I played the Itch version (soloq.itch.io/remains) nearly a year ago, and asked the developer about the GOG version, which already out of date then. Quoting my questions here: ===================== I just found this game through GOG, where it is currently on offer at 50%... It is still listed with them as 'In dev', with last version from June 8, 2021 (nearly a year and half ago). The last post here is from over 2 years ago, with a much smaller download than the version currently on GOG. I see on your page here that it was last updated on Aug 10, 2022, which is not reflected on the files here or on GOG. So, 2 questions: - Do you still work on it, and will you update the files here and on GOG? - If you still work on it, will it be possible to purchase from Itch as well? His answer: ========= I will continue to update the files on GOG and release the update at the same time as every other platform. I don't plan to release it on Itch yet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There hasn't been any update since (340 days ago), either on GOG or on Itch. I checked to day on Steam, and it is listed there as having been reased on 8 Jun, 2021 as an early access game (without any mentioned updates since then). I also checked their forums, and found a false statement from the dev : "The game is already available on many platforms" (quote from https://steamcommunity.com/app/1309820/discussions/0/3801650561772939371/) Followed by a number of complaints from Steam buyers of this game.
I had tagged it as 'junk', but did not remmeber why, so I went to give it another chance. Very quickly found why: there are NO USER Settings: no sound settings, no control settings. Add to this a very annoying music and a terrible set of controls for me, as well as having to GUESS the existing controls, and I removed it again, as well as moved it to hidden games so that I will not waste time wit it again.
You start off with the option to go through the tutorial, which fortunately I did. There you discover that the keyboard is unpractical to control your ship, and hit a bug right off the start; actually, the first orbit around Earth (while looking at the interface) shifted on its own (no thrust applied) and the ship bounced off Earth and moved away at random... Travel mechanics could have been ok, if celestial bodies did not travel so unrealistically fast. There is a display for an ideal path, but this is like playing an arcade game on steroids.. There is no pause, no option to slow down time, no save feature to attempt to travel by trials and errors. I give 1 point because the review cannot be validated with 0....
I still have the boxed copy of the original game. I have tried replaying it recently, it mostly still worked on Windows 10 (using patches available on the Internet) until I reached a boss encounter which was unplayable on modern PCs. I never bought the GOG version of it, since I suspect that it is exactly the same I have, so I was interested in this one, but the price tag of € 35 is too much for my budget, and definitely way to much for a remake compared to other games remakes I know. I have no way to compare how it plays (versus the original game) since there is no demo, and a review cannot tell me that. So I will wait until the price goes down; I suspect that most players in the same case, or who bought the GOG version, will also find this version too expensive.
I am currently replaying this game (with all DLCs from this pack activated), and I just passed the conditions to obtain the first 'Add Super Enemies Plan', according to the 'Dungeon Plans Guide' on Steam (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=385023285). According to this guide, 3 plans become available for Naasne Volcano (including the first super enemies plans) 'Obtained ... in Chapter 5 after Noire rejoins'; I did get the 2 usual plans at that point, but not the other.
Before posting this review, I tried sending them a bug report through the 'contact us' form in their website. Let me add that I am very experienced players at RPGs and this type of game (for instance I kept playing the old Captive for a few years). After a few runs, I was very surprised to find some faction ratings getting very low very quickly (which there did not seem to be a reason for), so on my last run I picked a mission with only a low objective (+2 to a faction which was at 0, no negative factions results). I went out of my way NOT to steal anything from that faction, nor do anything which could be considered hostile to them, and just before exiting the mission map, the faction rating was still at 0. So, I exited the mission map, got the report that the faction was very pleased and that I was getting +2 as expected. Then I immediately looked at that faction rating... it was now at -18 Besides this, I found that the RNG seemed to be rigged against the player, with fail rates in combats sometimes as high as 80% over the whole battle, against opponents same level who rarely missed. Same apparently RNG 80/20 odds against the player on items interactions, for instance with terminals, using hacker. This led me to make a save before every single action, which is really becoming tedious and should not be necessary. Then when I validated my report for them, I got the message: 'Failed! The error occured, message is not sent. Please try again later.' I saved my message as a notepad file, so far I got the same error every single time I tried to send it. The current GOG version of the game is 1.0.2 from the 4th of July 2017 Until they fixed this, avoid this game.
I just finished playing the story line (at version 1.08); I have a number of comments: - Saving options misleading and inconsistent: The Main menu (outside a game) has a so called 'Manage saves' options. This is a misnomer, the only thing it allows you is to delete an existing game: 1 game, 1 save, no manual saving at any time. The information messages appearing now and then tell you incorrectly that it saves automatically when you dock any station, but actually it does when you dock, leave a station, or exit the game at any other point by its own exit option. Due to the above I exited my first game in a no-win situation, with the intention to reload from the last station, to find out that I could only reload from the same point; I ended up deleting this game and starting a fresh one. The ONLY option in such situation is to deliberately get your ship destroyed WITHOUT exiting, at which point you do resume from the last station you docked at. - Escort missions are buggy: They require you to go into 'Paired warp' mode, where you get no control; if you accidentally break the paired warp mode for any reason, the mission fails. I have seen the paired warp mode broken by the game itself a few times, for instance when one of the ships is forcibly dropped out of warp but not the other; I found that this can happen either way, and will frequntly occur when the escorted ship starts or get through an asteroid field or one of the many disturbance areas. In one case, my ship was in paired warp mode, still stuck in an asteroid field and unable to find its way out (kept hitting asteroids due to some bad pathfinding) while the other ship was already out of it and making tracks without mine. The escorted ship will sometimes drop out of warp to turn 90 degrees and go attacking a group of hostiles it did not need to (seen once in the story escort). - The story line is disappointingly short: It has few stages, each only need you to get enough combined defences and firepower to survive it; one of the last stages is an Escort mission mentionned above, which starts at random location on a certain map (I had to retry it several times in a row, until one attempt started in free space and had only 1 interruption without any other ship in sight). Once the story ended (you get a dialog with your aunt), you end up in a free mode with just the random base missions; I finished the story itself with just the bigger trade ship (Heavy class), only moved after that to the biggest ones (Very Heavy). - The game is replayable: I will replay it at some point in the future, using a different ship then the one I used this time; surviavl strategy depends a lot on the ship itself and its equipment. You start the game being hostile to various faction, but in theory you could take carefully chosen mercenary missions to fix those status; I might try that soon anyway as it will require a lot more patience than the standard mode. - The team is apparently still working on the game: There was an update through GOG a few days ago, but I found no information regarding the content of that update. In theory, a new story plot could be added (starting some after the first one); I have however no information concerning the team's intentions on that regard.
