![]() ![]() ![]() I first discovered Sunrider through a gaming news site, during the middle of the Kickstarter. tl:dr It's free, it's open source, it's surprisingly good. Also worth mentioning is that this game contains NSFW content, though nothing so extreme as H scenes, and you should approach it with the understanding that there will be nude scenes and suggestive content. As an added bonus, the developers have published 100% of the project to their Git at the time of this review, and all the content is open-source and available for modding, adjusting, or expanding if you want to dig into the code. It's certainly not show-stopping, but it will frustrate you to have to wait out the (very long) enemy turn before you can load a save or to fire a shot with "100%" hit chance only to find out that it actually had a 12% hit chance. ![]() Ren'Py is not really designed to handle the level of complex content that Sunrider presents, and as such the game suffers from slowdowns, incorrectly displayed combat data, and occasional trigger failures (allies fail to spawn for example) during scripted events. On the negative side, and really the only thing preventing me from giving this a better score, is a lack of optimization. I've played nearly every major visual novel in the English language, and I was still surprised by how much I came to care about the characters and story even in the beta phase of the first entry to the trilogy. As Strunk64 pointed out in his review, the characters contain common tropes and the story is based on a pretty common idea, but the devs have managed to make the characters sympathetic and the story deeper than you might think at first glance. Occasionally, the game will drop out to a tactical, turn based grid strategy game reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics or any of its many spinoffs in which the titular Sunrider and its complement of giant mecha (all female pilots of course) battle their way through various hazards while attempting to halt the expansion of a despotic interstellar regime. The majority of the game is an ADV style visual novel, with text and sprites on a background to present the events occurring in the game universe with frequent and sometimes quite nuanced decisions presented to the player. A hybrid VN/TBS, anyone who has played games such as Utawarerumono, Tears to Tiara, Galaxy Angel, or any of the Sakura Taisen games will recognize the layout quickly. The combat system is enjoyable and quite challenging but can be modified with a difficulty slider if you're just wanting to blaze through the story or if you want an additional challenge (and are a masochist) to top off the package. The soundtrack is refreshingly quite good, and the visuals manage to do quite well given that the game is built on Ren'Py. Don't expect AAA levels of optimization, detail, or effects, but what is present is highly polished. Full of heart and obviously a labor of love for the developers, Sunrider will blow you away if you keep in mind the scope of the project. ![]()
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