Starcom: Unknown Space - Top-Down Action RPG of Space Exploration and Adventure

[GaelicVigil]

I used to love these toys when I was a kid.

 

[Sratopotator]

This game is like crack to me. Softish, kiddie version of crack, but still. If you are a space and/or exploration fag, and recently burned yourself out on some meatier game, playing this one is a great idea.

"Content spread and repetitiveness" criticism is some pants-on-head stupidity, though.

Brain rot + comments

Oh, a nice ambient looking space exploration game with action-RPG progression! Love the idea!
Shieeeet, I didn't expect actually having to explore space, and it seems to be mostly empty vacuum, who would have thought!
Fuck me, I have to shoot the bad guys AGAIN? That's twice in 30 minutes!
What's happening, there is no constant shower of copy-pasted quests...
And what I saw on Steam actually shows what the game is like?! (navigating, shooting, constructing the ship, dialog boxes and soft puzzles, I suppose)

I feel cheated! <uploading a negative review and possibly doing a refund>

Comments:

• You can upgrade the ship to be considerably faster in the "void" and actually exploring it is 90% optional, you detect space shit with your space scanner.
• Ambienty exploration and a semi-realistic approach to space/science is a thing in this game. Realistic enough to suspend the disbelief a bit, which is nice.
• Longer pauses between shooting shit may occur, but you can also just shoot everyone. Or choose not to engage (almost) at all.
• You unlock more types of gameplay-affecting shit while progressing.
• Content is spread out unevenly - when you find a new star system (manually or via a tracked/untracked quest), the content you get access to takes between 5m and 3h to fully explore, depending if the star is in a "cluster" or not.
• In my case, approx. 1/3rd of the game is guideless, 1/3rd is me following a vague semi-secret unlogged quest or shit like that, and 1/3rd is doing mostly unique quests. Good content balance in my book.

Game is exactly how it seems at first glance, with a consistent level of quality for at least 3/5 of the game (it's where I'm at, I think). It is a bit on the casual side, which may be a surprise, I guess? Keep in mind that it's not really like EV, Starcom is more linear and explore/story-faggy.

 

[JarlFrank]

I take back what I said earlier about this game not having any tough and obscure exploration puzzles to crack compared to the first one.

There are a few tricky ones that require you to pay attention, manually search through your log (not quest log - conversation and research log), and go back to older places you've been. Your crew helps you out a little by telling you they cracked some old puzzle, like "Hmm that shadow of a burning moon those creatures told us about, there was a volcanic moon not far from there."
But this isn't a quest, it's just something off-handedly mentioned, and you have to go and check it out yourself.

Right now I'm close to the ending and I can end the game any time I want, or do one final task for the Talonian before going back to my own universe. I wager there's an optional better ending if you do it.
This quest is the kind of obscure stuff I crave. Just activating the Talonian's memories requires you to give him sufficient fragments, which you can find scattered across the map, usually as a reward for solving a side quest or exploring a particularly involved planetary exploration.
Now I'm supposed to find some remnant of Arkadians, who are a vanished race, and the only hint I got is an ancient star map pointing me to a system with a signal tower that can open wormholes to certain locations that can be chosen by binary code.
The important thing is that one entry is missing its code, and you have to reconstruct it by analyzing the binary codes of the others, finding a pattern, and figuring it out.
I had to use a binary to decimal tool on the internet to figure this one out. Really cool.

Some of the side quests are pretty cryptic and/or take a lot of legwork too and you pretty much have to do all of them to even receive that final optional quest.
Loving this shit.

 

[Arrowgrab]

Right now I'm close to the ending and I can end the game any time I want, or do one final task for the Talonian before going back to my own universe. I wager there's an optional better ending if you do it.

"Better" is relative. For me, both endings are sort of bittersweet, in a slightly different way.

 

[Inec0rn]

I didn't mind this (Starcon 2 fan though) and it's a simpler / smaller game. That said I'm pretty sure my save is bugged at 23 hours in the game and I can't progress.

 

[JarlFrank]

Found the alternative ending and damn, if that isn't a tease for a potential Starcom 3!