The Ensign Reviews

This was farther down on my backlog, but after multiple days and no reviews or forum posts I feel compelled to offer my thoughts: It's great! I don't know if anything appeals to me more, personally, than a text-based soulslike. Much like the exploration elements in A Dark Room, you make excursions from a base camp, pushing farther and farther out each time as you gain resources and knowledge. Death is expected, but with each death comes fresh knowledge and a fresh map to explore. The writing is clipped and evocative, perfectly conveying the bleak setting. I'm enjoying the story so far, told in scraps through flashbacks and snippets of dialogue. I could imagine the exploration getting a little repetitive after awhile, but you keep your upgrades between runs (if you want) and I think the pacing works. My only real complaint so far is that the loot screen, even after playing for awhile, is a headache to parse. This sticks out because you end up in it so often. So yeah! It's great, I highly recommend checking it out if the tone and aesthetic appeal to you, because it nails both. Very minor spoilers ahead: [spoiler] There's been some very slight fourth wall breaking so far that feels very random, but also impossible to judge at this point without seeing if/how it builds to something later on. [/spoiler]