It's been said over an over: This game went from being an unfinished mess into one of the greatest examples of a "diving save" made by a game developer. I need not expound on that point. The beginning of the game is mostly a tutorial phase and can be a bit tiresome. But once you're able to make repairs and zip off into the starry void... Well, the galaxy is your oyster. Complete and utter freedom. Your time is yours to spend or squander as you see fit. And for a sandbox game that promises you the stars and the moon, what finer gift can there be?
The game controls are responsive and forgiving; must haves for any ARPG. The different family members have their own style of fighting and this gives the game some replay value. Which is a good thing, as it is a rather short adventure. I found the story, while simple, to be compelling. You do come to care for the family and the individual characters, eventually coming to understand their own personal motivations. Good gravy to pour atop an enjoyable stew of an adventure. Fans of pixel graphic ARPGs will get their money's worth here.
To give this game a fair review, you have transport your mindset and expectations back to the mid-1980s. Programmers of that era had to work in Assembly and within very tight memory spaces. No RDX 4090s with 24GBs of dedicated VRAM. We're talking 8088 processors with MAYBE 640 KILObytes of addressable RAM. This game worked within a 128 KB memory space. So, with that disclaimer aside, I declare Starflight to be a technological marvel. In my misspent youth, no other game effectively conveyed the vastness of space. Staring at the starmap (either the printed map or the in-game one), I remember touching my finger to those little dots depicting the star systems and wondering: "What is out there? How do I get there? Can I carry enough fuel? Who will I encounter and will I be walking into a fight?" The way the game (in the early stages) simply allows you to bumble along was liberating and confusing, all at the same time. Only when the price of fuel begins to creep up on you do you start to develop a sense of urgency. The lore of the story unfolds slowly and the hints are a bit obtuse. But after a few disasterous playthroughs, you will develop your own optimal strategy to outfit your ship and train up your crew. All standard fare for an RPG. It's here, when you become more "powerful" (for lack of a better term) that you begin to actually feel more anxious. A single disasterous battle can have you scrambling back to a save game that would undo perhaps days of progress. I can remember the feeling of dread I experienced when delving into a nebula where your shields cannot be raised. The thin Class 1 armour on my ship (chosen to keep mass down and mobility up) made me feel horribly exposed. Sweaty palm moments. So, for anyone with the patience to suffer through a clunky interface and blocky graphics, I highly recommend giving this game a try. You'll find yourself taking notes, learning about Laytonites, rediscovering Earth, meeting fascinating aliens and blow them to bits.
The artwork and animation definitely set this game apart. I generally don't go for "dating sims", but this has the makings of something special. Yes, it's in Early Access, as of Feb 2025, but it holds the promise of being more than just a graphic novel with a superficial Choose Your Own Adventure decision tree. I don't want to speculate too much about what the game devs intend, but I can see a future version of this game with more meaningful choices presented to the player. It would be nice to have a JRPG element incorporated into it, including inventory, combat, measurable stats. A system of random encounters could be put in, where the protagonist might be able to leverage his charm, his strength, his intelligence to come out on top. Whatever may come, I think the game is off to a great start. As convoluted as some of the plot elements can be, you actually end up caring about the characters you interact with. Not just the women, but you begin to see the male allies as friends. There's a scene where a guy acquaintance. whom I initially disliked out of reflex, is getting the defecation beaten out of him by some local thugs. I genuinely felt bad for guy and felt responsible for his condition. But that aside, the women characters (though quite a bit on the fantastic and improbable side of reality) grow on you, too. You understand their motivations (mostly) and want to help them. A couple of them... well, you wanna smash them over the head with a shovel at first. But eventually, you come to care about those inanimate (mostly) 2D sprites on your screen, despite their stinted dialogue and over-the-top dramatics. Yeah, the game plays like a victim simulator for long, unpleasant sections. There are times where you feel like a passenger in a Torture Train. For a game that asks you what you would do differently, it does lock you into some annoying story arcs with no ability to break free. But, I can forgive that, ALL of it, if the games lives up to its promise.
