Distant Star: Revenant Fleet Reviews

The developers of Distant Star: Revenant Fleet have really struck gold with this title. While development is early and it is obvious that a significant amount of content will need to be generated before this project can be considered completed it is already in a state where it is by far worth the modest purchase price. Pros - Excellent Game mechanics - Beautiful levels - Fun real time combat - Already worth the price Cons - The game currently lacks content and can be cleared relatively quickly - The difficulty becomes too low (they need to add varied difficulty levels) - Lack of save feature. It would be fine if it deletes the save on load but we still need to be able to step away from the game. Potential - The promise of meaningful decisions (similar to FTL) - Promise of more content

This is a top down fleet command game with persistent fleet comp between missions. It has you advance from node to node where most nodes are randomly chosen from a far too small list. Escort missions, defend against wave missions, and kill or capture nodes missions. Once you get to the end of the map, you go to ANOTHER sequential map where you make a seemingly meaningless choice of 3 types of nodes to pick from, but this one is a binary progressing path. The combat is fine, but very repetitive, not much enemy variety. Final boss encounter design isn't very engaging, and isn't explained at all (though isn't exactly challenging to figure out). This game sounded cool enough for me to buy it (on sale), and I don't exactly regret it, it's not something I'd recommend to others to buy now (2023).

They made a whole game, all the frame work and everything, and stopped right before finishing it. All it needs is a few more upgrade choices and tweaking the stats of the ships to actually mean something. If this game had a workshop for mods it would have a HUGE following I bet.

Great taste, but awful execution. Artwork, music and theme are amazing but that's it, there is no substance to gameplay. It reminds me of a DPS based P2W mobile game turned single player.

[H1]The A'kari of Aos, shattered and few, on a desperate mission to stop the final Orthani victory...[/H1] Distant Star : Revenant Fleet (from here on out I'll call it DSRF, because I like my fingers and typing that over and over will murder my keyboard) is one of the "Second Generation" of Early Access games, having now seen and made it through the initial wave of Early Access highs and lows, we're now seeing a more matured approach to the Early Access platform, with more specialised projects and more consistent and constrained planning resulting in products that actually deliver on their promises. DSRF was sold as a Rogue "lite" in space, where you'd assemble a small fleet of ships, guide them across the solar system, and then engage in a showdown in a final battle much like the genre definer FTL. [H1]The Distant Stars, and the not so Distant Stars...[/H1] Much like FTL, you work your way across multiple sectors, each sector contains multiple jumps, however, unlike FTL, there's only four sectors that you'll be working your way across as you head towards the final battle, meaning your average playthrough is much closer to two to four hours, as opposed to the four to eight in FTL. However, unlike FTL, instead of managing -one- ship with a few upgrades, here you'll be managing a full fleet, each with their own weapon systems (in some cases, multiple weapons systems), sub systems, and passive systems. The blend of upgrades means that fleets can in theory be quite unique (in practice, there's usually one generally optimal approach for fixing the deficiencies for each ship, straying too far is a bad idea). The ships too will upgrade with experience, granting bonuses in various ways, again, helping you compensate for their weaknesses or exaggerating their strengths. These upgrades are not exactly anything amazingly unique, but there's a good enough variety per ship to keep things interesting. Of special mention are the weapon systems, of which there is a serious number, all with their own strengths and weaknesses, allowing for a significant degree of tactical flexibility and nuance within your fleet, this is extremely useful, and can allow for a player to adapt on the fly, particularly if things go sideways and they lose a valuable ship during the course of the voyage. [H1]Of tactics, tactical pause, orders, and mo(ba)ment to moment combat...[/H1] Once you jump into a sector, the game moves to a top down view of your ships, moving around a two dimensional "pane" of space, with the sun behind it, filtering light through to give a sort of 3D effect. It's rather effective, and pretty. Combat therefore works by ordering your fleet (up to five units) around the 2D map and having them reposition, attack, use specials, cover each other, heal each other, etc. Line of Sight can be used and abused to cover each other (units are solid objects, so weapons will hit the first thing they make contact with), and specials are often "skillshots", which means that moving can disrupt or even cause them to miss. This should sound very much like a singleplayer version of most MOBA type games, and that's because in a sense, it is. It carries a lot of the fundamentals of that type of game in the genesis when you're playing the tactical map mode, but you have the benefit of a pause mode that allows you to issue orders and activate specials whilst the pause is set, then allow time to proceed on its' merry way once more, pausing when you need to issue fresh orders. Disabled units will suffer critical damage at first, represented by debuffs that carry over from sector to sector, however, with each critical suffered, the chance for them to be entirely destroyed begins to tick up, if they take too many criticals, well, you may lose a ship altogether, and in this game, that can be a punishing blow, especially late game. Units in this game are extremely valuable, and losing one can be crippling, enough to trash a game and force a restart. [H1]Ruthless voyagers in skies deep blue...[/H1] The A'kari are not a pleasant or amiable lot. Their culture is very warrior caste, and it's very clear as you travel through space that you are just "a side" in the war, if anything it's quite possible that you're the bad guys. This moral ambiguity is both interesting and potentially a downside, the problem with such a situation is that for some players, it's important to have the belief that they're on the "good" side when playing these kinds of games. The A'kari often resort to less than wholesome tactics to make their way through the game (as the necessity of their mission requires), but that will come with a moral weight to it, and if you become invested or put some time into thinking about the lore or backstory of the game, well, it may leave you wondering if you're actually playing for the right side. [H1]Reflections in glowing suns and off glinting guns...[/H1] The graphics aren't -quite- Homeworld Remastered, but nonetheless, they're definitely good enough to pass muster, presenting clearly defined racial ships for both the A'kari and the Orthani, along with a third set of ships for the neutral Pirates. The backdrop itself is colourful and clear, with a good set of nebulae and lighting presentation being well handled and running smoothly throughout. This is a well designed and imagined game. Of specific mention is the soundtrack, which is really, [i]really[/i] good. We're talking standout quality, easily worthy of being a standalone OST if ever they decide to release it as such. [H1]... and the fire and fury of the missiles...[/H1] When combat takes place, the playfield is colourful and bright, the music sweeps up to an orchestral swell, the explosions are many, debris litters the place as ships disintegrate in style. This game makes space combat look -good-, and does a good job of hiding the MOBA style combat under it's interface and behind the active-pause button, but with the limited number of sectors, and the fact that the game doesn't support the same level of replayability as FTL, this is a game to play in shorter bursts, as a side dish to things like FTL. [H1]Closing thoughts...[/H1] DSRF does a lot right, and in some areas it does break some interesting new ground, however, it doesn't -quite- do enough to break free of FTL's shadow, and it doesn't quite do enough to stand far enough away to net it my unguarded praise. Which is a shame, because there's a lot to like about this game, for people who are big on Sci-Fi and Roguelites, this may prove to be too tempting to miss, for people who are looking to get "into" such games, FTL is still the daddy. Verdict : [b]Wishlist it, if you're a fan of Sci-Fi, and particularly FTL, give this one some serious consideration.[/b]

A Mix of FTL and Homeworld, this game grabs much from both parent games, but can't really make the most out of it. - The Combat is repetitive and the AI is pretty dumb. - The graphic style is good, but seems to be blurry and unsharp. - The Maps are very small and the missions on them are repetitive also. Fly there, cap that, destroy these, etc. - Ships can shoot in any direction, fly in any direction etc. There is no maneuver, or allining the weapons toward the enemy, in other words, no tactic. - The "RPG" Element is pretty flat aswell. Your Ships progress after a few battles and can pick one of three perks then. Conclusion: This gmae literally lacks the depth it needs.

I wasn't very happy with it at first, but then I turned the difficulty down a little, figured out what I was doing, and finished a run. It's pretty good once you get in to it. It's basically like FTL but with up to 5 ships. I found it easier to pick up, honestly. The story's a bit cliche, but well done nonetheless. If you're feeling the itch to play FTL, but don't want to play more FTL, this is the game for you. A couple of tips: 1. This game is hard. If you're only a casual Roguelike player like me, start the difficulty on Rookie, or you'll be lucky to make it to the second system. 2. Choose a support ship. Pulsars are godsends in the early game. The only reason I was finally able to get anywhere in the run I finished was thanks to my little pulsar. After that, choose a light ship that appeals to you, and fill in the role of heavy later on. 3. Explore. Even if you don't have the resources, the experience I earned and credits I collected jumping without supplies more than made up for the heavy damage my fleet took early on.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of people who look at this game think "ah, it's like FTL - but you have several tiny ships that you fly around with instead". For the most part that turns out to be true, but desptite the many similarities to the great FTL, there are few things in this game that seem to click and come together for me. It's the kind of game that I really want to work and succeed, but no matter how many times I've replayed it, things just never end up being fun. The battles, which I feel should be the main pull of this game, tend to play out as waiting games for me. Usually I just order my ships to target one opponent at a time and slowly grind down it's shield and hull, while simultaneously firing of skills, special weapons and other disapointingly ineffective abilities. Then you move on to the next one, and the next, until the current wave is downed. After that you fly a little distance, a new wave spawns, and you start another waiting session. It's all rather uninspiring and uninteresting in the long run. A few ideas and features attempt to mix things up a bit, such as fragile sniping ship(can't recall it's name) with a huge damage potential, but in the end my ships are mostly just sitting there, grinding. Ocassionally I'm forced to move them a bit in order to avoid a hostile ability or such, but too often I'd just let it hit me since the battle has already been won and I'm just waiting for it all to end anyway. Progressing throughout the map and trying to reach the end goal also has it's issues. I can rarely afford anything interesting to buy for my ships, and once I finally gather up enough credits to do so, the effect is so marginal that I might just as well have skipped the purchase altogether. To their credit though, the developers have been nibbling quite a lot at the balance and given it an honest effort. Sadly, I think the core design issues are too large to fix in a quick manner and this game will never work out and become the hit that I'd like it to be. Nice on paper, not great in practise. Keep an eye on the devs and what they do next, but you should probably skip this game.

Just played this game and feel a need to post a review, partially to reflect my thoughts to other players and partially to tell the devs. Yes, this is a pretty cool game. Yes, I liked it, and it scratches a very particular itch that I haven't really found anything else for (small-fleet-command strategy game). But I don't feel like it was quite what I'd thought it would be when I purchased it, and, while I'm recommending it, it's with some pretty major qualifications. tl;dr, it's a good light-strategy game, but I wouldn't call it a roguelike. This review is going to sound predominantly negative, but I did enjoy the game and do think it could be well worth picking up on sale. Not sure if I'd recommend it at full price. STRATEGIC GAMEPLAY First, Ithe battles didn't involve the level of strategy I was expecting. The best fights were ones where I had to watch the enemy chasing my tail, and my tactics involved kiting enemies around to recharge shields and lances, then turning and blasting one of two of them to pieces with my twin Lancers before turning and burning again. But I honestly didn't feel like many of the missions involved that much tactical thinking. Maybe I'm just too used to Dragon Age and similar games, or maybe I built the wrong fleet, but I didn't feel like I could do that much with any given ship other than move it around and shoot--which it could do perfectly fine on its own. My flagship had a damage boost, but with no cost I just popped it every time it came off cooldown; something similar was true for the Dreadnought I picked up later in the game and put a damage-boosting ability on. My gunship just flew around shooting things, while my Lancers sat in the back and melted priority targets every 10-15 seconds. I filled up almost all of my hardpoints with passives because they seemed so attractive. And it worked! I beat the game on my first run. I'm not quite sure where the difficulty lies; with (a lot of) judicious pausing, I always had my CQC ships circling the enemy to dodge point-targeted weapons and had my Lancers drop their deathrays on cooldown. Protip for anyone who picks this up: Keep moving and keep pausing. Since it seems a lot of other people are finding the game difficult, I find myself wondering if either A) pause is OP or B) Lancers are OP, because I used both of those to great effect. Only one of my ships was ever disabled, and that only happened once. I wondered if I was playing the wrong type of fleet for what I was looking for, but...it worked damn well, and I'm not going to handicap myself with expensive, tricky ships when I can just snag a couple Lancers and blast a smoking trail across the galaxy. The missions I did find actually difficult were the protection missions where a large number of enemy ships suddenly spawned on top of the VIP ship--either in an escort mission where the transports appear halfway across the map from my fleet in the middle of an enemy cluster or in a station defense mission where the entire enemy fleet swoops in from all directions to vaporize their target. But that's not a fun kind of difficulty, since it's not one that good planning or good tactics can get you out of. It's just annoying. MISSIONS Every mission I played was either search-and-destroy or protect. The ones where I started in the middle of several enemy groups were the most fun, since I had to extricate myself and then figure out how to handle the flotilla trying to jam rockets up my exhaust ports. The enemies didn't feel distinct from each other: once you've seen one Tech that shoots ion clouds, you've seen every Tech in the game. The final battle didn't feel that much better, either--it was a defense mission, then a search-and-destroy mission, then a timed DPS race. I didn't feel that any of the missions actually tested my resourcefulness, cunning, or ability to learn anything beyond "kill Lancers on sight and don't get in the way of those blue things Rogues shoot." ATMOSPHERE AND PROGRESSION The story's serviceable, and the world is presented with a workable amount of depth--I'm not expecting grand world-building here, and I didn't get it, but I did get a pleasant amount of insight into the universe. Props to the dev team for that! I'm kind of curious as to why the Akari are so dead-set on my fleet in particular appearing at Aos, because they seemed to have a pretty significant presence of their own there. I didn't really feel like I was commanding a [i]fleet[/i]--a battlegroup, sure, but not a fleet per se. This was partially due to the difficulty I had parsing the size of the ships--as far as I can tell, a Dreadnought would have about a 10-man crew at most, which feels off, but the immensity of the space wreckage left me unable to come to any other conclusion. Where the heck did those things come from, anyway? Finding the exact same mission in two consecutive systems, and then again in the next sector, also ruined the atmosphere for me (it was an escort mission, for the curious). I didn't have any real feeling of progress throughout the game, which I can forgive on the narrative side due to the random nature of events. But my ships really didn't seem to get better, either--I filled up all the hardpoints on my starting ships by the end of the second sector, found another Lancer (filled hardpoint, upgraded weapon) and bought a Dreadnought later on, which immediately filled up its own hardpoints. After that...there's the veterancy bonuses, which are useful, but honestly pretty dull. As far as I can tell, they're randomly seeded, meaning I ended up with a Lancer with two more-or-less useless shield upgrades while my other one had three Damage+ upgrades. CONCLUSION If you want a roguelike in space, you're better off picking up FTL. If you want a tactical real-time-with-pause game, you're probably better-off with Dragon Age or another RPG. There's just not enough of either of those here to satisfy you if you're looking for that sort of gameplay. But if you want to kill some time and some spaceships while flying around the galaxy, then pick it up if/when it's on sale. Distant Star isn't a bad game, and it's worth a look, but--in its present form--it's not that great either. WHAT I'D LIKE TO SEE For what it's worth, here are my thoughts on things that would improve this game--some concrete, some more abstract. -More options for progression. For example, could we have veterancy upgrades unique to each class? What about different types of hardpoints for active vs. passive abilities, or gear in shops later in the game actually being better than the stuff in the first sector? I filled up everything really early, mostly with passives, and nothing ever came up in the shops that looked appealing enough to try. -More mission variety. -More things to actually test ingenuity and decision points in fleet-building. The best part of FTL, Nethack (as much as anything is the best part of Nethack), or the like is trying to figure out how to work miracles with scarce resources. I never felt resources were particularly scarce--the income over the game felt about right, and was hardly generous, but I never felt I actually had to make hard decisions about what to do with my cash. Heck, I'd even be fine with scaling the initial allowance back a bit and giving some more opportunities to actually build up. -As a minor point: having enemy ships that are visible to allies revealed on the minimap. They don't show up on the minimap until they get in my ships' sensor range even though I can [i]see them right there.[/i]

hm, most of those negative reviews seem to be outdated because the game really feels different to what they claim. Overall the game is very similar to FTL, you pass through several sectors to reach the final boss fight, every sector has multiple systems, where you can fight, repair, do quests, buy stuff,.... and each jump consumes fuel. Instead of managing your crew during a fight you control your fleet (up to 5 ships) from a top down perspective. -Squad-based RTS style. But be warned, the game is a lot slower paced, which makes it more of a RTS game with some light rogue-like elements rather than a rogue-like with RTS elements (if that makes any sense). Other reviews claimed that the battles are needlessly dragged out but I can't confirm that, they take a few minutes at best and depending on your fleet composition offer a reasonable amount of tactical depth. I've also read a lot of complaints about the harsh difficulty. I played on normal and didn't die until I reached the final boss level. (a bit too easy) It felt pretty consistent through each sector until the very last room, where it really spiked and I was killed before I could even reach the boss (a bit too difficult) but the devs seem to be very active so I hope they will have a second look at this. But all in all, I really enjoyed it.