Subset Games Forum

The best part of this game is winning a really tough battle. Fire all over the place, a crewmember or two dead, meteor storm, yet you live to fight another day.

TimAy! wrote:...I find the game to be mediocre despite the many things I like about it, not because I hate it in its entirety.

You know when i think about it, i have to agree that FTL actually is mediocre in many ways. My brain just filters out a lot of it. Call it bias. If you would argue that the game doesn't deserve to be this much fun or that there are flaws that should be corrected, i would agree, but that really is a matter of taste. We all use different criteria when we decide how much to forgive games or wheter or not the game was done right.

To most of those that like FTL, it's a no brainer. Those who dislike it, usually find the diffculty annoying. The game mechanics divide opinions much deeper than just a like/dislike verdict. One of the features that sets FTL apart from many games is that it doesn't have a foolproof strategy. This is mostly because the steps ahead are highly unpredictabe except for the constant presence of danger. Every choice a player makes is a bet or sorts. Luck naturally plays a huge role but so does skill. There are no moral paths or safe paths, every playthrough wildly differs from the others. The random elemets are presented to the player but the player must choose. The skill isn't so much about micromanaging crew and weapons as it is about analysing the challenge and figuring out not the ideal solution, but one the player can succesfully complete. Sometimes it's to take minimal damage and flee. Or the choices could be between crap item A, and crap item B. Maybe it's how to survive several jumps with 1HP left. Or it could be an elegant solution that silences the enemy without either side firing a shot. I consider it a skill to be able to balance the various needs of your ship as you progress through the game in and outside of combat. Combat is about weapons (if you count crew as weapons also, and they count imo), but the overall game and it's succesfull completion hang in the balance every time an event presents a choice to the player. There are a lot of choices and they aren't allways good ones.

One review described FTL as a game where you don't play a cremember or captain, you play the ship. I agree. The ship is *you*. Your alter ego in the game. You build it up and level it. And learn what kinds of traps there are and how to deal with them.

I could have a better wins/losses record if i could be arsed to try and improve it. I counted 60 damn failed attempts to complete the game in a shieldsless ship. Not to prove anything or brag, but because it seemed like the most unlikely stunt to pull off. A crowning moment of awesome. I know of only two succesfull attempts. Trying to win is difficult enough but to give yourself a disadvantage isn't neccessarily madness. It wasn't fun though, it was exhausting and pointless, but i was determined to try. Making it to stage2 of the boss twice fight feels like an acievement despite what the stats say.

I have a recorded playthrough of a victory that absolutely steamrolled the game. You don't have to sit though all of it. Most of it is a repeating series of boarding victories against ships that forgot to install medbays. Only one or two fights were trouble. Luck made it easy, and i admit that skill was not a major factor but it was still my skill and barins that guided the ship from beacon to beacon all the way to victory. Other attempts to duplicate this game could end in disaster because there were close to a 100 steps taken. But even though it's my favourite ship and it would be easier to score victories in it, i dont play it much. That one time, it was especially fun. But i havent played that ship since.

It's not that FLT players are weirdoes who like to lose a lot. Winning is satisfying, but the game is unforgiving. Mistakes end in failures. Then there are other types of ships that promise a different playstyle, and it takes some defeats to learn.

Ultimately the individual verdict will break down to a simple question: Is it fun? To lose, to win, and to play.

My favourite parts of FTL are probably the soundtrack and the strategic game play that the game offers. The graphics for the game are also very vibrant and beautiful to look at. To sum up my favourites: pretty much everything. Perma death took a little while to get used too but I think it adds a good element to the game.

Very well said, UltraMantis.

Must add that I really like the soundtrack too. Has sort of old school feeling while being appropriately sci-fi and catchy.


To be honest I haven't been this captivated by a game OST since Fallout 1.

Farlark wrote:

anzuu7 wrote: Personally while I find the overall game to be luck-based[...]

In all fairness to the game, the word "luck-based" means (ostensibly) that the core gameplay is based on luck. An example would be Candyland. It's all luck. FTL, on the other hand, like Poker, has a heavy luck element. Some people like the particular flavor of risk management and adaptive strategy that FTL provides; some don't. It's plainly inaccurate, though, to say that the outcome of the game (or, more importantly, the gameplay itself) all comes down to chance.

Agreed, I should have rephrased it as you did; "heavy luck element" would be more accurate as to what I was getting at.

That´s an odd thing to do.
Write a positive sounding title, write 2 bullet points of likable things and then complain for a small essay.

FTL is like other similar games a harsh, willfull mistress who feeds you cake one day and broken glass the other day. The most fiddicult thing by a longshot is imho the first 4 sectors, if you know what you´re looking out. Because then if you got what you need(a reliable way to down shields & a defense drone) the rest is really average.
While the boss has abilities you will never have, it also has a unique and ridiculously strong weakness to teleporters to the weapons bays.

On topic title, I really like the music. I sometimes hum 1 or 2 tunes when I´m playing other games and I especially like the rock sector music, though I can never remember its tune.
I also like that you have to make do with what weapons you get, not with the weapons you want. Increases replayability, as otherwise certain weapons combinations would be the only things ever used. Especially Burst Laser II 4 times.

Mataza wrote: FTL is like other similar games a harsh, willfull mistress who feeds you cake one day and broken glass the other day. The most fiddicult thing by a longshot is imho the first 4 sectors, if you know what you´re looking out. Because then if you got what you need(a reliable way to down shields & a defense drone) the rest is really average.
While the boss has abilities you will never have, it also has a unique and ridiculously strong weakness to teleporters to the weapons bays.

Heh, and you can win without a defense drone, although it's rather more painful. Did that once when the game chose to *never* make one available (sale, bribe, any means. Think the 'free drone' on system purchase was anti-personnel. :/) in any of 94 or so beacons, not even deigning to taunt me by showing one in a store at a point I couldn't afford one (or had to spend for a more necessary purchase) right as the rebel fleet was about to take the beacon -- there were simply none. Sheesh.

Luck impact does vary considerably with the ship -- a Red-Tail seems to be much more reliable than, say, Stealth A, since you don't have nearly as glaring weaknesses (well, /none/ for the Red-Tail) like offensive drones are for the Stealth A, large-scale boarding events are for Zoltan ships, or Zoltan-shielded enemies are for the pre-weapon Crystal B.

I'm glad we can all at least agree that the music rocks. Ben is awesome.

Justin wrote:I'm glad we can all at least agree that the music rocks. Ben is awesome.

The whole game is awesome! I easily spent about 80 hours in it currently