The concept is great and if you play smart and careful you can make it far. but I can't even get to the final section on anything other than easy, and it isn't because I don't know how to play. If this game had more option to buy equipment, hire crew, and survey system then the game would be more enjoyable. Like most other of this type is seem unnecessarily diffifult for the sake of sadism.
It honestly ruins my enjoyment to be able to handle every encounter and then get creamed by a unfair boss who can regenerate 3 times and reconfigure itself every time. Meanwhile you have almost no options throughout most of the game unless you are extremely lucky.
I've been seeing FTL pop up quite a bit over the years, but resisted even looking into the game. I've played my share of super serious space simulators over the years, so the premise of and look of FTL did not appeal to me...
until I started playing it. It's very much a crew and ship management game. Simple, intuitive, and just fun. FUN FUN FUN!
There, I said it.
I love the game and can't say enough good things about it.
It's challenging hard, it's all about learning the different tactics, micromanagment of your ship and adapting to your enemy. Story isn't interesting but is enough to enjoy the game.
In short FTL is pure gameplay without bullshit, for me it is a must play!
As the title of my review suggests, yes this game can be a lot of fun. The problem is the difficulty is kind of all over the place. One minute you could be holding your own against a pirate ship, the next minute, Mantis board your ship and steamroll the crew into dust, game over.
If you like games that are brutal and unforgiving, you will love this game. Otherwise I would probably say go with something else. I will admit, it is a bit of a guilty pleasure to play it because sometimes you get a good run where most everything goes right and those run throughs are exciting. On the other hand, you can get a game where you die after one or two systems.
So, beware.
I did not encounter any technical issues per say once I set the settings I wanted.
This is a game about space. it doesn't try to present you with beautiful ships, planets and views. It just tries to present to you a struggle. you are on the run from a large fleet. the game is divided in sectors, the sectors have way-points that you jump to until you reach the way-point that allows you to move to the next sector. each way-point presents you with a scenario which can be anything from just nothing, to a pirate attacking you or a problem you would see in a Startrek episode. Each sector is different and a little more difficult as the last so you need to explore as much of the map as you can before the fleet catches you, for friendly, but mostly unfriendly, help to upgrade your ship.
This game really does a lot with very simple and seemingly minimal concepts and mechanics. it gives you a lot of options, control and freedom of how to advance. there are ships to choose from, subsystems to upgrade, weapons and crew to choose, tasks to assign, tactics to decide. All are easy to do and all can mean the difference between life and death.
Yes, death. This game is very punishing. Small mistakes can cost you everything, sometimes not right away but then still further down the line. There is little room to recover but most of the time it feels fair when you die. You will die many times. I just keep coming back to this as it's just very satisfying when you succeed.
My only issue is that the freedom that you are given is a bit of an illusion. Some tactics just don't work as well as others do, so you often end up with similar upgrade paths through the game. my other issue is that there is still a chunk of luck involved in getting necessary upgrades. You can do everything right but still end up outmatched. this is because good loot-drops are rare and, the biggest issue (seems easy to solve), is that the stores where you buy stuff have very limited stock. Space is unforgiving like that I suppose.
Awesome & greater than the sum of it’s parts: 4.5/5
