The alt-history narrative from Japan's perspective is the only real thing driving the 7/10 on the story.

Overall: 7.5/10 (8)

Gameplay: 9/10
Story/Narrative: 7/10
Graphics/Visuals: 7/10
Audio/Soundtrack: 7/10

Imagine the second game doesn't exist, and stop once you finish this game.

Overall: 7.8/10 (8)

Gameplay: 8/10
Story/Narrative: 8/10
Graphics/Visuals: 7/10
Audio/Soundtrack: 8/10

The best RTS base building mechanics of all time. Company of Heroes and Rise of Nations come somewhat close, though.

Also had a pretty great map creator and alt-history campaigns for Germany and Japan.

Overall: 7.3/10 (7)

Gameplay: 10/10
Story/Narrative: 6/10
Graphics/Visuals: 6/10
Audio/Soundtrack: 7/10

The game just isn't for me. I crashed my ship once, restarted, tried exploring again, crashed or perished what felt like again 100+ times, was like "fuck it," and stopped playing and finished the story through a blind playthrough YT video. I managed to explore a space station and two of the planets the major and minor astronomical bodies for the most part, but I wasn't very satisfied with what I found and the story that was unfolding.

Some of the game mechanics dealing with manipulating gravity, the view of the solar system from your ship, and like 15% of the story beats were interesting, but I was generally unimpressed. I don't see 15% (maybe 30-60mins total) of the play time being a sufficient return for what I found to be an irritating game to play. Sure, I'd consider some parts of this game fairly unique, but that's about all that's going for it. Apparently, there is some underlying narrative about life, death, and struggling against adversity, but I couldn't be bothered with going any further. I can see how that is cleverly incorporated into crashing your ship (dying) and restarting, but I don't find that to be very fun.

The whole game just feels like a pseudo-scientific brain dump of someone who recently learned quantum mechanics and physical cosmology exists, which ends up being pretty dull for someone already familiar - I am already familiar. Like it if you like it, but I'm not seeing the apparent masterpiece that this is. It's not bad, it's just okay, and I certainly wouldn't call it a 9/10 as the whole world seems to think it is.

Note:
First reviewed with 1hr on record. Repurchased the game and revised the review after playing 15 more hours. Strikeouts and italics indicate revisions - subtractions or additions.

Overall: 6/10

Gameplay: 6/10
Story/Narrative: 6/10
Graphics/Visuals: 6/10
Audio/Soundtrack: 5/10 6/10