Star Renegades

I finally 100% this game yesterday and realised I have yet to write a review for it.
Star Renegades is a turn based rogue like with heavy emphasis on party building and planing out your turns.
The game is VERY unforgiving, especially on the higher difficulties, and a single bad turn can end your entire run, which can be 3-5 hours on the higher difficulties.
This is a game that expects you to learn its systems and use the information it offers you to carefully plan out your moves, however the system does bug out some times and doesn't give you the full picture, especially with the last unlock-able character. Thankfully, anyone that HAS managed to unlock that final character will be 100 hours plus into the game by that point and will know the game well enough to deal with those consistences.
I adore the pixel art styles, the music hits just right and I actually like characters, story and the dry humour that makes up the non combat parts of the experience.
If you're looking for a turn based combat game with HEAVY empathise on the combat and don't mind a challenge then this could be just the game that your looking for.
If you're after an engaging story with memorable characters you're probably better off looking elsewhere.

It's not a rogue-lite in the way you "DO MORE RUNS!" because the game itself is too slow for that. It's more of a "Oh, I get these new things that make it interesting if I decide to try again" game. Give it a whirl if you like low-end tactics games that introduce a small amount of rogue-lite stuff thrown in
Update at nearly 50hrs:
I really like the combat of this game. The one minute bar and trying to eek out more seconds so you can stagger enemies is awesome. I haven't used all the classes, but I feel they offer a solid mix of the trinity of tank, healer, and dps so that runs are unique, but familiar. It's a solid game.
I just wish it wasn't so slow. Everything takes way too long. One game, for me at least, take HOURS to complete and I feel that you need to dedicate too much time for minor rewards. I want to unlock every progeny, but I can't fathom how long I'd have to grind out relationships to do that. Even with a "fast-forward" aspect to the combat you're slogging through each encounter. I feel that this game could've been an awesome Tactics RPG, even if it has a paper-thin story, because you have a solid foundation for each system. However, the "rogue-lite" loop breaks these systems in a way that makes it feel too grindy.
I still recommend this game because I think it's rewarding overcoming your first playthrough, but after that.... I don't think it works well enough to want to see everything it has to offer.

It's... okay? I'm giving it a thumbs up only because I can't give it a neutral rating. The dialogue isn't great and some of it isn't unique to each character. The story is very threadbare. The nemesis-like system isn't deep enough to be interesting. The rogue-like elements don't give the player enough control over the randomness and the playtime per run is a bit long. You do get choices of what gear or characters to pick but the meta progression is pretty weak.
The combat is decent. The sound effects, abilities, and art are good. Sadly that's about all I can think of to say in the game's favor. It's far from being a bad game. It just doesn't do anything particularly well or go deep enough into anything to really be interesting. It kinda just goes halfway into a few different things and stops there. That's somewhat to be expected as an indie game, but I feel like Star Renegades would've done better with more focus into fewer things. I really wanted to like it more because I like supporting indie devs, but this one just didn't do it for me.

Very fun and challenging combat system. It's a fun interplay between deciding whether to push damage through on enemies or stun them until the next turn where they are likely to go before you unless you plan accordingly. The metaprogression is more about unlocking play patterns and minor stat improvements than steadily advancing towards an inevitable win.

A goal in every roguelike game is to feel like you've "broken" the game due to a variety of factors, planned and unplanned, coming together as best as you can cobble them, into something that's hopefully very powerful. Star Renegades achieves this feeling of power, and of breaking the game, but it feels a bit different. It's not all-out balls to the wall slugfest as you steamroll enemies (although as you get stronger you can certainly make short work of basic fights) but rather a cerebral exertion that falls into a rhythm and feels a bit like a dance. Break that guy's timeline so this person can use this skill safely so that next turn you can set up an AOE break. Tank this hit with defend so that other people on your team are free to stack staggers culminating in your sniper landing a killshot on that guy for maximum damage. That's a very real thing by the way. Some games reward an aggressive approach. This is not one of them. Defending, tanking, taunting and redirecting or avoiding damage via breaks are all very important, and arguably more important than doing the most damage possible, every turn. It captures a similar feeling to Into The Breach, where you turn what initially looks disastrous into a much better scenario with methodical applications of staggers and statuses.
Speaking of statuses, this game will not hold your hand. There is a lot to learn, and often it takes being decimated by a specific status or skill to understand exactly how to prioritize it in terms of what to allow and what to stave off. Enemies have modifiers that they will never announce, and require you to look at them individually or just find out the hard way. Case in point, some enemies are immune to taunt. Which never matters, until you go to taunt them and spend the action and their target does not change. Oops. Despite all this, succeeding often makes me feel like I'm just that much smarter than the computer, which is a fun feeling.
The music is actually pretty catchy, certainly not invasive or annoying. The graphics, despite being intentionally pixelated, are quite gorgeous in the level of detail and the multiple layers of it that several battlefields display at the same time. Some of the animations are questionable, but this game does not take itself seriously and that shows the moment you make it past the main menu. There is a little jank in your movement, requring oddly precise clicks to navigate some terrain with a mouse, but with a controller there is an added element of the game just possibly deciding "You live in that direction now" and endlessly going there until you force quit. Probably the only recurring bug I've encountered, but it's always between battles and only ever irritating when you've just claimed new gear, as the gear is randomized every instance, not predetermined in a seed - so that awesome sword you got might be a lame implant next time. A minor gripe but one that's worth mentioning.
The writing is silly and the story is just there to justify the roguelike nature of the game. Conversations between squadmates overflow with tongue in cheek humour and are decent for worldbuilding, but by the time you've played for 100 hours you've seen everything there is to see about that random question mark beside that building. The only conversations I have yet to discover are specific interactions between characters as you progress their relationships. Oh right, that's a thing too. You spend 3 days on a planet picking your way across it and trying to be as efficient as possible in the gains you make, but between them are nights at the campfire. There is a mild element of deckbuilding, where you have limited actions, affection points, and various temporary (or in rare cases permanent) effects that will benefit you for X following battles. As you advance these relationships, each character brings their own unique stat modifier (the guy who's best at staggers gives whoever he's close with more staggers, the shield-based tank gives more base shield...etc) and later combine effects into a 1-off "combo" that is a fusion of one or more of each character's abilities. Get them closer, and certain combinations will produce offspring that are unique in their stats and ability orrders/choices. There's a lot left to unlock for me even now, in that sense.
Finally...we need to address the length. Each campaign, if you will, can go several hours easily. It's not fair to call it a run, because a run lasts an hour. These are mini campaigns. Personally I don't mind this design but I know that it won't be for everyone - the typical roguelike is expected to be somewhere between 30 and 90 minutes a run, at the outside. This can and will double that. Now you know.
All this to say...it's a game I can't put down. And with what I have left to unlock, and the Entropy levels left to beat, even if I move to other games...I'll be back to this one.

Picked this game up on a whim but it's fantastic. Great concept, really cool art style and a decent story on top. Basically I do not really have anything negative to say. If had to, I'd say the movement can be a bit wonky and the night time loot collecting is a bit of time waster. But really really minor points in an otherwise 9/10 game!

The game is really good, if you see it from the combat point of view. 14 Hours for my first run (And first victory) with a bit of afking. I had fun thinking of a strategy, using the right order and abilities and mastering the delay system.
The story is not interesting at all and i started skipping the dialogues... But that could be just me.
The Roguelike elements coming mostly from different parties you can embark with and gear you can equip.
The biggest meh and worth a downvote for me was the "last boss" from my first run. Who the F$&k designs a miniboss (Could be the endboss) who, after being defeated open up another fight with the real Endboss, who summons after defeat another boss, who ressurects the boss from before. Thats the most lazy stupid idea of a last fight. I beat him, but it stopped being fun and ruined the dopamine of finishing the run. My only thought was: "Is it finally over? Or does now spawn the boss to the boss, to summon a boss with a boss... The endboss changes after every run. I hope that boss rush stops there...