One independent developer has unleashed several catventures onto Steam in recent months and they're not slowing down anytime soon. Beware: sleepy purrs and sharp claws ahead.
13.02.2024 - 00:55 / destructoid.com / Space
Deep space exploration, spaceship customization, and good ‘ol dude-bashing card games don’t seem like they go together, but after playing the demo for Breachway, I can confidently say this actually makes a perfect trio.
Breachway combines roguelike elements with deckbuilding to create a run-based space exploration game presenting new challenges in every star system. The basic hook has you exploring a large region of space while searching for new ship components and thus adding cards to the deck you’ll use in combat. Additionally, you’ll pick up new crew members along the way, each with unique abilities. Multiple factions exist in the game, and they all control their own pockets of space. There’s a surprising amount of encounters to be had in Breachway, but as you might expect, most of the time you’re going to stumble into combat.
That’s where the card game comes into play. Ship systems, like lasers and shields, supply cards to your deck, and require Ordinance, Energy, and Mass to be played. You’ve got to balance the resources your ship has coming in each turn to defend yourself from incoming attacks and deal damage to your opponent.
As the fight plays out, you’ll be able to track how close an enemy is to firing on you or how soon you’re going to be hit by incoming missiles. The secret to success is matching your shield charges to any incoming attacks and dishing out maximum damage whenever your opponent has their shields down. Naturally, different cards combo with each other, and some even let you directly target components on your enemy’s ship, potentially allowing you to block some of their cards from being played for a few turns.
In the heat of battle, the card game at the heart of Breachway is compelling enough, but what really sold me on the game was how runs play out on a larger scale. Almost every mechanic in the game forces you to consider the future and plan for the longevity of your crew. Within battles, you set the rate at which your various resources replenish, which makes for some really tough decisions. More than once, I boosted my Ordinance to prep a heavy attack, only to run out of Energy, leaving my shields down and my hull damaged.
There’s plenty to think about between battles, too. You get to plan your path through the stars, and sometimes, the only thing between you and the space station that can repair a damaged hull is risky enemy territory. You’ve got to sustain your ship’s integrity through multiple battles, which makes even easy fights feel impactful.
It’s not just the ship itself that you need to manage, either. Crew members have some extremely powerful abilities that boost damage or replenish resources, but this turns out to be another mechanic that asks you to think
One independent developer has unleashed several catventures onto Steam in recent months and they're not slowing down anytime soon. Beware: sleepy purrs and sharp claws ahead.
Shift Up’s Stellar Blade isn’t out for another two months, but retail copies are apparently already stocked in Japan. Genki on Twitter got their hands on one and revealed the back specifying “more than 35 GB” of free space for installation.
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Shift Up’s upcoming PS5-exclusive action RPG Stellar Blade has been given an 18+ rating in Korea. This might not come as a surprise to many people, but it may render the game off limits for some players. In screenshots and trailers released so far, the game’s protagonist wears generally form-hugging outfits that don't leave much hidden, and the developer has even revealed that “special attention” was paid to Eve’s backside in Stellar Blade since players will spend most of their time looking at it.
Stellar Blade just earned an unusual distinction prior to release.
With the sun setting on Dragonflight and The War Within on the horizon, our Discipline Priest Writer, AutomaticJak, offers a retrospective highlighting Discipline's journey in Dragonflight and shares their hopes for the spec's next evolution with a War Within Wishlist.