Star Renegades | Review (PC): RPG, Pixel and Strategy

Raw fury allowed us to try the PC version of Star Renegades, a truly amazing title. At first glance it may seem like a simple indie game pixel art like so many that can give a handful of hours of fun gameplay, but it's all appearance: there is a lot to talk about under those colored squares.

Developed by the Canadians Masive Damage, Inc., Star Renegades is a Roguelite RPG with turn-based combat of which the artistic style is just one of the many strengths: the title actually hides behind the "pastel" graphics a solid leveling system, A 'elaborate Artificial Intelligence it's a strategic and deep combat.

It is no coincidence that the game has a good record of awards won: Indiearena Indie Kola Award al Gamescom 2020, Game of the Show del Gamerspack Editor’s Choice del Gamescom 2019, Judge’s Pick al The Mix, 4Gamer Media Highlight Award al Bitsummit. Star Renegades è disponibile dall’September 8th on PC and Mac, and will arrive on PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in the course of 2020.

Rebellion between parallel dimensions

Games that follow a roguelike system are inevitably very redundant and for this reason it is rare to find a plot that is well linked to repetition and equally engaging. It's rare, but not impossible: Star Renegades has one sci-fi history of all respect that narrates the epic struggle of the Resistance against theEmpire, a powerful organization that travels between parallel dimensions to drain the resources of the planets it subdues.

Leading the Resistance from dimension to dimension to counter the enemy is the J5T-1N service robot, which on balance is nothing more than the player's movement cursor. Once a Resistance campaign has failed and the entire expedition group has been miserably lost, the robot will catapult into the next dimension with new awareness of the Imperium to organize a new, stronger and more promising group of rebels.

Every time we manage to advance towards a new planet, the plot that binds the Imperium to our protagonists thickens, while in the meantime party members bond with each other revealing new details of the narrative universe e unlocking new combos or new interactions. And every time you start all over again in a new dimension, there will be new characters unlocked, new variations of the characters you already know (otherwise what parallel dimension is that?), New objects to be found around the maps and still new elements of knowledge about it. the game world and the Imperium. There is no shortage of twists, even if a little phoned.

Et voilà, here's how to perfectly mix the repetitiveness of roguelikes with an engaging storyline.

Gameplay

Hold on. Claim. Survive. Repeat. It is with these four words that the general gaming experience is summarized, yet this motto does not sufficiently identify the complete gameplay package, studded with technicalities, depths and particular solutions that give Star Renegades a strong character.

Resistance

Star Renegades is in effect a Japanese RPG (JRPG), where the player controls the movements of their characters in the so-called overworld, the game world, while instead facing turn-based combat against enemies in separate screens that represent the environments in which the opponents were met.

Fundamental is the building your own rebel party. At the start of each new mission it starts with 3 characters of your choice of the player, all strictly at level 1, and you proceed through the game worlds by acquiring experience, collecting resources and weapons useful and fighting enemies and bosses. After the conquest of each world, it will be possible to expand your group of adventurers with a new character between two random choices offered by the game, until you have a full party of 6 people in the last bars of each Resistance expedition.

The characters all have statistics and potential different that also change according to theirs inter-dimensional variants: there are those who are more useful as a support to reload and cover the team, those who do heavy damage even if they have precarious defenses and a low speed, and those who make speed of execution their strong point. The whole party then has a backpack available to collect items to equip; every character has indeed 3 categories of tools of which he has skills, which allows a further degree of personalization of their shipments.

To increase the strategic value of your party we also thinksocial interaction. The members of the Resistance can fraternize with each other thanks to some carte personal games that must be played by spending action points when camping out to sleep at night or when regaining an entire planet. Such cards in addition to providing temporary bonuses of various types, increase the level of friendship between the different characters, allowing you to unlock new cards, but above all combo moves for use in combat e new characters born precisely from those who have bonded, usable in the next dimensions.

Picturesque worlds, lack of exploration

Let's move on to analyze a bittersweet aspect, perhaps the only slightly disappointing one of Star Renegades. The game worlds that we will find along our path, as well as the levels made by buildings and spaceships, are all procedurally generated: it will be difficult, but not impossible, to find similar worlds. Yet, despite the element of chance, thescouting of the levels is immediately repetitive. The general feeling is that something is missing.

Let's be clear, the work behind each world is exemplary on both the graphic and the technical side. Each level is divided into several areas, among which they can be different opponents and different useful resources. The main worlds also have a limited time of exploration, divided into day and night, before the infamous arrives Behemoth, practically the boss at the end of the level. The variety of areas and the art style combined together make the settings live a life of their own, giving the worlds a charming picturesque character.

And this is precisely the point: moving between such beautiful and particular worlds without being able to do anything other than click a button to unlock a new area, collect a resource or find a group of enemies is limiting. It is unfair that there is practically nothing to be done while exploring such a well laid out setting.

Another small negative note is the pathfinding, the search for the optimal path of the group of rebels controlled by the player after a click on the screen: our characters will not be able to overcome trivial obstacles by bypassing them, and we will have to direct their movements with our pointer.

War strategies

Il turn-based combat of Star Renegades is something more like Into the Breach rather than a classic JRPG like Pokémon or a grid-based combat tactician like Fire Emblem. Named by the developers Reactive Time Battle System, consists in choosing the moves to be performed for the whole party, knowing in advance the moves that the opponents will make, in order to better prepare a strategy that allows hit before each enemy to make a CRIT, critical damage, or per far lose shifts. The roster in each round is visible from the fight timeline above.

Said like this, it would seem like a fight that always turns in our favor, but the reality is quite different: despite the randomness of the encounters, the game system creates ad hoc clashes to adapt to give a hard time to our rebels. We are talking about what the developers have called Intelligent Adversary System, an Artificial Intelligence that generates procedural enemies and bosses that conform to our gaming experience to be as challenging and difficult as possible. In fact, the first moments of the game will be really difficult to deal with until you are able to master the fight well and get to know your enemies from a special screen (photo below).

You will have to bang your head numerous times before you can have any real advancement in the game, despite all the tutorial and guides who will explain step by step how to deal with every situation. However, although the steep initial learning curve proves to be a big obstacle to overcome, mastering the dynamics of combat will become easier than it may initially seem: once you have learned that you need to have different sources of damage, that shield protection and charging are essential and that it is useful to look at thearsenal of enemies, their weaknesses and resistances, everything will be much smoother if supported by a good construction of the party.

aesthetic ho love u

La 2DHD graphics Star Renegades qualification for what it is: an indie masterpiece. The techniques ad High Definition andsci-fi setting they project the pixel art in 16 bit, confirming the excellent workmanship of the game also on a visual level. To add some vibes to the general atmosphere aroused by the graphics, one thinks of it vaporwave coloring, Made of pastel pigments with a prevalence of pink and blue shades in the worlds, and of brighter colors in the interface game for a more futuristic touch.

The 2D models of characters and enemies in fights, slightly less detailed than the vivid worlds, or the artwork of the dialogues or the original battle settings, now in a cave, now in front of an ancient robotic colossus become part of the context. of the panorama. However in context the pixel amalgam works perfectly. Even the fight effects and animations are well detailed and never repetitive.

The audio sector is another noteworthy factor of Star Renegades. The sound effects are functional to the sci-fi theme of the game while the music accompanies the epic of the narrative with the right sumptuous tone; in particular, the main track that can also be heard from the trailers is engaging and reveals the drama of the plot.

Finally, they are really welcome references and citations to pop culture and far more famous sci-fi narratives, always brought to Star Renegades with the right irony. Suffice it to say that at the unsuccessful end of each expedition, it will start again from the Cantina, a bar where aliens play. Doesn't it remind you of something related to Star Wars? Also in this bar, just to let you know, it is possible to pet the dog.

Conclusions

Between vapor colors, sci-fi setting, solemn narrative and complex gameplay, Star Renegades is an unexpected masterpiece that must absolutely be played if you are a fan of pixel art or strategic combat, as long as you can compromise with a certain degree of repeatability. which is symptomatic of being a roguelike.