Why there's zero love for Star Wolves 3 aka Star Wolves 2: Civil War?

[Pope Amole II]

Y'know, I wanted to give this thread an edgier name, something along the lines of "why SW3 proves that Codex is shit", and I can't even say that that would be trolling - I have a perfectly valid reason to say so. Like, Codex loves to bitch about the totality of decline, the stupid devs catering to the casual crowd and never making proper RPGs, the constant erosion of character skill & level systems and their impact on a gameplay, the global lack and/or unimportance of C&C, basically, Codex loves to be Codex. But that's not the point, the point is that a non-decline RPG with some not prevalent but decent C&Cs and occasionally hardcore battles and a tough choice based stat system comes into the light of day and who notices it? No one. Sure, you can thank 1C for an "excellent" translation and a fuckton of promotion, but aren't we all supposed to be hipsty and nerdy, knowing lots about different sorts of obscure shit? How comes it then that there are, like, two treads for it here, each with just a couple replies? How comes that it's not even mentioned in the "best RPGs of 2010" thread? Just don't try to give me any shit about "it's not a full-pledged RPG, it's a tactical hybrid" - if ME2 and King's Bounty: Crossroads was there (note that I'm ashamed to put KB in one sentence with ME2) then there's a place for everything with even a slight hint of RPG system there. And if you want to rebuff me with "you fucking commie, it was delivered to the glorious west only in 2011" then let me point how the 2011 voting thread also held zero references to it and that's with 2011 being much drier than 2010.

Now, I don't wanna say that it should've won those polls or, rather, I'm too bothered to think about it - it's good to know what is good, but, with the amount of RPGs being so "great" novadays, it's pointless to choose the best since you're very likely to have enough time to play and then replay all of them. What irks me is this total ignorance of it - it's definitely a good game yet somehow no one plays it. Why, Codex? And if you want to know why this game is good (how good it is is a different question, but it certainly is not bad) let me list its advantages:

1. Decent RPG system. Now, at first it seems very simplistic, even primitive, just a skill tree with no stats, but what makes it right is the severity of skill points that forces tough decision on you. Well, skill points can be not so severe if you metagame as hell and exploit the system to its fullest, but that's not likely to happen on your first run and maybe not even on the second one, so it's fine. And while severity lasts, it's really hard to decide, for example, whether you want to have a talentless pilot on a brand new fifth generation ship or a skilled ace on some almost WWII junk? Also, while your main character is just a part of your force and you can command 7 ships at max (6 interceptors and 1 main base), his class has a real impact on the game. Ace on gunner force you to focus on your interceptors, techie allows your main base to become a real tank so you can play with it as your vanguard and rocketeer opens up the path of a sniper, especially if you choose a quest line where you can get an additional NPC-one. Choosing your systems and weapons and ships also adds some depth here (for example, one can have a lengthly and totally unhealthy discussion about whether you should put your rocketman into a hrimturs, gepard or Snake mk. II or maybe you shouldn't even bother with all that hi-tech crap and just keep him inside bident while spending those precious XPs on more important stuff) and while equipment and guns balance are far from perfect, unfortunately, they'll last you for a couple of playthroughs.

2. Hardcore fights. That's if you play like a real man and choose a hard difficulty - at times, they're almost "nintendo hard", and while it is less about the cleverness of AI and more about the waves and waves and waves of incoming enemies, it still makes you think hard since the odds are totally against you. Sure, once you master the game, fights do become pretty easy (apart from occasional random death - combat has a slight element of randomness in it so God has mercy on your soul if you decide to iron man through it), but that's a beauty of mastering the game.

3. C&C. It's obvious that they are not perfect and that there's not enough of them since there is never enough of them, but there are some choices here (in form of mutually exclusive missions), some consequences (not that important, but neat) and five or six different endings (which are acessed through those mutually exclusive missions). Basically, nothing revolutionary, but enough to make the game not that linear.

4. Decent enough storyline & setting. You know, the biggest accomplishment here is that developer had the balls to completely wipe out Star Wolves 2 out of existence (there's a bit complicated story about them which I'm too lazy to tell, but let's just say that it was a mess). I mean, how hard do I wish that they would make, say, Heroes of Might & Magic 7 and go like "IV? V? VI? Chronicles? None of that shit ever happened - no, bros, welcome back to Erathia, Enroth, Gelu, Sandro, Crag Hack and stuff". And in this case, it really happened. Of course, there's still nothing that would revolutionize the whole sci-fi genre, let's leave that noble task to ME3, but it's decent enough - we have a somewhat grimdark sci-fi world, shattered between mega-corporations, military men and pirates, the story begins as a quite personal one, and while eventually you save (or doom - dooming is an option too which is a great plus) the humanity, it plays out well enough. One nitpick here is the desparity between the endings - I've seen just three, and while the ino-co one was simply MAJESTIC (the bad one, that is, but the bad one was actually good for me), the independent bad one was done awfully. Well, can't have them all perfect.

Now, I don't want to mean that the game is flawless - it has kinda old and shitty engine (oldness is irrelevant since, unless you're a shader counting whore, the game is pretty nice, shittiness is a more serious issue since it breaks some aspect of the game - say, forming your fighters into a wing should've increased their combat effectiveness, but thanks to the shitty engine it actually does the contrary), the english translation is probably horrible (and there's no voiceover there - WHAT A TRAGEDY!), the guns are not as balanced as they should've been, but, all in all, that is a pretty decent game.

So, tl;dr - what the fuck is wrong with you, codex, why are you not playing this decent RPG?

 

[JarlFrank]

Up until now I haven't read nor heard much about this game apart from a few mentions of Star Wolves 1 and 2 (I remember 1 being called okay and 2 being called shit somewhere here) so I gave it a pass.

Of Star Wolves 3 I haven't even heard yet, maybe I missed the thread. Definitely sounds like an interesting game that I'll give a spin.

 

[Morkar Left]

I guess it's a case of lost in translation. Then put some people in who call it a buggy mess and make it as hard as possible to get and you know why nobody is interested in the game. At least that's why I skipped it.
Can you tell me about how open the gameworld is and what type of missions can you do? Is there mining, shipcustomization, random missions, how is trading? Can you land on planets? How is it compared to Escape Velocity Nova? Or Space Rangers 2? Yeah, lots of questions. But you asked for it and now I'm asking you

 

[Pope Amole II]

TBH, this shouldn't be a case of lost in translation - I mean, while the story/setting are fine, their language is certainly not shakespearian and no emotional immersion is required so the quality of game text (that is certainly low) is not important. I mean, if even Space Rangers 2 were not murdered by bad translation (honeslty, I doubt that even the 20% of humour survived it), Wolves should be all right.

As for the rest - basically, it's a different kind of a game. It's a tactical RPG, it's not a open-world, exploration based RPG/space sim. Meaning that its focus lies on the combat and combat alone (which is decent) and not on the free world, so there's no mining, trading or customization (well, the only kind of customization there is that you choose what guns, rockets and systems to put onto that ship, basically like equipping items in your average RPGs, but you're picking from a limited pool of said things, you can't custom make them). There are some random missions, but they are rare (the chance of getting them is low) and kinda bad - most of them involve finding hidden treasures in some remote (or not some remote) system or just killing some pirates. Now, despite all that, you can travel between the systems manually, but it's only needed if you either want to grind some money from the pirates or if you want to buy some relatively rare items - some fifth generation ships, for example, are helluva hard to find. Oh, and there's no landing on planets. Except for the space theme, the game has nothing in common with both Escape Velocity and Rangers.

 

[Morkar Left]

Good thing I skipped it then... sorry, but that doesn't sound interesting to me in the slightest. Just not my cup of tea :shrug:

As for SR2, maybe it's true that less than 20% of the humour survived the translation but the humour that comes with the translation is quit a lot, too. The intro alone will remain for me as one of the best made ever in videogame history. Not only because of the crappy translation but it has not a small share of it :D (FFS these smileys are horrible....)

 

[Trash]

There were quite a few threads here about Star Wolves 1 actually. Was liked quite well here back in the day. Star Wolves 2 was however seen as a failure due to tons of bugs and crappy game mechanics. Apparantly it wasn't even made by the same team that did the original.

 

[SerratedBiz]

Your brave words have enticed me to give these SW games a look.

 

[Black]

Joined:Thursday

MESSIAH.
Anyway, I read some good things about SW1, I think I may have a full version of it from a magazine somewhere. Didn't capture me, but that may have more to do with me than the game itself. Drifting/flying through vast NOTHING isn't my thing and kinda puts me off. I mean, if I wanted that, I'd play TES games.

 

[Pope Amole II]

There were quite a few threads here about Star Wolves 1 actually. Was liked quite well here back in the day. Star Wolves 2 was however seen as a failure due to tons of bugs and crappy game mechanics. Apparantly it wasn't even made by the same team that did the original.

Yeah, the story here is kinda simple: some dudes make the first game and it is quite successful here. Maybe not like a SR2 (they was often compared because they were released almost back-to-back and both featured space, yeah, smart move, publisher), but quite successful. But then almost all of developers suddenly leave the X-bow studio to form their own studio Ino-co (that made Fantasy Wars and the dreadful Majesty 2), yet, obviously, they don't keep the IP in their hands - it remains in the husk of X-bow. So the owners of that husk do what any effective manager would do - they hire some cheap coders and, reusing most of the assets from the first game, make a sequel. Obviously, it was horribly bad, really short and absolutely out of tone with the first game. I don't know how well did it sold, publishers here don't like to discuss things like that, surely not well enough to merit a sequel, or so they thought.

But, as you can see, that was not the end of the tale - some disgruntled fan of original really, really hated the second part, so they've decided to quench their hate by making an addon for the original star wolves, adding a lot of the weapons to the game arsenal and also expanding the story in extra missions. Somehow, their work had not gone unseen and, after their mod gaining some measure of success here, they were approached by the publishers who offered them to develop a full-blown add-on to the dreaded second part. And so they did, but their add-on was so great that it felt more like a third installation to the series. Basically, their story is the story of the ascended fanboys.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Played it, good Shit, especially liked that this time your base can be converted into Capital Ship... after right choice was made. Triada Base ship looked grimdarky too basicly old and dirty 18 wheeler in space. Shame that you could not go chaotic evil and turn into full blown Piracy.... Ending when you killed Palpatine and ended up as Space renegate wanted by alll governments for war crimes but with full blown Space Cruiser was neat too. Game is short but indeed gives you solid C&C, enjoyable space fights and some RP... Much more than ARPGS.

 

[Trash]

Well, that certainly got me interested. Thanks, I'll check it out.

 

[flushfire]

1 was good. 2 is almost impossible to play due to bugs that never got patched and 3 imo is the most polished but retains the problems of the series: good 2/3rds then last 1/3 is almost all combat and feels rushed, some grinding, boring/tedious traveling thru empty systems, problematic performance esp in huge fights, erratic encounter difficulty, bad balance. anyway still a fan of 1 and 3 and actually waiting for the announced stand-alone expansion which seems like it'll never be released.

 

[Raapys]

First game was rather excellent, I'd say. Mostly because it's pretty much unique, but it still does a fine job with a refreshingly new idea. Second game tried to be better, but failed. Third game was what the second game should have been, though the experience as a whole wasn't really any better than the first game. They definitely left me wanting more, but unfortunately there's no more to be had; there's just no other games of this type. There's a standalone expansion coming sometime this year though.

 

[Morkar Left]

From the writing here I get the impression it is comparable to the Mech Commander series but in space. Right?

 

[someone else]

There is a really bad LP of the first Star Wolves by me, back in 2008 when LPs were new to the Codex, the LP was abandoned but you can tell what kind of game it is.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/lets-play-star-wolves.23636/
Whoa I actually completed Star Wolves? I don't remember that, must be a forgettable game.

 

[spekkio]

BRO, I remember this LP, it was great good for what it was.

 

[someone else]

^ It was awful, my defense is that there were about less than 10 LPs in the Codex when I started it.
My view in 2008 on the 3rd page:

StarWolves is boring, mostly consisting of flying from point A to B watching ships fight. Sort of like NWN OC, space combat is a lot nicer to watch though. The game is playable thanks to its 'RPG elements' by that I meant XP, loot and shopping, not C&C.

Oh yeah I was serious when I said Galaxy Angels is fun, I wonder if the resident Japanese dating game/sim players tried it. A bit too simplistic but you can hop in and fly.

 

[oscar]

This game is pretty awesome. Just deciding who to work for now. Not sure whether to support the Old or New Empire

 

[Pope Amole II]

This game is pretty awesome. Just deciding who to work for now. Not sure whether to support the Old or New Empire

No love for corporations, eh?

New empire has one problem in this game - it gives you way, way, way too many pilots as extra party members. IIRC, all of new empire's characters are pilots (and pilots are freaking useless, worst class in the game) which, combined with the trickiness of its specific quests, may make walkthrough kinda difficult. Certainly not impossible, but tricky, especially if you play it for the first time.

 

[oscar]

Ended up going for the Old. But yeah this game has lots of in-depth CnC and too my surprise (after the unintentional hilarity of Space Rangers 2) is pretty well translated.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Is it some kind of a furry game?

 

[treave]

Interesting. By well-translated I hope you guys mean better than Space Rangers 2 or Planet Alcatraz, at least. The latter had some good ideas but unfortunately the translation and poor UI were a bit hard to deal with.

 

[hoverdog]

Hahaha

I've just started. Two minutes into the game, I get my first choice - to help some smugglers recover cargo or rat them out. I chose the former. Of course the space policemen arrived promptly, I tried to get away but two missiles ended my promising career. Much incline was felt.

two questions for experts: what is the best class? I chose tech, gunner/artilleryman is popamole and pilot is (supposedly) shit. Also, is there a way to change my portrait? I can't look at the default ugly as fuck one.

 

[SoupNazi]

I'll check it out, though I wish for once there was manual control of the ship instead of clicking. Thanks for the recommendation anyway, I hacven't played a good space game since Mass Effect 1

 

[Pope Amole II]

The latter had some good ideas but unfortunately the translation and poor UI were a bit hard to deal with.

TBH, I doubt that problems with text there were solely translator's fault - see, the scenario there was written by a really, really odious russian internet figure which left huge impact on the game, often making it unbearable to play. I mean, game mechanics wise, it's cool, it's really inspired by the fallout (except replacing turn-based combat with the RTwP decline), having similar stat system, relatively big city hubs and even having enough C&C, but the writing just fucked the whole game sideways by constantly and relentlessly ruining the atmosphere. We're going for grim and merciless and realistic prison planet setting yet the "famous" humour of the author just has to kick in so once we're involved in some crap like searching a lost sexy t-shirt for a... Shit, I don't know how yankees call men whose arses receive the dubious honour of dispersing the stress caused by the lack of feminine caress in jail, basically, I don't know the proper name for forced prison gays, but now you should understand what am I talking about. So yeah, once your tough and cool marine begins to do errands for fags (all served with absolutely infantile jokes), you understand that you can't play the game further.

two questions for experts: what is the best class? I chose tech, gunner/artilleryman is popamole and pilot is (supposedly) shit. Also, is there a way to change my portrait? I can't look at the default ugly as fuck one.

Can't change the portrait, unfortunately. At least, not in default version of the game.

As for the best class... Well, probably artilleryman - with "deadly missile" (or however it is called in english version) you can deal insane, insane amounts of damage, basically, you can wipe out entire fleets with one torpedo. Still, you need to be kinda away from that fleet to do so (or you'll also wipe out yourself) and his power comes in bursts - he's not that good in a prolonged fights.

Techie is also decent, though, probably the most pleasant class to play the game - see, if you want to survive, you really need the fire support and tanking from your base, yet stupid thing is slow as snail (especially the bloody optional one) and is not that tanky as you'd want it to be, so having roughly +160% to movement speed and +300% to repair and shield regeneration rate kinda helps there, heck, with some modules you can make base faster than your latest generation fighter. Not to mention that techie's hacking attack is also awesome, especially when battling capital ships.