Star Cruiser (1990, Genesis port)

Name:Star Cruiser
Number:127
Year:1990 (Genesis Port)
Publisher:Masaya
Developer:Arsys Software
Genre:FPS/Space Sim
Difficulty:3/5
Time:14 hours 40 minutes
Won:Yes (45W/48L)

Star Cruiser is another first in gaming that manages to be not all its cracked up to be. I entered the game hopefully, but by the time I had finished playing every single aspect of the game had greatly disappointed me. If you're not aware of what it is, Star Cruiser is basically everything wrapped up in a shiny 3D package. The two primary genres are FPS and space sim, but you could make a case for vehicle sim and RPG too. With its original release date of 1988, it is the first proper FPS, no asterisks, no question marks, no caveats. Throw into the mix light RPG elements and an involved story and if I didn't already tell you I was disappointed you'd wonder the catch.

I can't even see him, I think this might be worse than even the endgame fights!

The game starts with a simulation of combat, but you don't know that. It seems like a difficult battle straight up after starting, a common, but very annoying trope in Japanese games. Perhaps there is a way for someone just starting out to win it, but I doubt it. When you get defeated, you end up talking to a sentient robot, Freddy, and your near and best friend Gibson. While the game's brief approach to dialog usually doesn't help the game any, I get the feeling that if it weren't, Freddy would seem like one of those very annoying sidekicks, and Gibson would be one of those annoying Sasuke types. (whiny backstabbing rivals, for those of you not up on your anime) Freddy acts as your eyes, ears and most of the time voice to the outside world. The story has a very Japanese approach to it, what you want to do is entirely irrelevant. Even so, it feels a bit weird.
The basic gist, that I could get without the manual, is that the human race has expanded to about three star systems, Sol, Sirius and I think Alpha Centauri. To protect their holdings, Federal Patrol was founded. Federal Patrol oftentimes employs "hunters", to do things they need doing. The player is a hunter, along with Gibson. I'm probably wrong, but filling in the gaps I'm probably supposed to be a bounty hunter. With all the nasty bits that includes. There's a weird feeling in this game that makes me feel that's true. Recently, an anti-alien organization called VOID, lead by Geist Nidoman has been stepping up their activity, building a Great Battleship and the titular Star Cruisers.

Hope you like the way this looks, because you're going to be staring at it for the next 10+ hours

Controlling the game is annoying and feels like the game isn't responding half the time. You have your standard Wolf 3D style movement with the d-pad, while C shoots. A modifies your movement, sidestepping on the ground, speed controls in space. B cycles through weapons. One of the big problems with the game is that it constantly slows itself down and doesn't seem to work too well when that happens. This seems to happen over the silliest of causes. In combat, it seems like even firing your gun can cause these bizarre slowdowns, which in turn leads to shots not firing. I don't think its a heat mechanic, at least probably. Moving around can cause these delays too. No matter which way you take it, unintentional or intentional, it doesn't mesh well with the game and makes it feel broken.
This also leads to a problem later on where one of the weapons seems a lot worse than it really is because I didn't realize until long after I got it you were supposed to hold down the fire button with it.

A dungeon, not quite sure if you can tell the broken visual nature of the game from this

As soon as you exit the first dialog and enter the game without threat of death, the flaws in the 3D become very apparent. Its got Wolfenstein-style walls, 3D objects in the world, and a pixel art skybox. This might just be me, but I found the experience to be very headache inducing. What isn't me, is how unusual this looks in action. What you can see, what is actually there and whether or not your enemy is going to hit you all seem to be three different things. So you can see past walls in a way that doesn't look normal, and its kind of freaky, even hours in.

Remember, every wall is as tall as a building

Another issue is that the size of things is weird. There are one story buildings and two story buildings, and presumably these aren't properly scaled. Fine. Vehicles range from being shorter than you to much taller. Also fine. All starships look like they're fighters, but since they can enter space, I guess that means they're X-Wings or something. Fine. Humans are the same size as a ship. Weird. The player's spaceship is actually some vast ship with a pretty big, but unshown interior. Huh? But its also the same size as a land tank you can drive around in. I feel like my eyes are lying to me or something. Its annoying as hell.

"...and I'm just so much cooler than you."

You don't start the game with the Star Cruiser, a superpowered and modular spaceship that is more powerful than any other ship in the galaxy. Instead you steal one located on a bigger spaceship just outside the starting location of Ganymede. Taking the ship, and then upgrading it takes up most of the early hours of the game. This introduces most of the major cast, The generic waiter in every restaurant in the galaxy, Masashi, a cool hunter, Daigo, genius scientist, Yoko, his archaeologist daughter, Max, Yoko's student, Diane, Max's sister and Federal Patrol intelligence agent, and finally General Tomovsky Hermann, one of the heads of Federal Patrol.
This game doesn't really expand on its characters too much owing to the limited amount of space it had for dialog and text. Again, this is not a bad thing, because I get the feeling if it expanded on it, it'd be anime, the bad kind of anime where characters expand on their motivation for far, far too long. However, a lot of characters feel one dimensional, so its not all good. I am curious about the quality of the translation, if its bad or good. It could go either way. I've picked up on things that might be errors, but at other times the game forgets to include instructions on your next destination, which screams that the game was made that way.

One of the most exciting encounters of the game

The space combat is the best element of the game, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Its biggest problem is that there's a maximum range before enemies disappear, and its far too short. The game is kind enough to remember how hurt enemy starships are though. Bit of the standard, "figure out where the enemies went" type of stuff, but once you figure out the radar you shouldn't have too many problems. They're a bit spongey, with some multi-ship battles taking much longer than they need to. Space combat is only rarely needed, you only have to fight them about 5 times, and out of those times there is no real benefit to fighting them. Non-essential combat is completely pointless, since there are no, or at least close to no dropped items and most of the time you can fight these unnecessary battles, you can run back to a repair station on any friendly planet.

Action! Excitement! Something of interest!

Ground combat in contrast, is far more necessary and far more boring. Enemies run around taking potshots at you, while you try to shoot those shots down and hit them with some of your own. Not all fights are essential, but its rare that you'll figure it out until after the fact. It doesn't feel like there's any cleverness going on, just the simplest of simple combats. Hammer the attack button, later hold down for the rapid-fire weapon, finally wait to charge up your weapon. Or use missiles, but you have a limited number of those. I will say that all the weapons in the game were useful at some point, even though I didn't quite grasp it at the beginning.

There are flashes of something that could be described as scenic beauty

Which brings us to the level design. Despite being...crap, the level design shows quite clearly the mark of the kind of design later FPSes would get up to. Teleporters, keys-and-doors, switches-and-doors. Every hallmark of classic FPS design that doesn't involve a Z-plane. Don't mistake that for good, this is firmly in the boring maze department. This is basically what people imagine old FPSes are like. You'd think with the strong RPG-influence on the game, someone would have taken a page out of that book and do something interesting, but it never does.
Sometimes the games goes as far as to show a teleport and a locked door and no other path. The teleporter leads to a key. Why did we need this? It feels like something someone would do if they were just starting out in designing a Doom level and wanted to test that keys and teleporters worked. Later in the same level, there's a one way arrow floor, and a teleporter. That teleporter leads behind the one-way arrows. They're just copying elements from other games without understanding why they worked. I find this all slightly curious, since Wibarm was decent for the brief period of time I played it.

My in-game best friend, a mature and reasonable human who would never result to anything vulgar at all

As to the sound, I spent considerable amounts of time with it off, unusual for me, but the music isn't that good to justify listening to for the game's length. No real statements other than generic JRPG music. You're liable to listen to five of the tracks thousands of times. Sound's okay, but thankfully non-essential. I listened to a lot of actual music, simply to keep myself sane during some of this. Because this game is too long.

Speaking of RPG, this game gets the label RPG quite a bit. Its kind of weird, because its in that category of not really being one despite the influence the genre had on the game. While you do upgrade your ship over the course of the game, its linear upgrading tied into sections of the story, closer to an action game's upgrade system than even a JRPG one. The level design is obvious, but so many games now have that kind of influence it doesn't seem like much of a sign. The way you interact with the world and the way the plot moves forward are very JRPG-ish, but I'm not sure I'd describe that as a core aspect. I did some thinking, readjusted one title I wrongly claimed was a RPG, and decided to take the Addict's way of thinking and say it wasn't because it all happens at predetermined points.

To another star system!

After traveling through Sol for a while, the game begins to tell you about a Gravity Catapult, which though the game does a poor job of explaining, is the method of intergalactic travel in this universe...well, for the most part. Up until this point I assumed the game was set entirely in Sol, but there are four star systems, three of which we can reach through normal travel, with one acting as a sort of final dungeon. Innersystem travel is done with a warp function, or just by flying somewhere. The warp function uses a lot of energy and doesn't have a great range, so there were times I just used it as a short-range map. I've lost track of most of what happened here, because the game looses focus and goes through all three systems throughout much of the remaining section of the game.
While for the most part, suffice to say there are quite a few twists and turns, and quite a few traitors in Federal Patrol, some elements of the game are a lot more mature than I was expecting. At some point you have to infiltrate a captured building, and one of your allies gives you some gas with which to knock them out. After doing the usual boring playthrough of the level, I can put the gas into the air vents...at which point it turns out the gas is lethal. While the game describes it as awful, its ultimately just accepted and there are no consequences for this event. As strange as it sounds for a source of praise, I was expecting some stock anime plot where we discover we were working with the bad guys all along and the people we were fighting were the good guys, but I guess one of the Final Fantasy titles created this line of cliche and Star Cruiser was lucky in when it was made.

In-universe its been terraformed into a green planet with the use of a giant heat shield

Let me just mention some of the planets in this game:

• Pluto 2
• Hollywood (before anyone had thought of that restaurant)
  
• Old New York
• Folder
• Egg

I can't remember what this was about, but I'm sure it was quite dangerous

This game just doesn't end, despite feeling like it should have ended much earlier. At first this was due to annoyance with the game, after a while I got used to the awful elements of it. But then we take out important antagonists left and right, and when they're all dead the game is still going, because we have unfinished business. That's not the worst aspect, because its in this section where I have to get one of my associate's associates to seduce the twin brother of some slimeball merchant to find a base. This is hour 9. There was still more interesting stuff and more boring stuff to be beheld.
We even still have plot twists, and major known members of VOID are still alive. I'm desperately hoping the game will end, and its still throwing out new elements. In-game we hear a voice helping us when it seems like death is inevitable. A helpful voice. I feel like if I had one of those it would be telling me to quit because this game is throwing another maze at me.

Darth Yoda and his planet full of clones, or perhaps the developers are just prejudiced against aliens

Then it gets interesting again. I arrive on a planet full of aliens, though they are a bit...obviously inspired, to put it politely. The aliens believe that VOID are the good guys and that Federal Patrol are the baddies, and thus its another "clearing my name" section of the story. Things do get a little repetitive story-wise, but I must admit this version of it feels a bit cleverer.
Eventually, we engage with VOID's leader, fight him, and destroy the Great Battleship of theirs. We find out one of the stupidest plot twists in gaming, where we discover who the voice is. I'm not going to tell you, you don't deserve to be disappointed like I was. Peace and order is restored to the galaxy and everyone gets their happy ending. The end.

More of this, less stuff on the ground

Compared to early western attempts at the genre, I feel like this game would have been improved greatly if it had the western open-ended approach. You have a bunch of antagonists that move along their own lines, and you, possibly your team, deal with them across three star systems. Done in a way so that the primary purpose of the game doesn't just revolve around taking out one major target, like in Mike Singleton's games. The linear nature of the game combined with the laughably bad dungeons hurts the game more than any other aspect of it.

This is the closest western attempt, The Colony, and I hated playing it

But despite all this, here's the thing, this game was released in 1988 originally, before anything we think of as being the first FPS, and before the space sims that proved the most enduring, like Wing Commander and Tie Fighter. The only practical comparison in the latter is Elite, which suffers from the problem of being too open. It may be flawed in aspects we find important now, but its like complaining that a film from the 1920s has awkward camera work and no real sound. Everything it built off of has slipped away in memory, like cherry blossoms in the wind.

A lot of these screenshots are pretty amusing outside of context though

Weapons:
Nearly every weapon was useful in some form or another, not throughout the game, but whenever I felt shafted by a weapon it turned out there was something I was missing. 4/10

Enemies:
The only real differences between enemies is how many shots they take and visual ones, most of which doesn't feel different. 1/10

Non-Enemies:
I think there are some at a few points, but I'm not really sure how much they contributed. 1/10

Levels:
Despite coming from what is supposedly a RPG-style every tile counts with some common blobber trickery, there is absolutely nothing going on in any of the dungeons worth talking about. Even Wibarm felt like it had better level design. 1/10

Player Agency:
I never felt like I was in proper control during the ground sections, though the space combat sections are decent. I liked in those sections that the game carried ship momentum. 4/10

Interactivity:
Very limited interactions. Nothing more than a few token puzzles and false walls. 1/10

Atmosphere:
The game does a very good job at making the player feel like he's in a low rent space opera, travelling from alien world to alien world. Teeters the line between being anime and not, but then again I am biased. 5/10

Graphics:
While the 3D looks awful no matter how you slice it, the 2D feels kind of mediocre. There's just nothing about it that makes me go, oh, I'd like to draw like that. 3/10

Story:
The limited amount of text the game has to work with works both in favor and against the story. We don't get much motivation on some characters, and as a result their actions seem like random acts of idiocy. Other times the game is surprisingly intelligent and doesn't treat the conflict as entirely black and white. My biggest issue is the player's practical non-existence. 4/10

Sound/Music:
I'm not really sure I like the music, even discounting it being about 30 minutes long in a 14 hour+ long game. A lot of sound effects lack punch, and despite having turned off the sound for long periods of time, I don't feel like I missed anything. 2/10

That's 26, in recent memory only really comparable to Day of the Viper.

I don't know how to feel about this game. Its clear that the game lasted a lot longer than it needed to, but its also a very important game, certainly so for the Japanese. Its all so funny finding these games that beat the boys at iD to their presumed punch yet nobody knew of their existence.

Now, despite being a port of a PC release, this had several changes in the process, meaning at some point I should play that. I can't imagine that not being superior anyway. It was also translated. However, because of those possible translation issues I noticed, I'm going to wait to play that until I can read Japanese. The same is true of its sequel, Star Cruiser 2, translated into English, but I'm going to wait. I also think I should start watching some more Japanese media, since it feels like its going to be important to see what these games are knocking off as surely as western games knock off Alien and Arnie movies.

As an aside, I've noticed during these past couple of Wolf-clones that I've been developing headaches as I play them, and its not necessarily because they're bad. I checked my memory, and it seems to be a consistent issue. But that said, I'm not sure if that's because of the visuals or the audio. I noticed I didn't have any when I turned off the sound. Come to think of it, I can remember the issue happening with some console titles that don't have anything to do with shooters.

Star Cruiser: No Longer Starbound

There's a fleet outside of Saturn, and holy crap, space battles are difficult again. Good, just what I wanted. The real sticking point is that these ships just won't die. I just barely manage to survive the fight, and at such great strength depletion that I don't have enough energy left to reach another planet. I set down, hoping that there's a repair bay somewhere, or at least some energy pickup.
Saturn, or more accurately, Titan, starts of blue and like your typical "outdoor" scene, but thankfully a friendly outpost is here. Ah, good, that would have been annoying. Now, what's here? Nothing, nothing but the repair shop and a military bunker.

The good admiral whose name I can't remember is here, as to be expected. Right away, he tells us that Diana has gotten a few promotions and is now Major Diana. I would be disappointed I didn't get one, but I'm apparently a hunter, which means I'm too cool for ranks. If I had a portrait I would be wearing a leather jacket and aviator shades.

Our fleet has been taken out by VOID's forces, and while I took out theirs, one ship got away, a Star Cruiser by the name of Cutty Sark. Why do people insist on using that silly sounding name? Anyway, its off to Io where Gibson has headed, since that's where the Cutty Sark was from.

By the way, this area is subtly changing in color. Its very annoying, and by very, I mean eye-searing pain on my part. Its a maze full of enemies, and my heat shield is slowly draining. Wow, this game got worse. I wonder how this game is going to continue to make itself annoying as hell. One needs to find two elements, an entrance into the enemy base and the key. As I enter I meet Gibson on his way on, he'll be at the old restaurant.

Inside the base I find myself getting injured and losing more and more. Partially because they're doing things like having two enemies in a row, so I can't just spam my laser attack, partially because I'm getting tired of the game. I've taken to long stretches without the game's sound and my own music.
The real objective of this mission is just to pick up whatever equipment the Cutty Sark has. To this end I find a Photon Drive, and a Nuclear Shield, of which I need 2 to win...okay.
Back at the restaurant, we're waiting for a call from Tommy, our admiral. I know it sounds like I'm leaving out a lot of the plot going on, but I'm not, its really that strange area between an actual story and mindless fluff.
Anyway, outside of the admiral wanting my "friends" to meet him wherever he is now, VOID has offered a deal. The Star Cruiser in exchange for the Gravity Catapult. I am unsure who's giving who, since all I remember was a plan to take the Catapult. I have to go to Earth...I guess because I'm going to fight VOID again. This game feels like its getting longer and longer without much for me to talk about. It also doesn't help that every time I quit and return I have to check what I've written because otherwise I completely forgot what my next objective is.
On Earth I'm not quite sure what or where I'm supposed to do. Everyone is talking about how the Information Center's computer has gone haywire, but that could just be because it broke down the last time I was here. That is a valid option.

Oh, I was supposed to wait outside the planet, gotcha. Now its time to fight against the Cutty Sark. I'm as good as dead, so says my foe, Jack. So after destroying the Cutty Sark the good Admiral congratulates me for saving the solar system. It actually was a bit of a challenge, I used up my entire stock up missiles, both the ones I can get more of and the heavier ones, to take him out. Nearly bite it too.
However, this is just the beginning. Not literally right? We're at least someway through the game? VOID is going to be doing more fighting at...Alpha Centauri...? Wow, we're getting out of the solar system. Also, I need to be concerned about Geist Nidoman, someone who is at least 200 years old, whoever the hell that is.
This has a couple of problems, first, with the death of Jack we've seemingly cut of the head of VOID, and secondly I have no idea where to go to get to Alpha Centauri. The answer to the former is that Jack is hardly the only leader of VOID, I'm sure, and the second is that this is what the Gravity Catapult is for.

The Gravity Catapult is a full-fledged town, and the first building I see contains a restaurant, where Diana is waiting for me. Huh? She'll be with me when I'm at Alpha Centauri, fine by me, and gives me all the necessary stuff to travel there.

We get a nice travel sequence, and then a soldier greets us on AX-1, telling us that Admiral Edgar Nash is waiting for us. Nash seems to be a Sonny Chiba type of guy by the looks of him. We get our orders and a little bit of orientation for the new star system.
Basically, this place contains quite a lot of ancient ruins, and they named the planets things like Planet Barbarian, Fantasia, and Folder. The second star has a barrier preventing entry into most of it, and I assume we don't understand it. My next destination is AX-3, currently occupied by terrorists. Diana will instead be meeting an alien, named Carlin, on Planet Folder. Admiral Nash also gives me a hypnotic gas to use on the terrorists, which seems weird to me after blasting my way through a galaxy.

Curiously, the gas doesn't show up as a weapon. I guess I have to figure out where to use it. Back to your standard space station combat section. There is something out of the ordinary here, multiple floors. I didn't say it was very interesting, now did I?

Along the way I meet a soldier who tells me to regain control of the station I should reach the control room. Thanks...? Once I reach that room, I find out who the new enemy are, a mysterious-looking black robed man. Time to use that sleeping gas I got. After using it, and they fall down, Freddy tells me it was Hydrogen Cyanide. Are we sure we're not the bad guys here?

Holy crap, game, I didn't expect to be responsible for a crime against humanity. They have some stuff, which I take, including a card explaining that they defend humanity against ugly aliens. Which I suspect is just a poor choice of words at this point, since we're clearly not the good guys if we're gassing people.
This is actually something the game points out as I walk out, with the survivors on our side thanking me, but still pointing out that gassing them was "kind of harsh".

Back talking with Edgar, I get my orders to save Diana on Folder, because of course, and nary a mention of the poison gas until I bring it up. Yeah, we're going to get that, we change sides because the people we were working with were secretly the bad guys all along, plot twist. At the very least Edgar is going to turn out to be a bad guy.
I realize I'm harping on about it, but you realize how nearly every major space opera franchise has done this twist, in addition to a ton of major JRPGs?
I haven't mentioned it much, but as I traveled to Folder, I had to travel some distance manually, since I don't get significant range on my warp function. This meant I was flying towards one of the stations, which I didn't have a beacon for. I didn't mention it because the whole beacon system sounded silly anyway and the plot was taking me along everywhere fairly smoothly anyway.
Lo and behold, the game stops me dead in space because I don't have the beacon for that station. I guess this is a way to stop players from sequence breaking. (I know how painful that is) Not on the station, just so far away from the station I couldn't see it.

Arriving on Folder, I can't enter, there's a barrier. A ship exits, and we fight. Its not too hard, but I'm more interested in that the game doesn't have me talk it out with them yet. Yes, I am 100% expecting the game to shift gears because of this and I would actually be shocked if it didn't. I've been half expecting it since I had to shoot out of a friendly jail!

Another space station section, this time its green. The layout's a bit confusing but I preserve. I find Diana pretty quickly, apparently the alien ambassador is being held hostage and we don't know how to enter the enemy base. Oh, look, I have a card without any obvious data on it, and I can use an item on Diana. She says its a key! And the base is nearby.

We're locked inside, but the combat continues. Its not terribly unusual at this point. A boss fight, and then we have the ambassador. He looks like one of those things out of Wing Commander. I can get out of the base fairly quickly, but where to go next is not clear.

Eventually, I check the other switch door, and end up in a maze. After a bit more time than I would have liked, I'm at the ambassador's quarters and he can now speak something I can understand. The plot thickens, because his security is incredibly tight and yet enemy soldiers, implied to be VOID, kidnapped him past this. And they were incredibly polite.
I can use an item, and without really thinking I try the first card I got off the gassed soldiers. This was a distraction so that their fleet could take Fantasia! One of the planets here. First, we'll be going to AX-2, then to Fantasia, because we need to get a beacon from Max (her brother) on AX-2 and that's the only place Diana has a Beacon for. This isn't unnecessarily complicated at all. I'll leave off here since I've solved most of the important problems for now.

This Session: 1 hour

Total Time: 3 hours 30 Minutes

Star Cruiser: Much Ado about Nothing

Space is big, very big, even on this game's vastly reduced scale, and that means I made a horrible mistake last session not noting where the asteroid belt is. Because I assumed that the game would tell me where it is. Slip up one time and suddenly everything's gone south. So I started this session my flying around shooting down hostile ships. That went well.
Now, while the game allows you to warp everywhere, you can just fly your ship through space to get places too. This wouldn't be a problem if I knew where the hell any asteroids were either, but he didn't give a precise location anyway, just a rough estimate. Is it up or is it down?

After a bit of exploring I travel to Station 2, where after exiting my ship I walk over a one-way floor, that's right. Of all the classic dungeon crawler stuff to include. Well, a teleporter takes me back, so it has that going for it at least.
So I return to Daigo, to get directions again...no, that would be too kind of the game. Guess I'll be exploring space until I find asteroids.

If you look just above the crosshair, you can see a rock

Aha, they're these green things on my radar. Since in the past those were missiles I obviously was trying to avoid them. This is boring. Flying combat has been fish in a barrel after I got past the intro fight, and fighting against something that doesn't fight back makes it worse. Even though using the tractor beam on the asteroids drains my energy like crazy its still a breeze.

Give hydrogen to Daigo, then go back to the restaurant to advance the plot. Apparently the waiter here talked to his sister back on Earth, some boob lady I barely mentioned, and knows I was there. Anyway, Musashi tells me about my next destination, Venus. There he's going to hold a Hunter meeting at the Kinen Festival. Or the Memory Festival.
Back with Daigo, he's not yet done, so me and Freddy examine the data we got. The Star Cruiser is missing a B-system, no the game doesn't tell me either. Then we get a list of VOID targets...and the next one is Venus and finishing off with Mars. Guess I know my destination! And my near and dear friend Gibson is restored too. This does mean that before we go to Venus we have to get his starship from Earth.

Venus looks remarkably like Earth, but less green. We tell Musashi about the attack and he says we should go to the police. Now comes the fun part of the game, where I have to enter every building trying to find them. It takes a while, but I do find the Federal Chief in an arcade and a suspicious character in a bar.

So I go through every building, and there isn't one for the police. Logical answer, I missed it somewhere in the spaceport. Once I'm back there someone bombs all the spaceships. And guess who gets blamed for the incident? That's right, us.

Once in a jail Masashi and Gibson start plotting a jailbreak. Based on how quickly the Federation threw us in here and how unpleasant it is, I'm starting to suspect they might not be the good guys. I have to help, I have no choice in the matter. A key I randomly picked up earlier opens the door. Huh. Now I enter combat, guess we're shooting our way out.

Yep, we're shooting our way out. Even if I'm just trying to clear my name here, this speaks remarkably poorly of the capabilities of the Federation that we have so little confidence in their detectives. And yes, the soldiers move around like the tanks and spaceships despite being the human model.

The person we have to talk to is the local general. He doesn't notice our approach somehow, apparently he didn't hear the laserfire and screams of the "losing consciousness" of his soldiers. He doesn't believe us, but he brings his other suspects in because we asked.

There are four of them, and their roles in the plot are fairly obvious:
*Diana Gaddis, who I am sure is going to be important to the plot later.
*Anna McCaffrey, who has boobs.
*Dave Clavius, who is actually David El Fan, a secret soldier.
*Jack Rogers, who I swear looks like the prototype of that Ao Oni thing, and is the saboteur.
We don't actually see any of this solved, but upon the revelation that the Dave guy is some member of a secret platoon, we find out that there's a VOID base here. Guess we're still all the good guys. I have to go and destroy it. Wow...this plot is getting really stupid. Now that I'm out, I see that the game straight up didn't allow the police to help me, because I saw exactly where their station is.

And guess what, I don't know where the VOID base could possibly be, which means looking through the entire town again. Once I only have the church left I brace myself for something really stupid, but it isn't. The priest tells me that someone is persistent in asking for a dead guy to be revived, RPG humor? Anyway, he noticed a strange man tampering with the fountain nearby.
I interact with it, and a card reader appears...wait, I have a key from Dave...is he the bomber? Huh. Anyway, this leads to the base, hidden behind some hedges.

This place is not terribly unusual. Combat seems to be a bit harder, but nothing special. A bit more non-linear, but nothing obnoxious. Generous, but not something I'm ungrateful for. Nothing interesting to talk about, I collect the data I was supposed to get and blow up the base. Naturally characters in this game don't care that they heard a large explosion.

This proves all our innocence, and we discover who the rest of these people are. Diana is a Federal Patrol intelligence agent, while Anna is Dave's assistant, and Jack is the suspect, he nearly killed Gibson. Interesting, I forgot about that. Anyway, he's a general, his men were secretly here, there's a bomb here, and he's going to take my Star Cruiser. Glad that we've preserved some sense that the bad guys are actually worse than we are.
The time bomb isn't too challenging, but I did have to open a bunch of doors. Jack stole the Star Cruiser and went to where else but Mars. Our good general, the Federal Patrol one, is gearing up to have a massive space battle against him. It seems that me, Gibson and Diana will be joining the general for at least a short while, since she wants to go after him and I have no ship. Or I'm just going to take Gibson's ship. I can just go to Mars from here. Not sure why we needed all the confusing plan of action, but I suspect something has been lost in translation.
On Mars, we get a call from Admiral "Tommy", our general/admiral with the Russian name I can't type. Gibson is going to be doing something with him and I have to find the Star Cruiser. Now its up to me and my new friend, Diana to find it. By exploring the town again. This game is really getting on my nerves. At this point what don't I hate? Slowly walk around a town, into the same 5 buildings, to the same 5 people, with the same slow walking speed. I really hope I'm at least at the halfway point for this game, because I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. Even managing to find a secret wall, which of course leads to a sealed door, doesn't improve the experience much.

Finally, after exploring everything, for far too long a time, I enter the local university, where Max is. Apparently Diana is his sister. Some stock "Don't be in the military, its dangerous" speech and I'm told that the Star Cruiser is west of the dome. Turns out the secret wall is the one that leads to the place where my ship is. Or is the switch that opens the door anyway.

Once outside I'm ambushed by enemy vehicles. Hey, the game got one over on me for once. This is actually challenging and required me to use the homing missiles to survive. Hey, the game is interesting all of a sudden. And the game ruins it by making me hunt down a switch before I can enter the location proper. Once inside the game returns to being business as usual. I should explain, the only difficulty in combat so far has been that enemies move around constantly, almost like a dance. When they do this, they completely ignore the player as an entity and walk through you. Meaning that depending on where you are, the enemy is just unloading missiles directly into you. As such the only real way the developer has to increase the difficulty of the game is to put the player into situations where they have to dance along with the AI.

This level hits me as a particularly annoying example of that. By the time I reach Jack and we have our climatic boss fight, I'm even more sick of the game than I was. I'm too late, their regiment is going to attack Saturn, that's where Admiral Tommy is. That's where me and Diana are headed next...or at least after I return to Mars to resupply...and we'll get there next entry, because honestly, I am not feeling the game right now.

This Session: 1 hour

Total Time: 2 hours 30 Minutes

Star Cruiser: A Dramatic Turn of Events

Red boxes are apparently where VOID are

Mercury, my destination, is travelable by just flying to it from Ganymede/Jupiter, but that would take a while. Instead I can use the warp function, which opens up a map. This map is fairly useful, telling me where all the enemy bases are in addition to the expected things. Saturn is free of VOID's influence, whatever that means in the grand scheme of things.

I dig the vintage scifi presentation, even if its not especially exciting otherwise

As soon as I travel there, things happen quickly. Freddy tells me its hot on Mercury and I should get inside the protective dome quickly. I don't even get the choice of traveling around the damn planet, I'm just sent directly into it. Was I supposed to travel slightly off it? No matter, just a quick drive from the planet start to the dome, and I'm safe.

The game is generous enough with keys that this is practically never a problem

Once inside there's the usual opening of doors with keys. Seems pointless when there's no other obstacle, but what do I know? Then, two doors, side-by-side. Is this a puzzle? No, I get an item from one door, a Heat Shield that increases my capabilities of surviving under higher temperatures. On the other, a control system that opens something. Strange, I didn't see anything.

I was looking for that...yeah, definitely

And there is nothing, so I guess I opened something outside? I can actually travel out there now, so I guess this is it? Travel to another dome/section of dome? This seems to be a proper level now, albeit now the design isn't linear. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

One way leads to another control system. Freddy tells me this is what Daigo told me about. What? I wrote down materials, I don't know anything about this. Translation issues or I wrote it down wrong? No matter, I can't do anything with it now.
So I clear out the rest of the base, until I take out a big tank and reach a door that needs to be opened elsewhere. Now what? I just forgot the trend that all FPSes from the '80s need to make things more complex than they need to. In this case I needed to use the console, then put the card I got from Daigo in it. Serves me right for not remembering everything some grumpy old man said after whining that I saved his bacon. Now I'm inside the VOID base...this was all to just enter the place.

Showing first-person shooting for my FPS blog

Now, I should point out by this point that I'm constantly draining energy. This is not necessarily a problem, even though I use it by the simple act of existing, and repairing damage drains it even more, I haven't been in danger of running out. The game, so far, is providing ample resupplying opportunities in the form of pick-ups, sort of like how SeeNa did it. Even though that makes sense, its a weird comparison. Are the Japanese the only people who made this kind of first-person game? Hmm...
This also doesn't really feel like a RPG so far. Not even in the mocking "JRPGs aren't RPGs, lolololol" sense. Like I guess if I feel like RPGs exist that don't allow any kind of character improvement or creation, then this is just a valid JRPG interpretation of those, but this seems more like a Metroidvania so far.

The actual game is almost completely uneventful. Combat has become suspiciously easy, so only story beats are important, and that's not great. I can examine some cabinets...I guess I'm supposed to use my imagination? I don't really get what anything is supposed to be, its far too simple. In the next room over I find some higher quality homing missiles in a trash container. I have a limit of each kind, but I don't feel in a hurry to burn them off on any enemies.

Won't this cause you to die too?

Outside of control issues there's not really much to talk about. Lot of doors that require a use of a switch elsewhere, and the game is generous enough with the gate keys so doors aren't much of a problem. Eventually, I find and kill two enemies that look very much like my own ship. These guys are somewhat of a problem, even killing me once, but just compared to the ease I've killed everything else.
Not far from the second are the repair parts I needed. Now I just need the blueprints. Incidentally, you can screw yourself by walking out before getting these items, which causes the base to explode. Aided by this map being confusing as hell to navigate.

After finding the blueprint, I find out why the base was going to explode. Its a trap to kill whoever arrives. Once properly dealing with the countdown, its one of those really fast ones, the previously blocked doors open and I get out fairly quickly.

Good, less jib

Back on Ganymede, I'm told I need to wait for the ship to be upgraded. Fine. I go to the restaurant, but it isn't open. There's nothing I can do. Am I just supposed to come back? No, I'm supposed to head to my ship, then I go to the restaurant.

Are you? Am I?

Its here I meet Masashi Clark, another hunter like me. You can tell he's cool, because he's wearing sunglasses. He wants me to lend him my Star Cruiser. Hahahahaha. No. Then he says he's joking. Interesting, because my character isn't allowed to speak, the waiter asks what he's really on about.
VOID, lacking warp capabilities, has captured Gravity Catapult, something used to deliver heavy cargo. Clark then tells me its directed to the Alpha Centauri System, where I think aliens are supposed to be. This, the waiter tells me, would cause the solar system to become isolated like the Barnard System. I thought this was only in-system space opera? Huh.
Then Clark tells me they're planning on attacking at the same time...so I guess they're just going to capture the Gravity Catapult...? He then says goodbye because he has matters to attend to. Then Daigo phones to tell me he upgraded the Star Cruiser. Not quite sure my new capabilities, but I now have a string beam...whatever that does.

How could they do this to my cherished friend?

Before I can take off to defend the Gravity Catapult, Gibson phones and tells me to head to Earth ASAP. He's in cyberspace and has found out something interesting about VOID. Finally, the plot of the game! Only, enemy forces found him. Curiously, I don't have a beacon, or warp point for Earth, so Daigo gives me one. Except that I can't just head to Earth, no, I need to head to The Colony to get there.

Aren't tanks supposed to be able to handle that sort of thing?

Once there, Freddy informs me that the road is in really bad shape...ah, just like Earth. I have to walk. All this means is I can't use missiles. The only oddities are a recharging station and a pair of teleporters, one of which teleports to the start of the level with a set of respawned enemies.

Choices, choices

The other one leads to a teleporter maze, because of course it does. Its not the worst thing I've ever seen, but its doing this game no favors.

Someone's more overconfident than me for once

Eventually I run into...someone. Who I have to fight. After blowing up his tank he says I can rob him. Who is he? Maximilion Gaddis, who thought I was a space pirate. I'm more shocked that there are space pirates in this game than someone confusing me for someone else. He's a student at a Mars University. Now I can enter his humble adobe.

Seems kind of a crap course if the professor is back on Earth

Oh, wow, it really is his humble adobe. After showing him the amulet I got from Daigo...I got it from Daigo? I know I used an amulet on a console somewhere here. Max's teacher is apparently Daigo's son...er...daughter? Daigo's daughter is currently on Earth, and Max gives me the beacon for there. He also gives me a card for her. That's it for this place...I guess I'm going to go to Earth now. Which I do so after taking out some enemy fighters. There seems to be just no in-between in difficulty between a joke and difficult.

I like the pixel sky boxes, but wish they were in a better game

Earth is not a battleground, but a proper town, good-looking too. The repair shop also resupplies my missiles for me, hopefully not a one-time deal. The nearby spaceport tells me where Yoko is, but know nothing about Gibson. Guess my path forward is clear. But first I take in each building as I advance through the town. The most important piece of information I discover is not related to my near and dear friend, but rather to the game's basic plot, apparently I'm a member of the Federal Patrol, or at least on very friendly terms with them.

This looks suspiciously like her student's house

Ah, yes, the professor's daughter is attractive, or at least I think that was the intention. She doesn't know anything, but after giving her Max's card she tells me to ask her students. The student tells me that Gibson just disappeared at the Information Centre in cyberspace, and he'll take me there.

I'm getting some juvenile amusement by taking a screenshot out of context

Once inside it turns into the ground shooter section again, where I have to take out a bunch of enemies to advance. This time the game is going really hard on the keys, but otherwise its not terribly interesting. I have to decipher a message from various cut up pieces of it. Basically just telling me that someone named Jack told out Gibson. Everything else I need a cancellation program for. Then the game tells me to go somewhere else, and as I'm going through an old area I get blindsided by newly spawned enemies.
Upon returning, I get the cancellation program, but cannot reenter cyberspace from here. I have to enter from the Information Center building. Why did we have to do all this? I dunno. After getting some quick repairs, I find it pretty quickly. Something funny is going on, but we sneak into cyberspace anyway.

Ponder the nature of the human soul?

After dealing with more respawned enemies, I'm back at the information area. Only, someone destryoed the central processor. Something that wasn't supposed to be done. Not that this affects anything, mind you. There are three new files I can take, info on VOID, their strategy plan, and seemingly unrelated genetic information. Oh, good, there's going to be a human conspiracy against aliens we have to take down...because...reasons I guess. Also, Freddy throws away the cancellation program, because we are smart people. Now what?

Maybe if there was a way to change the model of it to something else

Well, for no reason at all, we give the data I just got to the student. What is it? Why, its the data of a human! Probably Gibson. Okay...Uh...guess I should talk to Yuko? Even though the only reason why I should is because she's related to someone who is begrudgingly helping me.

Like father, like daughter

And I feel vindicated the second I walk in. Why should I trust someone I just met when the second I return she thinks I'm responsible for the destroyed computer at a local building. For what? To bring the data to her father. On my way back I note that I can warp in combat without any penalty. Its not like there's experience or anything.
On Ganymede there's the usual song and dance. "Gibson is in data!?" What do I have to get now? Hydrogen, in the form of 10 blue meteorites. I'm not going to repeat what I said, but it was an expression of disbelief. Ah, to be the first FPS game to have the generic collection quest...what an honor. He gives me a tractor beam and tells me to go to some asteroid belt. This seems like a good a place as any to stop.
I guess I'll be continuing forward on this game, but man, I'm not feeling motivated here. This feels like a really generic game where a simple AI could just play the game for me. If I was in any way talented at coding, I suspect I would do that. Even the story feelings like its throwing everything it can at a wall hoping it will stick.

This Session: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 30 Minutes