FTL Review

FTL is an Indie game now available on Steam, which takes the more intense side of space battles. Instead of mindlessly blowing away enemies with your weapons, you’ll have to scramble and analyze every aspect of your ship while in battle. Ever wanted to be a captain of a space ship? Remember in Star Trek when they would have to reroute the power from their engines to their lasers? Well it’s the same in this. You need to pay attention to every little detail on how your ship is doing. So how good was a game about space ship management?

FTL is a game funded by Kick Starter, and apparently every cent in those donations helped produce an amazing game. Gameplay was very well thought out. Your ship only has a limited supply of power, and you must plan out which system or subsystem gets the available power. There are consequences for turning certain systems off though. If you turn off the oxygen system, your ship will stop the production of oxygen, and you will slowly run out of air. There are consequences for every action you perform, so you will always be on the look-out to make sure you don’t regret the decision you just made. You will travel across a Star Map from sector to sector. You will encounter enemy ships, such as slavers or pirates, or you might encounter neutral/friendly ships, just as marooned ships or civilian ones. After most battles, you will acquire scraps, which is the basic currency in this game. You can either spend them at stores to buy fuel/missiles/droids, or buy new weapons or upgrades. The reply value in this game is so high. It is a rogue-like game; so if you die, you have to start all over. The maps are different every time. It always feels like you’re really traveling somewhere new every time.

The visuals and audio are great. The graphics aren’t super advanced, but the way they’re stylized and presented still makes it look fantastic. The layout of the ships you’ll be commanding look simple, but they are still really good looking. This game is perfect proof that you don’t need next gen graphics to make a good game these days. The soundtrack is great too. They also sell a bundle of the soundtrack with the game, which is a great offer for those music lovers.

This is one of those stories that show how funding something on Kick Started can really help create something worth buying. FTL did a great job at taking funds, and using it to its fullest potential.

4/5