Ancient Frontier Reviews

For an indie developer this game has high production value with crisp graphics, peaceful music, voice acting and clear instructions with tooltips for everything. Play is fluid and you can fully rotate the map. Each unit only has a set number of abilities to use in each quest - ship repairs, boosts, missiles - so your tactics are important. This title is very enjoyable to play through and makes a great turn-based space combat sim.

Positives: 1. Many different unit types, 2. Tons of equipment to customize the ships to your style of play, 3. Very long campaigns with lots of optional missions, 4. Both campaigns have different types of ships so it almost feels like 2 games, 5. I love all the research options ... you really need to think about which ships you want to use and focus on researcing cabilities, 6. Love the new crew DLC ... high level crew can really make your ships MUCH stronger. Negatives: 1. The game would crash in the middle of some missions ... and all of the resources you applied to start that mission are lost. I actually had to stop a campaign when it did this to me 3 times in a row since I could no longer field any more ships, 2. There is some variation in the mission types ... but the game play started to feel repetitive to me, Neutral: 1. There is a storyline if you like that in your games, but I thought the writing was a little cheesy (any time you hear someone call their boyfrient "Pookie" it seems amateur). But you can skip all the dialogue which is why I gave this a neutral.

So it's hard for me to vote no, because it's a pretty solid turn based tactics game. They've got the framework for something great here...but the writing is awful. So. Freaking. Awful. There is no engaging lore or history to draw you in, just random references to temples and The Machine God. No one uses 'baby' that often in every conversation. It's like someone who doesn't know how to interact with people, attempted to simulate interactions between people.

Every time i finish a mission all the menus are shown on screen at the same time, overlapping. Every time i quit the game, it crashes. AI is dumb, missions are simple, and mission completion triggers won't wait for you to loot the map, you are either going to be dodging that last enemy or avoiding scanning last 2 hexes for several turns or you are going to miss out. If its on sale and you really like the genre and REALLY want to turn the brain off for a while, go ahead and buy this, otherwise i cannot recommend this.

TLDR: If you’re looking for a decent tactical space combat game with some strategy and RPG elements, this game might be for you, despite some shortcomings that prevent it from being great. + Small but decent selection of space vessels to choose from + Lots of skills and equipment upgrades for vessels available + Selection of crew adds nice bonuses to vessels + Overarching campaign from 2 different factions allows for several hours of gameplay + Turn-based tactical combat is decent, making use of cover, environment and LOS + Persistent XP allows vessels to level up and carry over to the next mission + Combat missions and simulator missions allow you to gain valuable resources & XP - Terrible voice acting. It would have been better to eliminate this completely - RPG elements could have been better. Only the main characters have “personalities.” The crew have none. There is no way to improve crew stats except through combat - After a point, it can get grindy -- you need to level your ships through combat, otherwise the missions may be too difficult - Space combat is 2D (a little strange, but understandable), hex-based and table-top like - Not much of a story, weak plot and characters you don’t really care about Ancient Frontier serves its purpose if all you’re looking for is a decent space combat campaign to pass the time. I typically skip the dialogue cutscenes since they add nothing to the story and the voice acting is excruciating. Seriously. The game would have been better without it, and run on captions instead. Interactive choices during dialogue that affect the game would have been a nice touch too. Building your small flotilla of specialized ships can be fun, as is upgrading them and deploying them in combat with crew members you recruit. This is AF’s main saving grace. Ancient Frontier makes the grade, but just barely. If you aren’t good at tactical combat, this game isn’t for you. 5.0/10.0

EDITED 15/02/2021 EDITED 26/02/2021 I'm going to give this a "Not Recommended" simply because there is no "Meh" option. The game is not a _bad_ TBS mechanically, but it is very basic and has a lot of minor frustrations and the storyline is entirely forgettable. Only pick it up if it's on steep sale ($10 or less USD). It's highly unlikely I will ever actually finish this game, I got bored and stopped playing around halfway through Sector 3 after something like 12 hours of gameplay. Pros: - Turn-based spaceship tactics which isn't terrible to look at and is decent mechanically. - Resource management and ship customization adds some actual between-mission decisions, between buying new ships or buying equipment/officers or researching upgrades that affect entire ship classes. - Story missions are at least hand-crafted, so they tend to each be unique and interesting in one way or another. - Not bad for a budget game if you're craving spaceship combat and you've played almost everything else that's available. Cons: - So. Many. Loading. Screens. Pick a mission? Loading screen. Want to go back and fix a ship first? Loading screen. I can understand loading screens between the mission itself and the HQ menus, but why are there loading screens in between HQ menus? - Enemy AI only cares about individual ships, so it's relatively easy to keep your own fleet bunched up and steamroll groups of 2-3 enemy ships at a time while other enemy ships that can't see you will just stay in one spot. Also makes it stupidly annoying sometimes to track down the last couple of enemy ships if the primary mission is to destroy all enemies and a few are literally in the corner of the map. This also seems to happen on "defend outpost" missions, which makes even less sense since most enemies don't go anywhere near the outpost they're supposedly attacking and thus there's no real way to actually lose that type of mission by the outpost being destroyed. - There's no way to preview ship abilities before buying, so all you have to go by are the basic stats and the flavour text. The flavour text can also be misleading. Example: the Predator Corvette says it has 3 sets of twin pulse lasers giving it the anti-fighter capability of an entire battlegroup, so I assumed it would get to fire its pulse guns for free once per turn or its pulse lasers would deal 2-3x normal damage or something similar. Nope, it has exactly the same twin pulse guns as the frigate or destroyer, so you might as well just save your money and invest in one of the bigger ships. - Neither the number of spaces a ship can move using one move action, nor the sensor range of a ship, are listed anywhere on the ship's stats. - Mines only detonate when your ships are nearby, unless manually detonated by AOE attacks - so not only do they pose a danger to your own ships, they actively provide cover for enemy ships. Not sure if this is because the AI isn't smart enough to avoid them so was just programmed to not trigger them, or if there's some lore reason why every minefield (even those near your own faction's stations?) is controlled by the enemy. - There is no real meaningful ship specialization or fleet composition. The starting ship roster, barring the scout fighters, are basically just upgrades on each other so there's no point buying anything other than Destroyers after picking up a couple of scout fighters. Example: the Destroyer has anti-fighter twin pulse lasers, an anti-shield ion cannon, more powerful main guns, a railgun, can still boost its engines every 2 turns, and only costs 2x as much to buy (4x to deploy) as a crappy Manta fighter. It also has 1 move and 3 actions, so when upgraded to 2 moves and 4 actions (1000 data for research) it's easily the best ship out of the entire starting roster and can perform the same roles as the corvette or fighter or frigate but better. The only consideration is the deployment energy cost, but tbh you can use the money you saved buying just 3 Destroyers instead of a bunch of fighters and corvettes and frigates to buy more energy. And then once you get battleships, start buying and upgrading them instead. - There is no way to see what mission you picked when selecting your fleet, so if you forget the difficulty or what kind of mission it was you have to go back to the Missions screen. This would be a slightly smaller annoyance if there wasn't a loading screen between the Missions screen and selecting your fleet for deployment. As a minor addendum, mission variety and enemy composition variety are lacking. - The same type of mission could have a different set of objectives, so for instance a convoy escort mission could end up with your primary objective being to eliminate all enemies or just getting a single ship to the destination beacon. Realistically you should know exactly what at least your primary objective will be, which means you could then actually make meaningful decisions about fleet composition other than "assume you'll have to kill all enemies". Also really annoying when you end up in a timed mission that you had no idea was going to be timed, especially if the primary objective is unexpected. - Backup saves are pointless, they all seem to be exactly the same as the primary save so why bother having backup saves. I assumed the backup saves would be like the last 5 saves for that save slot, but no it's literally all backup copies of your latest save. If this is to counter-act save file corruption, (1) why not just keep multiple copies of the save under the hood and try to load the next backup in sequence if the main one is corrupted and (2) if it's that easy to corrupt saves I think there are bigger issues. - Grindy as hell. There are like 30 missions per campaign plus you can do 3-4 side missions between each mission. So if you wanted to complete a single campaign you're looking at 30-120 missions, or 60-240 for the entire game. At maybe 30 minutes per mission (including time spent in fleet management between missions), that's anywhere from 15-120 hours. Normally this would be a good thing, however before you've even finished 10 story missions you will have seen essentially everything the game has to offer, and as such the way you play the game won't really change or become more interesting. Combined with the fact that the storyline and dialog is horribly cheesy and forgettable, the game starts to feel more like a chore than something keeping the player engaged.

What an unexpected pleasant surprise this turned out to be. Solid hex based tactical combat, polished graphics, and almost the entire game is voiced as well. While the story has only been decent so far, leveling your ships and developing your space fleet have me hooked. I don't think I'm close to being through the first campaign after 20 hours so there's a ton of gameplay here. I do wish you could take your heroes into bounty missions, and I wouldn't mine a bigger map variety. The gameplay is about the combat and army building though, and those parts are quite solid. This is an amazing game for the price and will probably eat up way more time than I have to give.

Turn-based tactical goodness... in SPACE! For a game out of nowhere, Ancient Frontier offered me a highly pleasant surprise. Good turn-based tactical games are not overly abundant to start with, so I decided to bite the bullet and buy on a whim. Something I rarely do, but boy am I glad to have done so. The game is all about the tactical missions. There are two main campaigns, which apparnetly can take around 100 hours to play through. No multiplayer or skirmish mode. Missions bring you varying quantity of one of the three main resources ("material," "fuel," and "research"). The first allows is used to buy new ships or components and repair battle damage. Aside from being required as well to purchase new ships, the second resource is an all-important balancing mechanism. Since each ship class (and modifier components) alter the cost of deployment for each mission. Take too many expensive ships too often on missions, and you will run out... which will probably end your playthrough. The last allows investing in upgrades to each ship class, or to research new and more efficient modifier components. There are five ship types to start with for both campaigns, with more unlocked as the game progresses. All the ships, for both factions, have their unique niches and abilities. While in general "bigger is better," if only from survivability point of view, the deployment costs favor using lighter ships if you are comfortable in their handling and performace. There is certainly plenty to pick from, as you will likely end up being able to afford much heavier force than what can be reasonably supplied with "fuel." The ships themselves can be further modified by equipping additional components, though I have yet to find use for anything other than shield upgrades. The drawbacks to other equipment types seem counterproductive to my style of playing. The missions are varied and randomized enough not to be overly repetitive, although there does not feel to be too many types of side missions. Luckily, all the campaign main missions are hand-crafted as to avoid tedium. I do have to agree with something another player pointed out - the side missions actually do detract from the pacing of the campaign. On the other hand, you will need the resources they bring... as long as you can afford the deployment costs. In the end, it's all about the combat. Ships move in a semi-randomized order based on their Initiative. Unfortunately, as of my writing this review, there is no option to delay the use of a specific ship. It is a minor thing, but something that would have come in handy a few times. The gameplay is fluid and entertaining. The small scale engagements mean each mission does not take too long to complete, which makes for a handly downtime title for work days evenings. The graphics are crisp and readable, the sound is GREAT (excellent VO artists, and a kickass soundtrack along with plenty of satisfying combat sounds), and the gameplay engaging, with sufficient difficulty curve on Veteran to make things challenging. Definitely recommended for anybody with a tactical space itch to scratch. [strike]Edit: Something that apparently should be mentioned - the game uses "Ironman" save style to ensure ship losses are permanent. At least on higher difficulties. If that's not your thing... well, I'd still give it a go. There's always "Easy" difficulty where you lose no ships :)[/strike]Edit 10.01.17- The most recent patch introduced manual save option, so the above no longer applies.

Bought this game early on and been playing it for over 150 hours now. I really like it, maybe im biased cause i love most turn based games, but spaceships istead of tanks is really refreshing. Lets go into detail. + Many different ships that can be fitted individually with crew and gear + Two long campaigns with optional smaller assignments + Story is ok (imho) and has smaller tweaks + Factions have different playstyles + Devs are very dedicated, some bugs took long to find but they never gave up and constantly improve the game and answer very fast + Free DLCs - AI is not the smartest, higher difficulty level only means more numbers - Some maps are extremely laggy, especially with this wavering fog and many objects on it - The optional missions are getting veeeery repetitive What i'd like to see in this game: - More different rewards for missions (maybe a small ship or a piece of superior equipment) - The possibility to choose a crew member (i tend to get mostly fighter pilots and need capital) - Escorts not being so useless - More pics for crew members, editable and renamable What i'd like to see in Ancient Frontier 2: - Open world instead of linear missions. Choosing a faction and then moving fleets around the star map with spawning encounters and missions, global events a.s.o - A bit more RPG approach. Hero and ship crew that can use their XP to learn and improve skills. One fleet commander with the choice of different traits (maybe a small attack, shield or move bonus for all ships in his fleet) - Improved market funktions and more diversity in equipment (i.e. some special items like Aegis Shield, Starfire Rocket launcher aso. mabye buildable from artefacts found on planets or in space) - Possibility for own ship designs Thx for your efforts!

Ancient Frontier is a well polished and pretty straightforward addition to the turn-based strategy genre. There are two different campaigns to play through, each with story missions, bonus missions, and training missions to choose from. The story missions are fully voiced with a lot of flavor in the banter between the different characters. Even the tutorial (which is completely optional and can be skipped entirely) is fully voiced and sets up the characters nicely. The game offers three difficulty modes so it can appeal to veterans of the genre and newbies alike. I don't play many tactical turn-based games, so it's nice to see that I can ease into the game on easy mode while veterans can dive right in without having to wade through loads of too-simplistic missions from the get-go. The game does not have a manual save function, however, so any mistakes I make in a campaign I have to live with, without the safety net of a redo. The story missions drive the campaigns forward, but players can choose up to two bonus or training missions inbetween each story mission to gain additional experience or resources. Training missions do not award any resources, but they will not have any lasting negative effects (like loss of ships) should they turn out poorly, and are useful for gaining experience. There are plenty of ship types for players to choose for their fleet: some with high firepower, some with scouting abilities and little firepower, etc. Selecting the appropriate ship types to purchase and deploy is vital to the success of the missions. There is also equipment to add onto ships for further customization and better tactics. The meat of the gameplay is pretty standard for a space map, turn-based strategy game with a few exceptions. Instead of the player taking a turn with all of his ships in whatever order he chooses and then the computer AI taking a turn with all of its ships, each individual ship gets its own turn in a randomized line-up each phase. The player can only act with the currently active ship, and the active ship rotation is different every turn. This adds an extra level of strategy required because the optimal turn line-up of a player's fleet probably isn't going to be an option. Also, space terrain (asteroids and the like) play an important roll in the strategy as positioning a ship near an asteroid for cover can be a key tactic in defeating an enemy fleet or become a hazard which can destroy a ship unit. All in all, this is a nice solid entry in the tactical turn-based genre. There are plenty of choices for players to customize different strategies with. The game is well polished with detailed graphics and great voice work. And yet there are some key differences with other titles in the genre giving this game a unique feel all of its own to gameplay. It's more of the same great turn-based tactics, without just being more of the same.