Core mechanics look like glitches
It's possible to softlock at the beginning of the game and lose 45 minutes of progress or so. I did not elect to try again.
I think the game looks pretty cute, and, while I'm only a few minutes into the game, I think it could be quite fun, however the controls are inexcusibly bad. They would be out of place on a game made 10 years ago, and absolutely awful now. Worse, there are many different actions, so many they choose to put a quick reference guide in the pause screen, and this is only the default controls, so they're actively wrong if you rebind (as you probably should).
I'm playing through the campaign and it's been acceptable so far, but it just randomly swapped from a standard RTS style of game to a TD style, and it literally breaks the game. You can place turrets only in certain locations, at least at first, and when you can use an ability and place units you do not have direct control over them. The downside of this is that when the air raids come later and these units are your defense you cannot put them between the air units and your base. Worse yet, at the autosave I was given, the air units cross over multiple parts of the TD path. The player units immediately path to these air units when they cross the first part and leave my base undefended, and the air units just rush my defenseless base. I had to revert to a prior save to get out of the situation, and even then it was a challenge to work around these mechanics. The game otherwise seems fine, and I suspect this will not be an issue anywhere beyond this mission, or any later ones in the campaign, either.
Game sucks. Poor English translations don't help, but the game itself was so bad I had to quit in the second level.
Game felt interesting in theory, but ultimately lost in practice. Controls felt wonky, but it was released in 97, every game was wonky. Got softlocked a couple of times, which kinda sucked.
Fair warning, what I am going to say here may be SPOILERy. At the end of the game you appear to be offered a choice, but that choice doesn't exist. I'm not saying Mass Effect 3 "illusion of choice". I mean you don't actually get to choose. Kinda odd, but otherwise quite interesting.
The game is great, but recent updates changed a LOT about how the game works without fully going down the rabbit trails, specifically quest rewards.
Expect: Floor obstacles that have jank hitboxes Insta kill snipers The stiffest dialogue you've ever heard An animation budget that solely went into the weapon idle animations A forced stealth section with unclear objectives That classic game mechanic where automatic weapons don't shoot straight on the first shot Just to make it clear, I'm not hating everything. I find the idea of the criminal underworld(?) having 2019 weapons in 21XX funny. Those idle animations *are* well done. The level design is sparse but not awful.
This game is challenging. You will die, a lot, in fact it is intended. Don't get caught up on some of these reviews, death is an integral part of this game. It's one of those "get as far as you can, then upgrade" kinds of games. Every decision to explore must be balanced, are the resources you might find worth potentially getting into a fight? Should you spend your hard earned credits on repairs or horde them up? You can only spend your credits on persistent upgrades (like weapon slots or engine speed) when you die. Unfortunately this mechanic isn't really explained until after you die, so it can seem pretty frustrating if you just quit. As far as gameplay/UI/controls, think FTL crossed with a space combat sim. Flight is fluid, maybe too fluid? It feels like I occasionally drift, due to the way your pipper can move in front of the craft (it's not locked to one position). Actually picking up new weapons and gear can be a little frustrating sometimes. Graphics are great, in my opinion, and there are in-game camera tools for capturing your battles.
