Table of Contents 64q43
Halcyon 6: Star Base Commander – Lightspeed Edition or, for the intimates, Falcon 6, is a standalone space exploration and strategy game released in 2017, a year after the release of the standard edition. The title was made available free of charge on Epic Games Store (EGS) for a week in February this year, in this gold mine that is represented by weekly games. Just like us reviews previous, from Kingdom: New Lands e Tyranny, the focus here is for those who pick up several free games on EGS and don't know where to start or what to play next. So here's another game for the curious on duty. z1b1w
Developed by Massive Damage, Inc., Falcon 6 represents the good and not-so-good of exploration and strategy games. Briefly, this means that the title will most likely please those who are used to the genre and, at the same time, make potential new players a little apprehensive, largely due to the large amount of information present on the game screen. It is worth mentioning that it incorporates aspects of turn-based RPGs, which means that the combat is logically done in turns, and there is a progression of the characters.
The original version of the game, the one from 2016, received criticism from the specialized media. in of title length and slow campaign progression. I didn't have the patience to finish this version, but knowing that one of the aspects of Lightspeed Edition was precisely to have improved the time to do things, I decided to persist in this. The complete prints you follow below. The images are merged between my own captures and screenshots provided by the developer's website.
Art direction 432p4
As is customary in these analyses, the first aspect to be observed is the art direction. the characters of Falcon 6 are beautiful and the universe presented in perspective pixel art modern is attractive too, at least in the beginning. After spending several hours staring at the same planets, however, it loses some of its magic. I understand that because it's a game indie, I couldn't expect an individual customization of dozens of stars, but I missed this more detailed level.
Anyway, it doesn't mean that Halcyon 6's design is ugly, quite the opposite. the aesthetics of pixel art modern is interesting and fit perfectly in the proposed setting of the game. Looking at it from another perspective, the standardization of world categories is important to make the player experience a little easier – and, to be honest, this part is fundamental, because there are not many facilities, especially in the beginning.
By world category, understand gas planets, meteor belts, and quieter systems. Each of them can be acquired by the crew in order to obtain resources. That is, one type gives energy, another grants materials, another fuel and even one for colonists. When conquering such a territory, the player has the option of turning it into a colony or evacuating the citizens present (the latter guarantees 30 colonists of material), which will make the icon of a skull appear close to the planet.
All this was on a level macro; moving to the microphone, we have the station design Falcon 6 is very typical of mobile games, like Fallout Shelter. It is not surprising, given that the company responsible for the game has catapulted itself into the market with a title destined for mobile phones. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, the image below illustrates the pattern used to develop the infrastructure that will be used along the journey.
As for the character, the shine is on the NPC's with whom the player keeps in touch, whether they are hostile aliens that look like they came out of a book of Lovecraft – even with similar names – or other more “friendly” breeds. I put the friendship level in quotes for reasons that will be explained later in the plot part. In any case, the variety that was lacking in the construction of the planets is present in the characters encountered by the .
Aside from some amusing situations inside the ship, this same diversity cannot be found in controlled humans. The officers are generic and even their backstory – which can be accessed on each one's profile – is not very compelling. So much so that when they die, they die permanently, unless you have a cloning chamber, which allows you to create a copy of officers killed in battle. This attests to the fact that the human characters are mere cogs for the player to have fun with.
Ships, for example, seem to have more personality than their captains. There are four classes – effectively, but, in practice, you'll use three, unless you want to play more calmly and prudently –, each with two ships per hangar level. It is possible to upgrade all of them and not only add items to the inventory, in the greatest style J-RPG, which was precisely the feeling that the developers sought to convey.
Plot and Campaign 1n241i
The history of Falcon 6 there is nothing innovative or very developed. You are a kind of vice iral of the space station that takes the name of the game, and when the commander is attacked by hostile aliens never seen before, you must take control of the legendary place inhabited by humans that, in this case, became the last one. bastion of humanity. Through dialogues with other races, the player discovers that these new aliens called chuul destroyed Earth and the game universe's equivalent of the Galactic Federation.
This means that you, the player, are responsible for what is left of human life in the universe. Needless to say, all intergalactic neighbours, upon learning of the near-total destruction of the Homo sapiens, decide to attack the planets under terrestrial jurisdiction or create political games in the best Game of Thrones style. The good part is that because of this, we have a number of golden interactions between species, like the ones that follow.
In the midst of this universal mess are space pirates, potentially murderous artificial intelligences, a race of aggressive warriors who have dealt a blow to the planet's previous leaders, and even unscrupulous psychics who do nothing but spread chaos and discord. All this, of course, in the midst of the genocidal extraterrestrials that appeared suddenly and destroyed half of the galaxy. The lack of other humans is what makes the story more interesting, as you have to deal with these curious races to do quests and find out more about the invaders.
It goes without saying that the player will need to face these races at other times, which will always be announced as a “misunderstanding” between civilizations. Don't think it's just with humans either; the races will battle each other to conquer territory and, in addition, both sides will ask for your help in resolving the conflict. It's up to you to decide which one will help or not. Personally, I used to take the side of whoever was attacked, but it depends on the situation.
The objective revolves around chuul. Where did they come from? What they want? Why did they destroy everything? Why don't they respond to any communication? Following the answers to these questions, the player plots his way to rebuild human civilization and maintain hegemony in space, whether through diplomacy or annihilation of enemies. There's not much more to the story than that, fortunately or unfortunately.
My biggest problem wasn't even the lack of story depth, as random encounters and interactions with other federations cover that hole. Even lowering the overall campaign time, the game is still excessively long. It was 15 hours and more than 400 days in-game to, apparently, get somewhere – attention, this place is not necessarily the end. There is a mechanism to speed up the time which is useful, but far from ideal to make the experience a little more dynamic. This doesn't necessarily mean the delay is bad, but it does get dull after a while.
Gameplay 106d5e
An interesting aspect proposed by the game is the mixture of conventional strategy with turn-based combat. This mix works well by combining the need to choose skills that exploit enemy ships' weaknesses and the tactical thinking that is done in turn-based games. The successful mix can be seen, for example, in combats where each enemy ship belongs to a different category, made to balance conflicts and make the player's life difficult, especially in higher difficulties that require greater strategic thinking.
In the image above, the most attentive will notice that the powers are divided between Space Combat e Ground Combat, or, in free translation, space combat and land combat. Well, whoever thought that Falcon 6 he would live only on galactic battles; Several missions on the station itself – whose rooms need to be explored by an officer and released so that structures can be built – and on other planets require direct confrontation between the crew and the aliens, which can lead to the premature death of an officer.
A secondary aspect, but welcome to those who like to exercise creativity, is the opportunity to rename characters, ships and squadrons. Usually, I usually name after my friends, but the distance provided by the quarantine of the last year has caused the with all of them to decrease, as well as the will to live, so I preferred to leave the standards provided by the game itself.
As I mentioned before, there is the possibility to advance the game time by pressing a button that works as a kind of fast forward. This greatly speeds up the gameplay, especially when you have multiple planets under your jurisdiction and you don't have enough charging drones, which forces you to go on a round to collect resources. Another use of this tool is to speed up some meetings relevant to the story, such as the confrontation of “bosses”, so to speak, from the territory of the chuul.
As characters in Halcyon 6 level up, you can choose two development paths. One works as a class specialty, while the other lets you pick up the core abilities of another class. the tree of skills is divided into ive and active powers, which are valid, depending on the upgrade, for space combat or for the terrestrial one. For example, a certain unlock will make the ships piloted by the character gain 10% attack strength and accuracy.
The progression of unlocking technologies is very natural, unlike other games that force you to do a thousand things to unlock points and, at that point, be able to unlock skills - a basic and recent example of this is Middle Earth – Shadow of Mordor/War. With the gradual appearance of stronger enemies, the player can build more advanced hangars and improve the space fleet, which is the main line of defense against extraterrestrial evils, as well as buy upgrades for the ships already created.
Conclusion 60664y
Falcon 6 might not please the most purists of strategy games, and the chaotic start full of information can put off players new to this world, but despite that, it's a great title to play casually, when you feel you need a dose of more critical thinking and unwilling to spend 6 hours on a game of Civilization. The design is very reminiscent of games mobile devices, which makes it quite eye-catching and potentially addictive.
Although time consuming in the campaign, interactions with other races represent the true gold of the experience, guaranteeing laughter and a little bit of happiness for us in this troubled moment called a pandemic. In addition, of course, to a distraction potentiated by space battles against hybrid aliens between children of Cthulhu and modern offspring of space invaders.
I haven't commented on the soundtrack before, but it hits the mark and is so common in strategy games: serving as a background. It is worth mentioning, however, that one of the battle songs was stuck in my head for several days, it even played again, like a curse, at this very moment. Don't expect anything too emblematic, but it's not to be thrown away either.
And if you liked this review of Falcon 6, be sure to check out others reviews of free games given by Epic Games Store:
Falcon 6 is also available at Steam. Don't forget to the developer.
