Recent reviews by Kyrodo Rivare Blackheart

I agree with the overall sentiment that this is one of the best live service games ever made. Had quite a bit of fun with it and almost have all the stratagems aside from patriot. And I'm glad the psn linking was finally reversed since I know that would've made a lot of people unable to play that already had the game.

I like it so far. I wish there were more equipment and utility components, or ship types. I wish the costs of each respective ship was further apart so you can't just go straight to a sandhawk, than to a coyote. The early game is very poorly paced. It feels like it's missing some bells and whistles that is much better handled in similar games like Elite Dangerous, or Everspace. I feel like naming most of the sectors after US states is kinda sus. And it doesn't pace it self well at any point in the game really. The first game felt like there was a lot more to it. It takes a lot longer to get up to the final ships. There is a wider variety of weapons equipment and utility components.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started this game. I was expecting an RG clone. It is in some respects, but being able to move in 3D and actually play a fighter I actually like that part. Even if the ship always feels paper thin, even if the late game doesn't make you feel completely invincible like it does in the first game. I like the wider variety of music that came with it, and I only really used the custom music path for the dock/in-station music. Stuff like Wild Side and some other goodies that break up the tracks that I keep running, which are usually from Grinder or Backbeat. I like seeing Juno's back story fleshed out. I like seeing the universe more fleshed. I like playing a character that actually has a visible audible personality and a considerable one at that. I like seeing what lead to the events of the first game. I like the Wing Commander nostalgia. I find the combat here more accessible than Elite Dangerous or Evocron Legacy. I got good with using the targeting ui to figure out what's attacking me. I make use of the intertia locking to autopilot away from enemies faster, take passing shots on cap ships and turret platforms, or turn faster before waiting for momentum to catch up. The auto-pursuit kinda makes things a lot easier than it should be imo, but the combat is still difficult to master. But careful targeting and quick dispatching of targets with efficient use of afterburner, secondary weapons, and the targeting ui makes some of the impossible fights actually winnable. I feel like the cap ships move way faster than they should, they always seem to be right behind me no matter where I move to, but I can deal with them easily with all the strike craft out of the way. And it doesn't feel like I'm playing a brain dead plug-in character like in the first game. Juno has personality and I like seeing her backstory actually fleshed out.

It's just lacking content and could've been designed a bit better pacing wise. The first game does feel like a much longer game, with a lot more to actually do in it. The mining system though still terrible, was still better. Trade is still as much of a side thing as before. Getting constantly stopped by contraband scans is pretty annoying. It's missing some quality of life that even the first Everspace seems to do a bit better in terms of equipment management and the ui for viewing your equipment status. I noticed there's only two subsystem components also. I can think of a number of ideas for subsystems including combat specific ones that would've been nice to see. This game feels like it had a lot more planned for it but they had to cut it short. You can't trade with npc ships or anything. So that's my biggest gripe with it. It does feel more alive character wise than the first game though, and I appreciate that part. I appreciate the music. And while late game doesn't make you feel invincible, I actually don't mind that so much.

This is less a review and more a suggestion. A very minor one. I haven't been able to find proper channels with a quick search.

Anywho, we can tag sectors but we can't color them. Not to mention tagging a populated sector doesn't do anything. For trading purposes I'd like to mark which sectors to completely ignore. I've been using notes mainly, but I'd have an easier time if I could see at a glance. Note I'm still relatively new, so my suggestion might be less helpful to seasoned players who know the trade system better or have access to better ship mods.

Obviously the typical spectrum of material colors would work well for sector tag colors, so I believe this suggestion synergizes quite well.

I like the characters and the story. It's fairly decent, though incomplete and obviously set up for a sequel. The sheer amount of voice acting that went into this is impressive.

On the downside, there was a tremendous amount of corner cutting when it came to pacing and scene transitions. It's indie, I'm sure there were budget and time reasons for this, but there are many many times where you casually walk off screen and the next instant dramatic music is playing, perspective's changed, the setting has completely changed, and it takes you a couple of moments to figure out how you even got here. There's a lot left to the imagination, and that greatly detracted from my enjoyment of the game. There weren't enough in between reference points to keep your bearings in check and it definitely felt rushed.

A bit short, but I enjoyed it. It was definitely worth the experience. I liked the story, and there isn't much I would change about it content wise.

There were only 2 things it was lacking that I felt would've made it more enjoyable.

One being adding emotion portraits for most of the characters (sad, angry, wounded, scared?). Not all of them need a full range of emotions, just enough to make them come to life, give a little more punch to their dialogue, especially during important parts like when their telling their life story.

Second being an auto/fast-skip that only works on text the player has already seen before (ever since owning the game). That's the way I see it typically done in most visual novel style games like 999, Virtue's Last Reward, and even BlazBlue. The first time they read anything, you have to sit through it and wait for the text to complete before being able to advance. Second time, you can hit Auto and it will keep streaming through text quickly until a decision appears, or until running into something the player hasn't seen before. I mean you can hold the left mouse button down, but it isn't nearly fast enough on its own, particularly when sitting through all those scenes where the main character isn't even present every time you start a new game. Either that or another idea is just make scenes that are unaffected by the player's choices completely skippable. I feel that would make it less of a pain to start from the beginning to try out other choices or go for achievements.

Those are the only 2 additions I would push for. A much lower priority third would be to add some high definition backgrounds to replace the current ones, and maybe special scenes for the more dynamic events.