Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition

This game's predecessor "Sunless Sea" is a fantastic game, and a superb expansion from the browser-based "Fallen London." It would be hard to top. especially with its own expansion "Zubmariner" in the mix, adding to the established intrigue and severity of a magnificently written game. So here comes the big sequel. "Skies" appears, and swings so hard at a one-speed ball that it begs the question- 'What happened?' "Sea" gave weight to all of its choices because it accepted that the action and crises of the plot would take place on the written-word page, all the while making money and attributes difficult let alone dangerous to acquire, to the point where you as captain began having to make personal, non-plot related decisions as to how you wanted to reach your goals. "Skies" added one scoop from that box of ice-cream to its mix and the rest is just a blend of teaching you to fight for a living. That being said, they did a great job with the physics and combat mechanics, definitely an upgrade on an exploration game like "Seas," but seemingly at the cost of so much value to decisions made and characterization, both in the ports and on the quests themselves. Encounters in various ports became so much more succinct, predictable, and jarringly easy-- just have enough of an item or an attribute, or try again. The item list seems cut in half twice over, and with none of it difficult to acquire (save through combat), the enticingly exotic aspects of the previous games suddenly flatlined. For newcomers, "Sunless Skies" is a fun combat/exploration game, and will require some reading to appreciate the plots, which are well-woven and fun to ponder. For return Fallen Londoners and Zee Captains, "Skies" is a fun combat/exploration game that greatly reduces itself from its previous titles in favor of clicking the 'shoot' button and getting rich a bit too easily.

So, I enjoyed Sunless Sea a lot. Finished every ending, every quest and enjoyed almost every last bit of a content to find there. Naturally, when I heard that so many people herald Sunless Skies as an improvement over Sunless Sea, I was stoked. After playing I strongly disagree. Sure, the tutorial is a great addition. Art and locations are gorgeous. Fights are significantly more involved and engaging. Writing is also pretty great. I found writing in Sunless Sea more engaging, and not a single place (although I haven't been at the land of the dead) gripped me as hard as Kingeater's Castle or Irem, but I still enjoyed it a lot. So, why a 3 star then, if both plot and combat are good? Well, honestly, IMHO Sunless Skies has some of the worst, most unfocused and arbitrary design decisions I have ever seen in a game. Even worse, some of those systems appear, to my unprofessional eye, a direct downgrade to systems in place in Sunless Sea. 1) Trade. Prospects and bargains. I get the idea - instead of circling the same trade route over and over again - you get to go to different places. But. Gaining money became absurdly trivial. I remember worrying, if the trade route I take in Sunless Sea will even compensate me for all the fuel I used to travel. Welp, no need for that in this game. Earning money is so extremely easy, I got the most expensive ship in the game after 10 hours, and had thousands to spare. 2) Progression. Why level cap is so low? I reached it midway through Albion. Why at 75 stats you still have numerous 60-70% checks in this stat? If I take every available facet in a stat I expect to be able to do things associated with it well. Why does gear have stat requirements? Also, why the hell weapons for hearts, not even a "combat" skill is so bloody overpowered? Why mines are so terrible? Why stats don't affect combat anymore? Why when I am flying in full steam mode on the top engine enemies are still faster then me while also flying diagonally? \_(-_-)_/

Sunless Skies is a sequel to Sunless Sea. In Skies you travel around fantasy-space in your flying locomotive seeing crazy and sometimes scary things. The setting is "whacky cosmic horror" with a big chunk of satire of the British empire and nationalism. This is a nice starting point. The game is divided into two parts, text adventures and free-roaming with your 'engine'; and this meshes pretty well. You solve problems using stats you level by getting XP either from interactions, or combat; which lets you accomplish more things. You set your own victory condition at the start of a new save so the game wont last any longer than you'd like it to. There is also a solid system for dying where you can either use permadeath to play as a succession line of captains, or make permadeath optional to get more control over it. The combat's diffficulty, and the free roaming economy aspect, is also tweakable starting a new game. So what's the problems? Failbetter Games sell themselves on their writing which range from whacky to mysterious to cooky to atmospheric, and they've got good writers - credit where credit is due. But the game delights in shoving mystery and obfuscation in your face without any answers or convenient ways to unravel them. You will be handed many questions and not a lot of answers, which when you notice will pull the writing from "great" to "filler". A mystery needs a resolution to be complete, and you will not have a lot of completed mysteries. When you do however they're great! Revealing the secret of Albion's sun with your not-Aunt and trying to see through an illusion by examining how much a donkey poops is all unnerving and funny as it should be. But these are exeptions to the average. The gameplay is also sinfully slow. You can spend an hour doing nothing but travel just to sort out menial busywork. This is a game that would benefit from being turn based. The combat is also simplistic and never escalates. It could have been great, but it isn't.

I'd rate this game somewhere between a 3 and 4 (I went with a 4 because I did really enjoy the early game). Its a good game, but has some flaws that keep it from being amazing in my opinion. Pros: If you liked the storytelling in Sunless Sea you'll like the storytelling in this. The aesthetic is really nice and the graphics are both beautiful and fantastical. The soundtrack meshes well with the various locations. Updates are coming to add even more content. Cons: Train speed is not up-gradable. You don't notice it in the early game but as you finish exploring new territory / get better trains and start wanting to just get from point A to point B the pace can seem agonizingly slow. Spamming dodge to go a little faster really kills immersion. Not being able to outrun / catch up to things gets kind of old too. I wish there was more progression in general. I ended up at max level before I was halfway through the game and had more than enough currency to do whatever I wanted to. At that point combat lost a lot of its appeal as there wasn't much reward to it anymore. I also wish there were more options for equipment progression as well as more ways to increase attributes.

Sunless skies is an exploration and trade driven roguelike set in an intriguing, vibrant, dark and dangerous world. It's key gameplay pillars clash, leaving a game that is less than the sum of its parts. The core gameplay is exploring, travelling and fighting through the world, the sunless skies, with extensive choice driven narrative segments in-between. There are several gameplay loops which you'll repeat constantly. The most common is trade and travelling between routes you've already explored. This can be pretty mind-numbing, especially since you'll need to spend hours travelling back and forth between locations you've already explored. The repetitive travel is broken up by exploring new areas and progressing the various stories that exist in the ports, with the characters you meet, and the world. These bits are enjoyable, especially the narrative segments, but they're relatively brief. This is made worse by much of the story being locked behind items, and the design of the game means there's a fair chance you'll need to take another mindless trip just to go get the items in question and progress the story. The game potentially functions as a roguelike as well, with your future captains inheriting benefits from any dead ones. While this supports replayability and the choices the game offers, you will lose all progress with your current stories, and I think most people will not want to lose this progress, especially considering the slow gameplay. Luckily this is not the default, unlike its predecessor Sunless Seas. The music is atmospheric and the visuals evocative, but not outstanding. Overall if you're looking for a game with a rich world to explore filled with intriguing stories you might enjoy Sunless Skies. As long as you don't mind that most of time you're actually going to be ferrying goods between the same locations, again and again and again.