeline. The telegraphed enemy actions also make defense just as important as offense, shunning the JRPG rut of "hit A to attack" over and over again each round. I personally had gotten tired of the Rogue-like/lite style gameplay over the last few years. I feel like the format has become a shortcut to pad a game, and becomes hopeless repetitive grinding. Each run in Star Renegades is meaty and gets progressively meatier, adding an hour or more to each new run. It attempts successfully within an inch to prevent early levels feeling like a slog by presenting new characters and items to help speed up the earlier levels and present new strategies. The narrative is modest but just enough to give the game life. Music and art are neat, and the style is cohesive. 4/5 because it may not be a game for everybody.

The core turn based gameplay is fantastic, it's exactly what I want a turn based RPG to play like, deeply strategic where you can make informed decissions to escape (otherwise) certain doom. The Pixel art itself is extremely high quality and the combat animations are pretty goood Character design is... ok, a few good ones, but even those are a bit on the generic side. The music is fine So what's bad? The Millenial trademark insincere writing is eye-rolling at best, obnoxious at worst. The cynical writer can't stop himself from thinking he is a genious for being aware of basic tropes, and can't even let the ending of he story have any emotional impact, and immediatelly trivializes everything with a quip. IF that was all, I still would give this a 4/5. Sadly the writer must further break immersion by forcing modern-day earth politics into a scifi world, he literally said current day political slogans in the ending credits. Which means either the writer is simply incapable of imagining any other struggle in the distant future besides, or he is abusing this otherwise good project for his activism. I hope the team can find an actual writer in the future, and not let all their effort be sabotaged by rogue activist writers

It's fun, but I can't zone out on the map, making planning a real pita. It's also clunky, with no remappable keys, nor anything like a quick reference. I don't want to have to click evenything like I'm actually braindead. It's fun tho, but the clunkiness wore me down after the first completed run, which was my second thankfully. Another loss or two afterwards, and i'm content with the value I got for the sale price. It's good, just needed some more UX help, and higher damage output, both sides, fights take a touch long.

Im couple of hours in. Fun game.