Crying Suns

The gameplay is unique, a tricky real-time strategy puzzle that feels easy, up until it forces you to adapt. But I rarely felt like there was no chance, like I was completely outmatched.
That said, sometimes your opponent won't have a chance to win, but they will take a long-ass time to die, and they might be annoying the whole time.
I didn't find the story all that impressive, but that was largely mitigated by the stellar art.
Try the game out, if it's not for you, it's not for you. I don't regret buying it, and I look forward to putting more time in.

I just finished the game at right around 60 hours (59.4)
This game gets a full 5 stars , 10/10 score from me and is a shining example of
a roguelike, roguelite game done right.
I am first going to do a comparison of the beloved game FTL to Crying Suns because
it has that same sort of system but is also very different.
In a way coming into this game with FTL experience made it a bit harder for me to grasp the
gameplay style despite being so familiar.
What they share is map progression, clearing out a level moving left to right along nodes and
improving your ship and crew along the way with random events, drops and encounters that
progressively get more difficult.
Where they differ greatly is the combat. In Crying Suns you do not just control your ship and its weapons you also control squads of smaller spaceships to dogfight and attack the enemy ship. At first I thought this was just some added micro-management and to be honest I really ignored learning tactics with these small ships and just directed them blindly to attack
the enemy ships and found it a bit of a nuisance because I just wanted to focus
on upgrading my ship weapons, shields etc. like FTL.
This is a big mistake in this game because the smaller ships are much more important in the
fights than the main mothership. I think I would have finished the game in much fewer hours if I had realized this sooner. Once I figured this out, the game became much more enjoyable
and the more I played the more I really felt in control of winning the game and
this is a game where skill and knowledge will out-trump random bad events or encounters
putting it at the very top tier of roguelike games for me.
It also differs from FTL in that it is a lot more complex and has much more customization.
For example there are also missions you can take planetside. Like FTL there are
different officers/ crew members you can assign to areas of your ship, Hull, Squadrons and Weapons.
Unlike FTL there is a vast array of officers to choose from and discover, you get one specialist officer each run that is trained in more areas than the regular one (for planet missions) and
most of these are discovered on your runs. They also have different special abilities, for example you might have 3 officers with Squadron buffs that all do different things but can only assign 1-3 of them to that area. They also have different areas of expertise, like spy, combat,engineering etc. that can both help you on your planet missions as well as provide dialogue options in encounters (officer with the combat skill might be able to kill an alien on a civilian ship, if you do not have one you will not get that option)
The planet missions do not have tactics other then selecting the officer to lead the mission
so it keeps it simple which is nice due to the fact that you are already spending and
learning a lot of time with the starship combat.
So there are a huge amount of added ways to improve your ship/squads. Many different types of weapons and squadrons, many buffs you can get along the way and that each ship starts with, in this aspect an analogy to FTL would be FTL= A empty shed with 4 walls and a roof Crying Suns= A Mansion on an Island with a secret underground laboratory. I do not say this to say it is better, I love FTL, but to say that it has so many more mechanics and things to do/discover and if I wrote this review 1-6 hours in it would be very different, at first I just thought it was mediocre FTL type of game with a lot of clutter and did not play it consistently for a long time.
Ignoring FTL, this is a Roguelike game done very right. Where it shines is the gameplay and re-playability. To me the best roguelike games are ones where as you play it you gain knowledge and skill and it makes progression and replay very rewarding. It has so many options and different ways to succeed with different ships that each time you play you can discover a new strategy or improve an existing one. Each ship will require its own path to success and each run will give you all the resources you need to succeed if you spend your money right and pick the paths right. One ship may benefit from weapon buffs much more, you will want to upskill that and pick the right officers. Another layout may favor fast deploying
small squadrons of ships, one type of ship gives you cheaper shop prices so you get a lot of
bang for your buck by investing in resource gathering.
This game is very deceptively deep, each time you finish a chapter you can then start new runs on the next and each chapter has 3 sectors. Progression continues even after you die, if you have cleared a chapter then you do not have to replay the previous and with the exception of maybe a couple of middle chapters, they continue to add new elements for each run.
The level of gameplay mechanics and progression design in this game are truly
top notch. All of the elements that make roguelike games fun to play are in here
and cranked to 11. It is deceptively deep but at the same time once you understand them
it is not overly complicated and becomes easier while at the same time continues to challenge
at every step along the way until the end. When you die you will grow stronger each time.
No hair pulling because a random event felt like a cheap instant random death.
While this may happen from time to time, especially early on, the more you play
the better you get, not because of unlocks when you die, that does help
but the real unlock is knowledge and understanding of different enemy tactics
and your own builds.
It also has quite a bit of a storyline and various scenes through the game that you can indulge in or skip and either way does not matter, it does not make the storyline the front and center
like some games can do and feel very slow, it is there if you want it, if not you can
skip it and still feel like you know what is going on with the story and the game
without doing a lot of reading.
I imagine it took a lot of playtesting to get this result and this is a game
that you can just tell the developers poured so much into it. It scratches that FTL itch and then gives you something completely new. They have just done so many things right with this that I give it a 10/10 a very rare perfect game.

If you're a fan of strategy games and golden age sci-fi, give this game a playthrough. It's no Asimov, but the writing is surprisingly captivating and the ending unexpectedly introspective (well, at least as much as the medium allows).
I completed the game on hard, and I'll say that hampered my enjoyment somewhat. The combat is fun but there are some sections at the start and towards the middle that are absolutely brutal without good RNG. After 3 or 4 runs you will start to notice the same events happening as well. I would honestly recommend just bumping the difficulty down to easy and enjoying the ride for the most fun experience.

Can't believe I never reviewed this. Great little game, some of the best scifi writing in gaming. And they did a big update in 2023, four years after release, which is great.

Seems really good but every time I play it I just find myself longing for FTL. I didn't find the combat to be too stimulating, either. I'd recommend this maybe if you're tired of FTL, but I've been playing that one for over a decade and I'm still not tired of it so....

7/10 - GOOD
A very solid rogue-like with a cool, dark, sci-fi story. The end of days setting and the apocalypse atmosphere goes kind of hard here. Some gameplay mechanics are a bit simple and the gameplay loop can become boring in little while, but the story holds you over till the end of the game for the first play through (~15-20 hr.). It's up to you if you want to challenge yourself with other ship designs and hard difficulty setting and play the game some more.

Crying Suns: Last Order expands the tactical, narrative-driven space roguelike with more content and deeper storytelling. Its atmospheric design shines, though the challenging gameplay may not suit all players.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)