Star Renegades is a roguelike turn-based combat-focused JRPG - from the people who made Halcyon 6. The story is basically "aliens are invading", and the roguelike mechanic is "When you die, we send you to another dimension to try again". In my first run I got to the last boss without too much trouble, then got absolutely flattened. That took 8 hours, which is way too long for a roguelike run so I probably won't be trying again. Art style and music are excellent, and the combat is generally a really cool idea, but let down my a confusing mess of a UI and information overload which makes me tired. Overall feels really unique, but I really hope they make the combat a little more streamlined.
Pros
+ Excellent soundtrack, good dialogue
+ Beautiful pixel artwork
+ Not serious, good fun
+ Lots of depth
+ There's a camping mechanic where your team sit down together at the end of each day and get to know each other (by playing card buffs). If you do that enough, characters level up in their relationship, and gain passive abilities, powerful combo abilities, and apparently can mate and create new team mates
+ Nice art effects of 2D assets but with depth
Cons
- Forgettable characters. Literally can't remember any of their names
- Inconsitencies in how the UI gives information. For example, a combo move between anime girl and support robot guy (I can't remember their real names) uses both characters. But if you select the combo move from the robot guy, it'll say it does 114 damage. If you select the same move from anime girl, it'll do 154. Same ability.
- The information layout for combat is deeply confusing
- Moving around the map you have to keep clicking on the staircases instead of the final destination
- Too much info onscreen
- Too long for a roguelike
- There are 'front line' and 'back line', but despite the huge amound of information onscreen, it doesn't tell you where the line is
- Some 'instant' abilities actually happen as soon as you click the button, and some happen at 0 seconds of the round
Tiny things: When you're done camping and you click Finish, it says "You still have 0 poiints to spend, are you sure?". Some things in the UI that say, for exmaple "press backspace" you can click, some you can't.