Crying Suns

Flying in the shadow of FTL.

Crying Suns is both a good strategy game and a bad roguelike. It walks and talks like FTL, the indie hit that directly inspired it, but ultimately fails to mimic the endless replayability and daunting challenge that makes FTL so enchanting. Like FTL, I captain a spaceship through a randomly generated gauntlet of solar systems trying to keep my crew alive while navigating increasingly difficult encounters with the local populous. But where FTL gave these decisions as little narrative dressing as possible, Crying Suns creates a grim and vivid world that tees up an ambitious story.

Crying Suns’ setting is fun to discover because it’s so meticulously thought out and grandiose. Transcendent robo-gods and 800-year-old emperors juxtaposed with an intimate tale of friendship and betrayal make for genuinely a good science fiction plot.

Layers of this world are revealed through random encounters that happen as I travel from one solar system to the next. Each beat involves a decision that will either reward resources to upgrade my ship or leave me in a significantly worse for wear.

Combat plays out on a grid flanked by my and the enemy battleship. Between volleys from our main weapon systems, squadrons of fighters take the field to battle one another in a constant ebb and flow that’s chaotic and tense. Managing cooldown timers is key, so if I throw everything I have at the enemy ship in an all-out assault and don’t finish it off, I leave myself vulnerable to attack while my weapons and fighter squadrons recharge.

It’s a great system that makes each boss fight a gruelling, merciless war of attrition. But Crying Suns’ regular battles are rarely ever as tough – even if I go looking for trouble. With excellent storytelling and worldbuilding, Crying Suns is a good strategy game with some chaotic combat that ultimately feels a little too easy.