I've played this game for roughly eight hours at this point and thus far I'm impressed. It captures the feel of D&D while also giving it a modern, state-of-the-art feel. I haven't run into any real bugs, and everything seems to work as well as many launch day games. This is an amazing feat for so large, and complex a game. I should not that it is not quite feature complete at this point, as it looks like there may be additional classes and races added later, and you cannot currently play the pre-made character stories. Otherwise it's all here. Pros: Beautiful graphics that appear to have jumped right out of the official books. This game looks better than it really needs to for an RPG, but it definitely helps the immersion. Gameplay is intuitive and nuanced, with a lot of tactical options for your characters. The game rewards experimentation. For example, I ran into a difficult encounter in the early going with my rogue, and ran away to hide. However, I didn't want to give up so easily, so I located some high ground and proceeded to snipe my superior opponent from the shadows until they were defeated. So far this is one of the most detailed and rewarding RPG's I've ever played. And yes, I have played this studios other works. Thus far this is superior. Cons: It makes my PC (AMD 3900X, 32 gigs of RAM, GTX 1080) run like a vacuum cleaner on steroids. It s so loud my wife complained from the other room, and I am using extra quiet fans. Hopefully this is due to the game running in an unoptimized state. Also, it is not quite feature complete, but there is still a lot here to chew on. The inventory needs a drag and drop option. Currently you have to equip the gear from a separate screen and toggle back and forth. Overall this looks promising, and can't wait to see the finished product.
My suggestions to the developers: drop the abysmal main character, drop or at least rewrite the "comedy" story-line and let players create their own character. Your created character could simply be called "captain" during the story, if you must continue using it. They should take a page from the first Rebel Galaxy and just create a universe with an ongoing plot that you can choose to partake in or not instead of saddling you with a ridiculous main character that literally no one will identify with or actually want to play. This would allow for the easy introduction of additional story based DLC. There are some great ideas in this game, and if done properly they could turn this into a very compelling, budget Star Citizen, or if that is way too much of a reach, then at least a worthy competitor to Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. The graphics are nice, and the ship designs are solid. Unfortunately the combat in the game's current state feels a bit weightless as if no physics are at play. I enjoyed this studio's other games (although I never played Starpoint Gemini 1) and I have great hope that the end product will be much better than the current In Dev version, but only time will tell.
Sadly, I keep trying to play this game, and have sunk many, many hours into it. The first play through, my kingdom died, and as a result, it was game over after 30 hours of play time. For my second play-through, I turned the kingdom mechanic off... as much as it lets you, although this function is poorly made, and has a habit of breaking the game At least I didn't have to deal with the kingdom mechanic, which is, frankly, terrible and gives you zero control over what's happening to your kingdom. They should have left this piece on the cutting room floor. So I played it for the dungeon crawling, adventure and combat, which is fun at first. Of course, you have to ignore the unbelievably obtuse game design where you are given quests with no idea where to go, and no clues to help you get there. Even better, there is a timer (often unseen) on everything that can either end your game at any moment or cause key characters to leave your party. So you end up with your fingers resting on Alt and Tab because you have to google what the heck you're supposed to do next constantly. CONSTANTLY. And it isn't as if I haven't played many of these sorts of games before, its just that this one far, far too ambitious for its own good, and for the developers ability to deliver. But that's not the worst part. As you get near the end, most of the encounters become cripplingly, mind-numbingly unfair even on normal difficulty. Do you enjoy being constantly outnumbered while your stats are drained permanently, your characters are confused, blinded, sickened, staggered, stunned, etc., you can't use any magic, your enemies attacks ignore your armor and their damage reduction is so high you can't hurt them? Then you're in for a treat. Prepare your absolute cheesiest strategies, because they are the only way to proceed ON NORMAL DIFFICULTY. If you've ever played with a petty, childish, vindictive DM who punishes players for kicks, then this will be a familiar experience. Avoid.
Sadly, I keep trying to play this game, and have sunk many, many hours into it. The first play through, my kingdom died, and as a result, it was game over after 30 hours of play time. For my second play-through, I turned the kingdom mechanic off... as much as it lets you, although this function is poorly made, and has a habit of breaking the game At least I didn't have to deal with the kingdom mechanic, which is, frankly, terrible and gives you zero control over what's happening to your kingdom. They should have left this piece on the cutting room floor. So I played it for the dungeon crawling, adventure and combat, which is fun at first. Of course, you have to ignore the unbelievably obtuse game design where you are given quests with no idea where to go, and no clues to help you get there. Even better, there is a timer (often unseen) on everything that can either end your game at any moment or cause key characters to leave your party. So you end up with your fingers resting on Alt and Tab because you have to google what the heck you're supposed to do next constantly. CONSTANTLY. And it isn't as if I haven't played many of these sorts of games before, its just that this one far, far too ambitious for its own good, and for the developers ability to deliver. But that's not the worst part. As you get near the end, most of the encounters become cripplingly, mind-numbingly unfair even on normal difficulty. Do you enjoy being constantly outnumbered while your stars are drained permanently, your characters are confused, blinded, sickened, staggered, stunned, etc., you can't use any magic, your enemies attacks ignore your armor and their damage reduction is so high you can't hurt them? Then you're in for a treat. Prepare your absolute cheesiest strategies, because they are the only way to proceed ON NORMAL DIFFICULTY. If you've ever played with a petty, childish, vindictive DM who punishes players for kicks, then this will be a familiar experience. Avoid.
This game has fantastic potential. The graphics look truly great, and the basic freelancer idea is sound. The controls are very sharp and the gameplay is fun. Although I would like better explosions, these are quite weak and feel like there are no physics attached to them. Perhaps this is because its early access. Unfortunately you are stuck playing the most insipid, nonsensical character I have literally ever seen. The dialogue is terrible, and while I realize and perhaps even appreciate the fact that they are trying to create a tongue in cheek atmosphere, the main character is just too ridiculous to take remotely seriously. It feels like you are trapped inside an idiot watching him muck up everything while you watch helplessly. You have literally no choice in anything that happens, and everyone you meet talks down to you for the stupid decisions he made that you had zero control over. I cannot reiterate enough that I DO NOT WANT TO PLAY THIS CHARACTER and yet it appears this is the only way to experience the game. This game desperately needs player agency. What a shame. I truly hope the free-roam game mode gets fleshed out and lets us create our own character so we never, ever have to touch the adventure mode. Or better yet, they edit and rewrite some of the intro so we can at least not utterly hate the character we are stuck playing.
I love the ideas of this game. I've always wanted a starship captain simulator, and this is the best one I've played so far, even in its development state. You have meaningful decisions to make, nice role-playing, a crew to manage, and some fairly fun, punchy ship combat. However, there are some design decisions that make no sense. Pros: Its the only real starship captain simulator on the market. The game-play is fun, and there is plenty to do. The main story is interesting, and there are choices that affect how it progresses. The graphics in the main view are nice and combat feels solid and weighty. Cons: There are several odd quirks that make no sense. You will receive negative "perks" for your captain through literally no fault of your own when a randomized game event will come up out of nowhere that forces you to choose one of two bad choices that nerf your captain. This is incredibly annoying and makes no sense whatsoever. THESE ARE PERMANENT and start to ruin the fun of the game very quickly, especially since most of them are negative. There should be more classes of ships. You have cruisers and... maybe a battleship or two. There should be corvettes, frigates, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, etc. You get constantly dropped out of warp to be attacked, and there is no radar or way to avoid them. Some of the ship designs are directly lifted from other games, as if they used the actual game assets (rebel galaxy and star point Gemini). The menus look like something from the 90's, and there are many unprofessional grammatical errors, Finally, you can't repair your own ship, instead you must go to an allied space station. which are super tedious to dock with after you've done it 20 times (DESPERATELY needs auto-dock). In closing, I've listed a lot of issues that will hopefully be remedied in the final version. The game has a lot of potential, which I hope they don't squander.
This game is disappointing to me, mostly because it could have been so much better. The world building is good, the characters are interesting, and the core systems in place are well designed. What's wrong with it then? Well, three things. A very poor journal system, a somewhat bland story of building a kingdom, and frankly the kingdom management itself. The good: Graphics and animation are nice, and there is a lot of customization for your character. The camera angle is fixed (with zoom), and avoids being fidgety. The core system is well represented albeit with a simplified skill system that works better in this application. The basic pause/real-time combat system is almost identical to Baldur's Gate and works well. As a whole, the game is fun... when you are actually able to adventure around the world uncovering tombs and fighting monsters, etc. The bad: You are constantly being interrupted from doing what's fun (adventuring) to go and deal with your kingdom. You are bombarded with a bewildering number of random events to deal with that function like a bad card game where you have little control over the outcome. What's even worse? These events can result in failure states for your empire if one of its key stats gets too low. There is an option for an "invincible kingdom" but that feels lame as though you are missing out. In addition, the journal quickly becomes an unusable mess as nothing ever gets flagged as completed in a legible way. I got to where I didn't even want to bother with it, which is unfortunate as many events are timed, also resulting in yet another instant failure state. And finally, we have the story. It's a generic commoner becomes nobility with a few twists and turns that is decent, if uninspired. I have a feeling that DLC could be the savior for this game if it drops the kingdom mechanic and lets you just be an adventurer. The basic engine is very good. Time will tell. In the meantime, I can't really recommend the base game as it is.
