Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game Reviews

An extremely fun isometric rpg with an extremely engaging and rewarding combat system. absurdly good world building and beautiful set design. this game is truly an underrated gem and tp see this studio never make anything again would really be a shame.

Not very well balanced. It pushed you hard to go either 100% combat or 100% diplomacy, and if you use one to complete a mission you fall behind the curve on learning the other kind of skills.

This was a dissapointing game and I can't reccomend it unless you really like sci-fi. The premise was interesting and I did buy it on sale. The characters are boring, there's no real depth either to your character or the others you interact with, it's all very surface level. The more I played, the more I just wanted the game to end. The music is forgettable, the combat is brutal and looking at guides there's a lot of people saying "I had to restart this game several times before I found out how to create my character and how combat works". This is not great game design. Especially because if the world of the game was intriguing, or the game loop fun, I WOULD restart because I would want to finish the game. Since it's so boring though I have no intention in spending more time going over the beginning and middle chapters again. Imagine I got to the end game and got stuck because I was stupid enough to go in blind. The game doesn't even allow a 'skill reset' option which all modern rpgs have so that you don't have to wipe 10 hours of gameplay. Even trying a pacifist run, there are moments where the game pushes you to fight, the combat system is so bad. There's no clear information given to me as to why my character who is a pistol specialist with eye implants to increase accuracy is only producing a 5% chance to hit. Or why my assassin blade expert who is standing on top of a target is only 30% likely to land a stab. It's admirable the developer wants to go for a tough combat experience, but it's not designed well. The atmosphere doesn't land. The characters are forgettable. There's no humour. The music is bland to point of non-existence. I bought this heavily discounted and regret even paying that much for this. It tries to be fallout 1, but it fails at that. 3/10

Great RPG game with many decisions that will impact the story and the world around you. The writing is phenomenal, it kept me hooked from beginning to end. 10/10

The most frustrating game. I find it insane to lock content behind skill checks. There is no way to improve skills other by using those skills. This places you into a conundrum, because either you use different skills and then you're not good at any of them. Or you specialize on some skills, but then you get content locked. Maybe the creators thought that this will encourage replayability. But what it does it's just frustrate the hell out of the player. And the combat where you're constantly surrounded by enemies. The quests that seem to offer multiple choices, but actually box you in a narrative. I'm sorry I bought this game, and I bought it when it was on sales. Do yourself a favor and skip this one. To the creators, use more time on a story line, and offer a way to access content using multiple methods. What ended my will to play was the necessity to use stealth on some content. Only stealth, and nothing else.

If it had Space battles and exploration, it would've been perfect. But it's a decent sci fi game with good roleplay. If you enjoyed Age of Decadence, you'll love this

Giving this a somewhat weak thumbs up because it was entertaining enough and still very good compared to other RPG titles; but I found it lacked the charme of Age of Decadence. Mostly because the story is (comparatively) straightforward and I didn't feel like going through another playthrough with this one. The game is overall less punishing but longer and I didn't feel like I was missing much context or relevant story bits in my single playthrough. The writing is still good, the characters and setting are still interesting. Would love for the publishers to go on because I can very much see how they might gift us a masterpiece, but we'll see.

Absolutely fantastic RPG set in a unique setting. After 132 hours i am still finding new mini quests i haven't done and the occasional area i did not previously spot. Having looked at a few of the negative reviews it is obvious that they have tried to stick with a Jack of All Trades type build for their character so it is worth pointing out that how you set up your build at the start will affect the entire game. A stealth specialist is going to suck at combat whereas building a pure combat one will limit you to about 30% of the game. As always with these games trying to do everything means you can do very little. The stats and skills you start with along with the levelling system means that being good at everything is basically impossible. That is where the companions come in because you can train them up to fill the gaps. Getting this set up wrong, which you will, will stop you in your tracks. There are some good guides explaining set ups if you need them though. The story/gameplay can switch between quite linear at times to very open world where your choices/actions have big effects later on from whether a shop exists with the kit you need later in the game, if a character will aid you or try to take you out or one simple seeming decision in the first half hour of play can enable/disable entire quests later on. The main story suffers the worst from the linear part, especially towards the end, but it is the countless side quests and missions that make the game what it is. For example one minor part of the main story quest involving a spy has seven different outcomes to it which all change how different people and factions see you and what options will get later on. This is not a game designed for one run through. The combat system is absolutely brutal at times especially if you do not pay attention to strengths and weaknesses. If you do not have the patience or interest to spend a significant amount of time learning how to balance skills/armour/weapons/gadgets etc then this is absolutely not the game for you. It can literally be the case of putting on the wrong armour/helmet/boots can change you from a sniper to Mr "can't hit the barn from the inside." Top tips for starting out, Start on hero mode and do not go underdog until you figure out the mechanics. The Tab and Alt keys are your two best friends.

Update: Made a combat focused build from a guide (murderhobo) this made combat less frustrating but the game still is not all that fun. Comparing it to a similar game like Fallout 2 (from 1998) it loses most categories. Pros: Cool setting. Decent story. Fast Travel anywhere. No inventory weight limit. Combat optional most times. Cons: Fetch quests. Frustrating combat. Visually boring. No cam rotation. Jumbo inventory UI for no reason. Hard locked out of finishing some quests. If you want a duller and more linear Pathfinder: Kingmaker on a space ship with 2010 graphics this game is for you. 10 hours in and I've had my fill. Should've noticed something amiss with all the positive reviews having sub 20hr playtimes. Biggest issue is gameplay (combat/quests). In combat, your ability to hit enemies vs their ability to hit you is way out of whack. 3 misses point blank with a shotgun with a character who specializes in shotguns (skill 6) super common, yet the enemies will hit you 75%+. Leveling up does nothing so you can't fetch quest your way into improvement. Better gear does not improve accuracy, and often will cost more AP to use, so better gear is actually less accurate. You will find yourself unable to complete quests for stat reasons and you have no way of raising them to complete. Combat is optional, but skipping it will lead you to be under powered later when you are forced into it. Setting/story is cool, but quests are mostly fetch types and vague. Had to resort to internet searches frequently. Boring game visually. Permanent pre-rendered blur to it. Jumbo inventory pictures make management a chore even with no weight limit. Backgrounds and explorable areas are dull. Get used to painting the screen with your mouse cursor to see if you missed something/someone you can interact with. Better looking/gameplay versions of this exist that came out decades ago.

Man, I don't even know where to start. This game has enormous potential but fails to deliver on it in basically every area. The setting and premise are really cool and the worldbuilding is decent even if there are some inconsistencies. But the "generation ship" idea isn't exactly unique like many people here are praising it to be. Still a rather fresh scenario for sure! A lot of folks highlight the writing positively, but I see it completely differently. The writing and story are... functional. That's probably the right word for it. It delivers the bare minimum info you need to make decisions and solve quests, but that's it. Almost every character you meet is completely shallow and forgettable. There are companions too and they even have a hint of personality and occasionally chime in, but it's nowhere near enough to build any kind of relationship with them. I didn't care about them at all. The different factions barely differ from each other. Religious militant fanatics, police state fanatics and freedom fighter fanatics who in reality are on their way to becoming the next opressor. You're repeatedly given choices to support certain groups that align with these faction in different ways. But for my taste, there was never nearly enough info available to make an informed decision. In chapter 1 for example you can choose between [spoiler]Jonas, Braxton and Mercy[/spoiler]. Each gets a brief 1-2 paragraph info dump when you meet them and maybe an NPC has a line or two about them. That's all the info you get. You don't really understand what their actual values are, how they'd handle different situations, what kind of individual people they are etc. This is what I mean by "bare minimum" - the characters are more like one-dimensional, representative archetypes of the factions rather than real personalities. [spoiler]Jonas = independence/freedom, Braxton = law-and-order and Mercy = religious.[/spoiler] Now go choose one. This pattern then repeats several times, though it's not always that obvious and maps 1:1 to the three factions. This still makes it all pretty forgettable and the equally barebones quest log doesn't help you remember who the hell all these boring people were after taking a longer break from playing. I really missed a bit of drama, memorable characters I could relate to and the game making me emotionally invested in the plot. Instead, the story just meanders along without any real highs or lows. The quests don't really have impactful twists or deal with interesting or difficult themes and if they do it's not really engaging. It's more like plain "go there and kill X or convince him" or "go there and get that from X" and how do you do it? Exactly, by talking or killing. After a few quests you know already what to expect. Mechanically, there's also a bunch of problems. Actual roleplay is barely possible. You either play a talker character or a murderhobo. The XP-based skill system requires you to pick one thing and commit. It's possible to use diplomacy as a murderhobo sometimes and vice versa, but it's pretty limited. If you switch back and forth as you please, you'll eventually hit situations where neither your talk skill checks are sufficient nor your combat skills have evolved enough and you'll get wrecked in fights. Support skills like computer and lockpicking become useless after a while because you won't be able to pass the checks and earn further XP unless you build a character specifically specialized in them or fully spec a companion as a skill monkey. If you're unlucky, you will get so far behind that you eventually hit a roadblock and can't progress anymore. There's no respec or anything like that. This promotes the need for extensive metagaming. Min/maxing is extremely rewarded and without prior knowledge, you're basically forced to consult a guide at some point. People have meticulously documented how to do which quest in what order and way to squeeze out maximum skill XP, how to build your character with all future bonuses and implants in mind, etc. The game is more of a puzzle than an RPG. This is simultaneously a unique feature that many people seem to like, but IMO also a major weakness. Having a silver tongue, solving everything via talking gets boring because the dialogue lacks variety and spice in the long run and you often skip exploring many locations. As a murderhobo, you get even less character and follow up story content when you just murder everything upon initiating dialogue. Oh yeah, stealth exists as a third path besides fighting and talking, but it feels tacked onto the game as an afterthought and is very clumsy and inconsistent. Sometimes you can stealth with the whole party, sometimes only one person, sometimes there's no stealth option at all. Sometimes you need additional skills that the high-stealth character might not have, etc. Combat itself is okay-ish, but that's about it. You often start at a disadvantage and surrounded while enemies are all in good positions near or behind cover. They often have more initiative than your party too, unless you ignore dialogue and murderhobo everything for the initiative bonus. You also can counter this with consumables aka grenade spam, which gets boring rather quickly. You have to fully commit here too and need meta knowledge to accomplish anything through combat in later chapters. There are tons of things to consider, min/max and optimize, otherwise you quickly fall behind and will struggle in fights. I've now reached the Habitat and really have to force myself to keep playing. I'm barely getting by with leaning into talk, a bunch of cheesy combat tactics and lots of reloading. And that's only possible because I consulted a guide toward the end of chapter 1 to adjust quest order and to salvage my build and companions somewhat. Playing completely blind must be just.. ugh. And before people come at me with "git gud" etc. I have no problem with difficult games. But when the difficulty mainly comes from lack of meta knowledge and the game wanting to be played in a specific way without properly communicating that, then that's not difficulty, that's bad game design. And yes, I know there is a "Hero" mode, but it makes the game way too easy, which isn't fun either. In the end it feels like everything the game does is to create a framework for the puzzle loop. As I already mentioned, Colony Ship is not really an RPG but rather a puzzle game shaped like an RPG. Apart from that, pretty much every aspect of this game has been done better elsewhere. If that appeals to you, go for it. If not, better skip it. In the end, it didn't work for me since I was expecting something more like Wasteland 3, Trudograd or maybe even Pillars of Eternity in space. It probably doesn't help that the game is marketed as a cRPG either, because IMO it's far from being a full-fledged one.