Star Renegades
PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Developer Massive Damage
Publisher Raw Fury
Format PC (tested), PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Release Out now
Back in E344, we suggested we’d be unlikely to skip Star Renegades’ glorious battle animations. Not quite: we fast-forward them instead. Sure, we relish watching roguish saboteur Nodo Kalthoris roll towards a colossal mech and vanishing briefly, only to appear behind it before spinning one gun and firing the second without looking, leaving it stunned. Yes, the high-quality pixel animation, dynamic lighting, post-processing effects and screen shake combines to create impact and spectacle that trumps turn-based inspiration Octopath Traveller. But the game’s Roguelike structure combined with its RPG grind means you’ll be seeing a lot of the same battles against the same enemies playing out in nigh-identical fashion.
Before it descends into repetition, the setup shows promise. The do-overs have a narrative grounding: a mysterious enemy armada is looking to wipe out our heroes from every possible reality, and you cross the quantum divide after each defeat, hoping to have learned enough to at least postpone the inevitable in the next. If Massive Damage’s kitchen-sink approach to combat systems threatens to become overwhelming, it is at least built upon solid foundations. Enemies considerately telegraph their intentions, a timeline displaying their target and when they’ll attack. You’ll need to disrupt or destroy them before they get the chance, using moves to push them down the line so you can get a critical bonus, or even beyond it to the next turn. Yet these Break attacks have their limits: after a certain number, enemies will dig their heels in and refuse to be budged. Time, then, to defend or deflect.
There’s plenty more to consider: enemies don’t just come with shields and health bars, but armour too, though a Fury meter occasionally lets you pull off special and combo attacks that can cut through it. You’ll soon discover it’s crucial to keep your shields intact as long as possible, since health and armour can only be replenished outside battle. Outside a single HP chest that tops up your whole party, you only get a chance to heal up every three battles, as your party gathers around a campfire to share single-use cards that offer minor restorative powers or temporary perks. You’ll likely limp up to the first boss, but after a few turns your past hour or so of progress is brutally wiped away, with additional class perks, randomly spawning weapons and a newly expendable renegade giving you a marginally better chance on the next run. Your reward? A second pinktinged planet with more attritional mini-bosses and yet another brick-wall boss. By the third, our patience – even for Kalthoris’s nonchalant showboating
– has long been exhausted.