Crying Suns

A grandchild of FTL, with an awesome sci-fi story draped across the length. The writing, story, plot is all excellent, as is the dialogue. Surprising depth and sophistication of storytelling. Also an excellent showcase of nonlinear storytelling - there are many sectors you explore that yield no 'game benefit' but will give an amazing tidbit of lore, OR will progress the plot of the story. A brilliant way of shuffling a narrative into a procedurally-generated game.
One of my favorite things about it was that the lore completely 'justifies' the 'multiple runs' and meta-progression concepts in a really cool way. In terms of meta-progression, there really only is a concept of unlocking additional officer options that you can choose from at the start of a run - I imagine that's the nature of these sorts of tightly-balanced game arcs.
Easy mode was more or less effortless, (I never lost~), but re-framed from the perspective of 'a visual novel with deep game systems' rather then 'a shallow tactical game' and it shines. Doing one entire run through the game and I saw VERY little repetition in the random encounters (truly only 3-4 times out of ~10 hours of play) and I did everything possible in every run for every cluster.
The tactical combat is a clever, fun, and very unique gem set within this game. It's got a depth potential, and given the constraints of number of ships you can have out, as well as a very straightforward paper-rock-scissors tactical balancing mechanic, the more challenging match-up's I had escalated into a few almost-RTS-feeling vibes.
In full candor: if I could 'just' play and grow and grind that sort of tactical game, I absolutely would - I 100% get this is a run-based game, but I can totally also picture this being sort of an open procedural-generated universe to explore and build up a fleet and get into those fights, etc.
Art style is a very very cool quazi-3D-looking pixel graphics vibe. The UX is so slick and juicy and truly adds to the experience rather then just being 'on top of it' - the 'bridge standing in front of a giant view window out into space' really does the trick. For a '2D game', there is a staggering perception of depth, as you zoom around sectors and warp TO AND FRO.
The atmospheric music adds an incredible layer of depth, as well.
An incredibly memorable experience - worth every penny, and I sincerely hope this dev squad make more awesome things.

This game pretty fun.
I'm not gushing, but after seeing a recent update notice I decided to play this game again confusing it with House of the Dying Sun and I'm glad I did or I might not have played more simply because I played it some, it was fun but nothing stood out to me. However upon playing another run where I did well until a couple fights where I got my ...ship... kicked in I felt it deserved a positive review for what it does.
The screenshots it seems like a turn based game, but it's pausable real time.
Everything is essentially on a timer for you and the enemy.
Which is what makes the combats so fun. When you select a ship and the hex you want it to move to it will tell you how many seconds it will take for that ship to get there, which is important for moving multiple ships with different movespeeds to intercept enemy ships or move up to the enemy capitol. If a ship gets destroyed the dock goes on a cooldown until you can pump out another ship you have ready...
BUT fear not your ship isn't destroyed forever, however it will now forever* have a max HP of half their ship type/tier base max HP (*unless you find a special ship repair shop). Your ship that just got destroyed will also have a cooldown to launch it again meaning it's also not gone from the current battle either. That goes for you and the enemy. This also, I realize reflecting upon my last run, could be a reason to spend scrap buying more ships. You'll want ones that counter your enemies ship types and you want enough to pump out more when the first set get wrecked.
Your capitol ship and the enemy's are on opposite ends of the map immovable. Each has X amount HP per bar, and each capitol has multiple bars. The battle ends when you lose all your bars or the enemy does, unless they decide to offer you a surrender deal when they're losing. You'll have to figure out if the bribe is worth eating your anger that they attacked you and/or if potentially taking more hull damage is worth the vengeance. AFAIK all hull points in HP bars not completely broken will restore to max in between battles. You can occasionally find repairs for your capitol hull bars in shops.
The UI is really good as well. When you hover over a ship you can see what other ship type it's strong against as there's a Rock Paper Scissors strong vs / weak vs unit type scheme. You can see their speed, their damage, their hp, any abilities they have are described. There are a few minor gripes, but I'm not sure if I'm at fault for not being to find explanation of officer skills. "Skills" are different from "abilities" which are active / combat based.
The game has a node based map similar to, but more limited than, FTL where you start on a node on the very left that connect to 4 other nodes and you proceed along the line of nodes rightward toward the singular end node. There are places where node lines go up/down between the horizontal ones for some wiggle room.
There's also a ship upgrade system, again like FTL or many other games, where you spend scrap to give your capitol ship more Hull Points, another ship launch dock, another weapon slot, a spot for a second officer to help out the system they're attached to (Hull / Dock / Weapons), and a variety of other upgrades.
On some nodes there's ground combat missions. You have a resource "commandos" that you can send an officer and a preset number of commandos on said mission. Depending on what's going on with the mission different officers will have different skills that raise the chance of them surviving, their commandos surviving / getting injured, recovering scrap, other officers, weapons, etc. Here is where the UI is also great. Every officers chance of doing well in survival, and gathering, or whatever is very clearly displayed in a way you can tell which officer/s will be best for the mission.
The story and writing are also interesting. I'm not sure how to describe what I like, but I do.
Overall I'm glad I got this game in Humble subscription.

First, I'm gonna address a few complaints I've been commonly seeing in other reviews:
Reading negative reviews, this game isn't for everyone, so please play the demo just to see if you can squeeze the gameplay for 20+ hours. If this kinda strategy gameplay isn't interesting for you, don't buy it or wait 'til it's dirt cheap on a sale.
A lot of 'unwinnable' situations people run into are either because they just haven't fully grasped the options/strategies they have, or how to scale properly in this rougelite--it's a skill issue, not an "RNG" one even though that plays a part in it. There are of course negative random events that can cost you, but it's not as punishing as something like Binding of Isaac or even FTL which is MUCH more punishing.
Without spoiling: The ending is supposed to be that way. It matches with the games themes and it was spelled out from the beginning. Even my goopy brain found it boring to scroll through walls of text, but y'all can't complain if you weren't paying attention.
That biz out of the way, this game has an amazing visual aesthetic. The sound design is on par with Homeworld, it's THAT immersive. The writing has a couple flaws, and the problem with it's premise and format for storytelling is that it relies very heavily on flavorless exposition; but other than that, there's brilliant twists and poetic irony, and the' bleak world-building was solid.
Gameplay for me was incredibly addicting. Coming from someone who loves roguelites and RTS games, this was a treat. It was fun to figure out optimal strategies for each ship's play style, and how to counter other faction's strengths and make up for my own weaknesses. My only little complaint, is that it doesn't have a lot of replayability, and I only bring this up because it's typically desirable (but not necessary) for a roguelite game. An update for workshop support or custom events, or even just a little weekly randomized challenge thing would be neat. FTL had upgradable variants of ships that you could get by completing challenges or beating the game a certain way, so I expected something similar to that but all we get are "Special officers" who can be equipped at the start and are found randomly throughout shops in game and once you beat a run or fail, they're placed on a cooldown for 5 playthroughs.
All around solid game, and an existential experience for any Sci-fi fan willing to stick through to the end.

Have you ever been playing FTL and thought, "Man, what if I could control a bunch of ships instead of just one?" Well now you can! :D
In all seriousness, Crying Suns respects its roots in FTL via similar exploration, events, upgrades, loadouts, unlockables, and resource management, but revamps the combat considerably to bring it into a world all its own, bringing plenty of unique weapons and squadrons to try. It's also very narrative-focused in a way that FTL certainly wasn't, and delves deep into the story of a chaotic universe struggling to keep a dying empire afloat, which is very enticing to follow. Lots of interesting twists and lore to find along the way.
So if you enjoyed the gameplay and themes of FTL, but wanted more out of its world, Crying Suns is definitely worth a spin. I will say the difficulty is not as punishing, but fights can be longer, especially bosses. Either way, there's a lot of playtime to be had here, around 30 hours finishing the story, and countless more clearing with all ships, which achievements reward.

FTL But Smexy
Story is great, design is neat, pixel art is absolutely GORGEOUS. It reminds me a lot of "Captain Blood" (a mesmerizing game from the 80s that i was -trying- to play on my Atari as a kiddo). Ambiance and soundtrack also give the same vibe.
I really enjoy the mechanic that different runs are kind of "linked" scenaristically.

never trust kids .........

Crying Suns for the most part is a .. slightly more involved FTL, with different combat. You select your path through the stars, encounter various events and fight off other starships. The slightly longer and more story focused gameplay loop makes the game a little harder to replay once completed even with the different ships you can unlock. Not overly complicated, plenty to see. Perhaps need more variety or chance rather than single path encounters.
It may be true that the planets and stars will not mourn our passing, but it will not hurt them for us to save one another either.