This game is almost everything I could want in a game; ftl style story telling, beautiful, BEAUTIFUL fucking art, incredible style, gameplay that's interesting if a bit formulaic, and it's all tied together in an interface that i smile every time I see it.
...unfortunately, the writing is some of the most Dudebro "Moral Choices About Whether To Torture Or Kill This Prisoner In Our Military Space Ship" I can possibly imagine and it suuucks. The first area's bad guys kidnap women to use them to breed more warriors. It's cringe, it's so fucking cringe
If you're the sort of person who reads this and goes "wow I don't know what you're talking about, that sounds fine, and the game looks great" then ignore this review, and buy the game. You'll probably enjoy a game I just couldn't stomach.
...unfortunately, the writing is some of the most Dudebro "Moral Choices About Whether To Torture Or Kill This Prisoner In Our Military Space Ship" I can possibly imagine and it suuucks. The first area's bad guys kidnap women to use them to breed more warriors. It's cringe, it's so fucking cringe
If you're the sort of person who reads this and goes "wow I don't know what you're talking about, that sounds fine, and the game looks great" then ignore this review, and buy the game. You'll probably enjoy a game I just couldn't stomach.
FTL but i managed to beat it
Super engaging FTL clone with really fun combat. Not as good as FTL but if you see it on sale and you like FTL then BUY it. It's really fun and challenging.
TL:DR is that this is a good and fun game that has quite a few similarities to FTL, and it IS basically what would happen if FTL decided to focus more on story, but doesn't quite deliver as well in the replay department.
I'll start with the good: as I said above, Crying Suns is quite a good game with an actual story to back it up. Sure, it's a bit of a darker, more apocalyptic vision of the future (that I will not spoil) , but it's miles ahead of FTL's, which basically boils down to "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope." And this is backed up by a strategic gameplay with the same "tactical pause and strategy" feel of FTL, but takes its own spin on it. Rather than focusing on shuffling your small crew around to pummel the enemy vessel with weapons (mainly lasers), you're instead playing around with your squadrons of ships on a hexagonal grid with a very rock-paper-scissors core (or the weakness triangle, minus cruisers). It feels tactical and fun, and does have more nuance than simply "this counters that" because of some special gimmicks and properties to said ships. The upgrade system per run is also done well in its own way, and the various ship types (of which I have played two) offers pretty varied approaches to combat.
Now for the bad, and that mainly boils down to what it provides in terms of replay value. The big one is that there's a notable lack of "secret hunting" that incentivizes replays. FTL has its ship unlocks that can be accelerated by certain special events or, if you can't be bothered, demands playing around with all ship types and hunting for achievements. In Crying Suns, that does not exist - you can unlock ALL ship types just by playing through the game's story (which is what I did with the starter battleship). And while the story is good, is has quite a LOT of dialogue boxes (which, even on a first playthrough, get pretty tedious and easy to lose track of the story). It's not quite to the level where the "roguelike" aspect feels shoehorned in, but it definitely kept me from playing too far after I completed the main story and all six of its chapters. And as for the difficulty, it seems a bit too easy, as in "HARD" mode feels as difficult as "Normal" mode in FTL, and more challenge generally translates to ore replay value.
On a side note, I would like to draw special attention to Crying Sun's soundtrack. It's OK - perfectly fitting for the type of atmosphere it tries to give, but to me, it lacks the "magic" that makes it fantastic like Ben Prunty's soundtrack for FTL.
Even with all that, it's still a good game. I think you'll get plenty of enjoyment if you treat this game less like a typical roguelike you play over and over for completion but rather a tactics-based singleplayer campaign with roguelike elements sprinkled in.
I'll start with the good: as I said above, Crying Suns is quite a good game with an actual story to back it up. Sure, it's a bit of a darker, more apocalyptic vision of the future (that I will not spoil) , but it's miles ahead of FTL's, which basically boils down to "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope." And this is backed up by a strategic gameplay with the same "tactical pause and strategy" feel of FTL, but takes its own spin on it. Rather than focusing on shuffling your small crew around to pummel the enemy vessel with weapons (mainly lasers), you're instead playing around with your squadrons of ships on a hexagonal grid with a very rock-paper-scissors core (or the weakness triangle, minus cruisers). It feels tactical and fun, and does have more nuance than simply "this counters that" because of some special gimmicks and properties to said ships. The upgrade system per run is also done well in its own way, and the various ship types (of which I have played two) offers pretty varied approaches to combat.
Now for the bad, and that mainly boils down to what it provides in terms of replay value. The big one is that there's a notable lack of "secret hunting" that incentivizes replays. FTL has its ship unlocks that can be accelerated by certain special events or, if you can't be bothered, demands playing around with all ship types and hunting for achievements. In Crying Suns, that does not exist - you can unlock ALL ship types just by playing through the game's story (which is what I did with the starter battleship). And while the story is good, is has quite a LOT of dialogue boxes (which, even on a first playthrough, get pretty tedious and easy to lose track of the story). It's not quite to the level where the "roguelike" aspect feels shoehorned in, but it definitely kept me from playing too far after I completed the main story and all six of its chapters. And as for the difficulty, it seems a bit too easy, as in "HARD" mode feels as difficult as "Normal" mode in FTL, and more challenge generally translates to ore replay value.
On a side note, I would like to draw special attention to Crying Sun's soundtrack. It's OK - perfectly fitting for the type of atmosphere it tries to give, but to me, it lacks the "magic" that makes it fantastic like Ben Prunty's soundtrack for FTL.
Even with all that, it's still a good game. I think you'll get plenty of enjoyment if you treat this game less like a typical roguelike you play over and over for completion but rather a tactics-based singleplayer campaign with roguelike elements sprinkled in.
To be honest, it would've been better if it wasn't a roguelike. The story and atmosphere are so strong that if they had manually tailored the combat progression more rather than leave so many elements up to random chance, it would've felt more of like a polished experience which would've better served the cinematic vibe they're going for. Otherwise, some pretty solid sci-fi that, in my opinion, succeeds in making the player asks themselves some pretty interesting philosophical questions, the goal of any good sci-fi really.
I really enjoyed the real time mini RTS combat. Unfortunately the roguelike loop got a bit boring to me.
ungodly atmosphere in this game
FTL but they made the combat less satisfying and the "chase" mechanic more annoying.
Uncomfortably fashy plot and annoyingly difficult-to-follow gameplay. Seems like it could be fine once you get past the surface level annoyance but who has the patience???
Enjoyed this one far more than I expected to!
The rogue-like structure is bizarrely implemented and doesn't really work due to how long runs take but there was a lot of thought and vision put into how it interacted with the narrative. I get the feeling that dying over and over was meant to be a significant part of the story but the difficulty wasn't high enough for this to happen more than once on my 11~ hour play-through.
Ultimately, while I did enjoy the combat and random encounters, the story was what kept me hooked in. Cool setting, good intrigue, and decent twists throughout (to give full credit, one moment around the 4th act legitimately made my jaw drop, it's so good).
The rogue-like structure is bizarrely implemented and doesn't really work due to how long runs take but there was a lot of thought and vision put into how it interacted with the narrative. I get the feeling that dying over and over was meant to be a significant part of the story but the difficulty wasn't high enough for this to happen more than once on my 11~ hour play-through.
Ultimately, while I did enjoy the combat and random encounters, the story was what kept me hooked in. Cool setting, good intrigue, and decent twists throughout (to give full credit, one moment around the 4th act legitimately made my jaw drop, it's so good).
Gorgeous aesthetic, fascinating world-building, an almost haunting vibe, and some really solid light tactical ship combat, but it's a bit overlong and gets repetitive in the back half. I can't help but feel like Crying Suns would have benefitted from dropping the roguelike structure or reducing its length. If this were three acts instead of six, I'd probably give it 4 stars instead of 3.
#shelved
triumph of atmosphere
Tutorial was dreadful and does not prepare the player for the first fight at all. Plus the captain's last name was Idaho. That's got me crying, son.
A pretty solid space rts roguelite. Wish there was more content.
Ta guay
I actually finished a roguelike because the “easy” difficulty was truly easy. And good thing, too, because even though the story starts off steeped in technobabble it quickly won me over and I was eager to see it to completion.
The combat was interesting, the factions were distinct, and the art was that chunky pixel style I love so much.
That said, the amount of content seemed low. In one run from beginning to end with no deaths (again, thanks easy mode!) I started to see repeat events. And the interface was clearly built for mobile first, to the point of excluding useful information.
Still. I had a great time.
The combat was interesting, the factions were distinct, and the art was that chunky pixel style I love so much.
That said, the amount of content seemed low. In one run from beginning to end with no deaths (again, thanks easy mode!) I started to see repeat events. And the interface was clearly built for mobile first, to the point of excluding useful information.
Still. I had a great time.