Star Renegades is entering the saturated market for pixel art independent rogues, though its depth and chain of cool systems should be enough to make it strong enough against its competitors.
Pixel Art has undergone a revival within the independent scene for the past few years. The next game from Massive Damage, Inc. Stellar renegades It is part of this revival. It takes its own spin on the art style and guides it towards an interesting science fiction setting, which looks great while doing so.
I had the opportunity to participate in the first missions in Stellar renegades And from what I played, it’s an interesting rogue-lite strategy RPG filled with varied systems, quirky characters, and slightly inconsistent dialogue.
The first moments of the game prepare you for a great story of revenge, crossing multiple realities to take revenge on the invading forces. However, the game quickly seems to forget the story in favor of ingenious exchanges of dialogue between characters and its interesting game cycle, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Strategy games aren’t always known for the best stories, so I hope this continues all the time and is only complementary to the gameplay.
The core gameplay of Stellar renegades It is divided into two parts, exploring and fighting, with each section filled with various systems. You enter your stage on a randomly generated map that has rebellion forces scattered everywhere trying to prevent you from completing your objective.
The missions I played in this build were not particularly creative or different from anything else I have played within the strategy genre, but what made them different? Stellar renegades of its counterparts was the battle system.
When you encounter enemies, you enter (with a fairly long lag in points) what the game calls a “deterministic combat system”. Everything within the battle takes place on a timeline that is displayed at the top of the screen. The timeline is completely transparent, showing you how and when the robot’s giant enemies plan to attack, allowing you to strategically plan your turn. Some of your attacks hit harder but will fall further down the timeline leaving you open, while others are faster but likely to do less damage. Sometimes, it is also better not to attack at all.
The most basic but effective method I found was to simply attack before enemies could attack me, leading me to land critical hits. By attacking first you can also stagger and then break enemies, with each attack pushing the opponent further down the timeline. This allows you to eliminate them and prevent them from attacking this turn. The combat in Stellar renegades it is extremely tactical and it is about being opportunistic and having a solid but adaptable plan.
Like most RPG battles, Stellar renegades It has strengths, weaknesses, and immunities built into the system. This adds another layer of depth to combat. Yes, your light attack will be faster and allow you to hit first, but it will cause significantly less damage to your enemy and could therefore backfire on your overall strategy. Battles also have combo attacks, which are stronger moves that take place between two of your party members whose relationships have leveled off at the campfire (I’ll talk about this later).
Battles are not only incredibly deep system-wise, but they look and sound great too. The attack animations are nice and the sound design is fantastic as each enemy move or kill sounds slightly different from the last one, it’s really cool.
While the battle system is unique (at least as far as any game you’ve played), some of Stellar renegades other features are borrowed or at least strongly influenced by other games. Opposing rebellion forces have “adversaries”: enemies that are unique and promote, evolve, and grow each time they defeat you. It is very similar to the nemesis system of the Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor / War games. It’s a system that when it was first released, I (as well as many in the industry) thought it would be much more common in games. However, this appears to be one of the first instances I have seen outside of its source series, and most importantly, it has been implemented well.
Depending on what you are boarding, you may have to camp halfway or the end of a mission. This is a system that, at least for me, reminds of camping inside The darkest dungeon. This time, though, you use cards to determine your actions. When you organize the camp, you have a predetermined number of action points that allow you to play cards and use these points to benefit your group. The cards range from healing and repairing armor to building relationships. Relationship building cards help increase affinity between two party members, which in turn helps improve the aforementioned combos in battle. I’m not sure if they need to be cards rather than character-based abilities, but it’s not a big complaint.
Other influences within the game are a little more referential, but are welcome, with small gestures to Super Smash Bros. and Star Wars crawling. Most important of all, you can pet the dog Stellar renegades.
There are a couple of additional systems in Stellar renegades based on leveling up. The main system is simple and allows you to earn DNA after each battle and then reverse it to level up your party members. Secondary to that, when you return to base, you can spend your research points, earned by defeating or damaging enemies, on new heroes, upgrades to existing heroes, and perks for your party.
Stellar renegades states that there will be 13 different classes at launch. While the game itself is deep and varied, I didn’t particularly see it in the classes I was able to use. Visually and personality-wise, each one is unique, but I didn’t see much of a difference in the style of play. At this point, I am willing to rely on the number of systems this game has to attribute to the fact that my party members were all level one and early in the game, and the more you level up, the more you will evolve and differentiate. Different personalities added a bit of light relief and fun dialogue in what is otherwise a thematically dark game, though sometimes the conversations can seem quite artificial.
In general, from what I could play Stellar renegades showed off a deep and complex strategy RPG with some really cool game systems built in at all times. The systems and the gaming circuit should be strong enough to withstand what I feel is, at least at this early stage, a rather lukewarm and unoriginal story. The two missions I played have done more than enough to intrigue me and have definitely made me want to see how the game evolves before it comes out on PC and consoles later this year. It is certainly one to watch out for.
