Mars: War Logs Reviews

uhhhhhhhhh

For a $5 game, this was well worth the price. Dated, but solid story.

Its like everything made in the early 2000s - 2015s is just gold, these days newer games stories are a bit dry. Combat is basic and enjoyable. Story is 60/40 decent, they could have flushed out alot but I understand 2013, if a remaster happens they could do something amazing. VA - good there was a standard back in the day

This game shines with a deeply engaging, realistic story that feels personal and relatable. While the voice acting isn’t top-notch, it adds to the game’s quirky charm. The gameplay is old-school but still manageable, offering a nostalgic experience. If you're a fan of Spiders Games or Perahbits titles, this one is definitely worth checking out!

This is one of the best RPGs I've ever played. The storyline is amazing and the gameplay is awesome.

I hate this game so much I'm a serious lover of anything remotely obscure and considered a hidden gem of some sorts Technomancer wasn't perfect, had a lot of flaws but at least everything was average in terms of good quality. This game on the other hand, no matter what difficulty, wants the player to just give up on it and call it a loss. It has no redeeming qualities , its unique in terms of what it gives us, but it just does not justify the headache it takes to finish the game. Dropping this trash. I'm glad I did not pay full price.

I know objectively it's not that good of a game mechanically. For me though, I enjoy this style of game. It's akin to something like Elex with it's floaty combat and underdeveloped interactions. But you can tell the devs were passionate about their game.

This game is honestly pretty weird, in the sense that, while the individual parts of the game are at least good concepts, they are woefully underdeveloped; making the game look more like an overgrown demo or a game that was dramatically scaled back at the last minute. Combat is probably the best part of the game by a wide margin: It has responsive controls and is fairly skilled-based. For reference, I played in both Hard and Extreme, and even at a very high level, you can’t become complacent. On the flip side, enemy variety is very poor, to such an extent you will literally see every enemy type before you wrap up Act 1. Enemy attack patterns are highly predictable, and the game constantly relies on throwing multiple enemies (Which force you to be constantly rolling and repositioning) as a replacement for difficulty. Even though there ostensibly are several potential builds depending on the skills you choose, this does not translate into different combat styles: Stealth is allegedly there, but the best you can do is get the first hit on an unsuspecting character; and crowd control abilities are almost non-existent, even if you try to build your skillset around that. The story and lore department seem to be competent…until they are not. The setup is really interesting, but the story comes off as aggressively generic, and seems more like a minor side plot of the actual story that somehow made its way to the game. The focus of the story seems to be constantly shifting: The war between factions is seemingly important, until it isn’t and then we’re supposed to care about another group, which gets in turn gets thrown to the wayside and then something else takes its spot. The characters get the job done, I guess, but the voice performances are fairly stiff overall, which seem to be more of a direction issue than the actors themselves. Side quests are not particularly complex nor imaginative (I’d put them well below Knights of the Old Republic, which came almost a decade before this game), with a good chunk of them amounting to glorified fetch quests. The crafting/equipment upgrade system has a lot of promise at the beginning, but ends up in a lot of samey-looking upgrades, for both armor and weapons. There’s a morality system, but other than “Killing enemies for serum bad”, there’s not a lot of input on how the game handles this, and other than potentially unlocking a couple of perks, there’s not that much to it. They also decided to include a romance system, which is absolutely undercooked and feels like something thrown in the last minute. Overall, even taking into account that it’s a low budget game from more than a decade ago, the cons severely outweigh the pros. Don’t bother with this one.

[h1]“The last pieces started coming together when I realized that he was a fugitive… He’d risked it all to be free.”[/h1] The premise behind [i]Mars: War Logs[/i] is one that is existentially terrifying for me, as someone who has always been petrified of space and its inexplicable vastness. Around a century prior to the events of the game, humans had begun to colonize Mars, but lost all contact with Earth due to a devastating solar storm. Left to fend for themselves with finite supplies and political factions jockeying for power, the governing bodies of the Red Planet began to consume themselves, and their own people, in their tide of corruption. Undesirables are left to mutate and turn into ghoulish caricatures of what they once were in the unforgiving solar radiation, outside of the dome. In the upper echelons of society rest the Technomancers, a group of volatile and terminally unstable "magicians" who can command electricity. The game is full of political drama, philosophical conundrums, striking characters, and engaging third-person action that draws on melee, ranged, and magical combat. It is a short game that can be completed in under 12 hours, but every one of those hours counts; the pacing is perfect, the story is never too slow nor too fast, and every action has a consequence. A pacifist run is recommended! [h1]TL;DR?[/h1] I have never much cared for science fiction, but decided to give this game a go because I love Spiders, and was looking for something short and digestible to play. I’m glad I left my comfort zone and booted up [i]Mars[/i], as it, from the very start, enraptured me. Act 1 follows the escape of our heroes, Act 2 reckons with their actions while dodging the oppressive regime hunting them down, and Act 3 can go in two different ways, depending on your choices. [b]PROS:[/b] + The characters. I’ve led every Spiders review heretofore with this point, and with good reason. [i]Mars[/i] has a memorable, compelling, and realistic (to a fault) cast of characters. Even if a character makes a frustrating decision, or something that may rankle us as either the player or as Roy, it doesn’t come out of nowhere; every character is defined, and has their own place in the world. + The combat is fast, satisfying, and simple. I usually don’t play mages or mage-adjacent characters, but the technomancy tree was great fun. + Innocence’s “war logs” is a unique and refreshing take on the dynamic between the protagonist and the deuteragonist. + The game’s landscape and soundscape convey the gritty environments of an apocalyptic Mars. + While Act 1 and the overwhelming majority of Act 2 are linear, your choices at the conclusion of Act 2 can catapult you into wildly different scenarios. Even on my second playthrough, Act 3 still felt fresh and engaging, with different quest resolutions, scenarios, and dialogues. + The story is paced to perfection. + Consumables have importance. You’ll need to be aware of what you have and the best times to make use of it. + Companions can be issued basic, yet helpful, commands during battle through the tactics menu. [b]CONS:[/b] - There can be issues on W10 or W11. - Combat in confined spaces such as tunnels, corridors and caves can be claustrophobic. - The difference between Medium and Hard difficulty is marked, yet Hard and Extreme aren’t too different from one another. - When looting an enemy, a crate, or a pile of supplies, a box overlays the screen, and you have to manually close it. [h1]Reflections[/h1] Our story begins through the eyes of young Innocence Smith, an unfortunate soul hand-picked to be cannon fodder for the relentless war machine. He is being taken to a POW camp, and narrowly escapes being victimized by a sadistic contingent of prisoners due to the intervention of a certain Roy ‘Temperance’, our protagonist. We soon learn that Roy intends to leave the prison camp, and enlists the young man to help him do just that. Weaponizing the secrets of his past – the fact that he himself once belonged to the ranks of the Technomancers, but escaped – Roy and his protégé escape from the tyranny of Camp 19 and find themselves in the sandy desolation of Shadowlair, a post-apocalyptic industrial hellscape of a shantytown. Dogged by the pawns of the police state all throughout, Roy and Innocence fight their way through the city, on a quest for vengeance, discovery, and purpose. As I mentioned above, the story being told through Innocence’s diary – his war logs – positions Roy as both the protagonist and the deuteragonist in a way; we are him, and at the same time, we experience him through a lost, scared, but hopeful child who lionizes him as a hero. One thing that Spiders has repeatedly excelled at is creating characters that I actually care about. Immediately, we are thrust into this world as if we are familiar with it, and can quickly acclimate ourselves to its lore through conversations, codices, and exploration. We become familiar with the political horror of Mars through Roy himself; in experiencing it through his eyes, rather than through needless exposition, we are able to be more immediately immersed into the world. Innocence’s diary likewise provides us with the very real sense that our every action and word has a consequence, whether we are aware of it or not, whether we like it or not. The virtue name of the young Innocence is apt, and Roy’s abandoned virtue name, Temperance, is granted its own meaning through its abandonment. Spiders' protagonists have never been a blank slate, so to speak. We are introduced to them as they are, and as a player, we enjoy shared agency. While we cannot define their pasts, we can shape their futures and trajectory through the dialogue options we select and the side quests we pursue. I have seen a considerable amount of rancour surrounding Spiders’ RPGs and the way that they treat their protagonists, but personally, I find something special in this shared agency. Roy’s past as a deeply independent renegade, a runaway and a troublemaker is an immutable reality. It underlines and defines his actions, and it justifies and rationalizes his concern for Innocence, no matter what path you take. How we take these traits, consider them, and make them relevant is up to us as the player. In this middle ground, between receiving creation and encouraging creation, is where the true magic of Spiders’ characters lay. They are remarkable on their own, beyond us, and they become personal and important within us. [h1]Final Words & Verdict[/h1] As I am working through Spiders’ catalogue, I find it hard to believe that [i]Mars: War Logs[/i] predated [i]Bound by Flame[/i]. Where the latter felt unsure, unpolished and awkward, as though it were the studio’s first attempt at an RPG, [i]Mars[/i] was a miniature masterpiece. It can be played from start to finish, with all side quests completed, in less than 12 hours, and yet it doesn’t feel rushed, nor do any of the plot beats overstay their welcome. The story is poignant, concise, and immediately confronting; the psychological and cosmic horror of being stranded on Mars for generations, with neither contact with nor supplies from the Earth. Couple this feeling of isolation and hopelessness with the weight of caring for and protecting another person, someone who is even more lost and rootless than yourself, and you are presented with a masterpiece. Overall Rating ★★★★★ Story ★★★★★ Gameplay ★★★★☆ Graphics ★★★★☆ Sound Design ★★★★★ Replay Value ★★★☆☆ Difficulty ★★★★⯪ PC Requirements ★★★★☆ Game Length ★★★★★ [quote]Visit [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/damseldirect]Damsel Direct[/url] for more gunpowder, magic, and chaos.[/quote]