This is an amazing game. I can't write much without simply repeating all of the praise you will find in other 5-star reviews, but I wanted to emphasize one point of difference with many who have referred to the game as being "Lovecraftian" in flavor. Sure, you could say that. But only inasmuch as you could say Poe was Lovecraftian, which despite the obvious chronological issue (as Poe came first) I think a lot of people would agree with. This game has a flavor that reminds one of Lovecraft due to both the genre and the masterful lore crafting that has taken place. I would argue that the shared genre is a red herring, as so many pieces of trash fiction (games, films, literature) claim to be of a "Lovecraftian" genre and yet fail to deliver as art. The important part of what makes this game Lovecraftian, is the fact that Alexis Kennedy displays such skill in using words to create feelings, that Lovecraft is one of the few past authors worthy of being used as a comparison. Kennedy's work here meets and frequently exceeds the expectations set by Lovecraft's works, but does so while avoiding the mindless copypasta of Lovecraft's lore. This is all new work, and it's some of the best ever done.
So, here on launch day the game has some bugs, I'll let other reviewers share their experiences directly but the only issue that I personally had was lack of good 21:9 monitor support. So for now I'm playing in windowed instead of fullscreen while they sort that out. Gameplay is great though. Music is good, story so far is good, characters seem fun, blowing things up goes just as it should. I give it one bonus point for selectable pronoun during character customization (note -- you can only customize your own character, not your crew) and I give it ten bonus points for quality cutscenes that are thankfully skippable if you replay. The UI takes some learning, it's got a lot of elements and some of them are not quite where I expected to find them. I wish it would display weapon effective ranges in a more visual way (it DOES tell you the effective ranges, just.... not in my preferred style). But on the whole it's quite good once you get a battle or two under your belt, the method starts to sink in and it makes sense. I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes turn-based tactics.
So, here on launch day the game has some bugs, I'll let other reviewers share their experiences directly but the only issue that I personally had was lack of good 21:9 monitor support. So for now I'm playing in windowed instead of fullscreen while they sort that out. Gameplay is great though. Music is good, story so far is good, characters seem fun, blowing things up goes just as it should. I give it one bonus point for selectable pronoun during character customization (note -- you can only customize your own character, not your crew) and I give it ten bonus points for quality cutscenes that are thankfully skippable if you replay. The UI takes some learning, it's got a lot of elements and some of them are not quite where I expected to find them. I wish it would display weapon effective ranges in a more visual way (it DOES tell you the effective ranges, just.... not in my preferred style). But on the whole it's quite good once you get a battle or two under your belt, the method starts to sink in and it makes sense. I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes turn-based tactics.
