This is a rare beast. Meet an example of Early Access done correctly. The game started off somewhat basic but with a good core concept. A cyberpunk version of Legend of Grimrock but with Turn Based Combat and with stellar music and graphics. That concept then got refined and added to over several months with the introduction of narcotics, with better hacking, with the ability to delve into a mini cyberspace layer, with a timed campaign where you need to complete your objectives within a fixed number of weeks (thankfully Endless mode was retained for people like me who just like farming and blowing stuff up).

Polish was layered on, bugs were fixed and new classes were added until eventually the 1.0 version stands before us now. With a solid tutorial and intro that drops you into the game and gives you a thorough idea of how the game works, but not quite so hand-holdy that you feel like you're being spoon fed everything.

The game still expects you to do some legwork and learn how to minmax your team, there's still some QoL refinements that could be worked on, but by and large where we've got to now is worlds ahead of where we began. This is a very full blooded dungeon crawler with brilliant surroundings, enemies that will punish you if you get too cocky, and a suite of upgrades that force you to often make tradeoffs as to what kind of build you'll be gunning (literally) for with your teams.


Your missions start out in the overworld city level (EDIT: You can optionally skip this now at least in endless mode, but I'd really recommend you do not), where your meat and veg is discovery of transit that takes you to your mission zone as well as accessing randomly generated vendors and dealing with, or avoiding street thugs who act as attrition encounters (as well as sources of credits, tech, and mods).

Once through them you enter your target mission zone via elevator, and enter one of several brilliantly detailed and featured areas, the graphics here are genuinely high quality, and the enemies are well designed and in keeping with the theme. Praise really does need to be heaped on the art design team, the level geometry is some of the best I've seen in a dungeon crawler, you're not going to get bored of these environments even after several hours farming the same places over and over.

The music, similarly, works well, and the menus in the corp screens where you manage your merry little band of misfits along with the combat beats are solid, well delivered and make sure you're always "in the environment", whilst the sound effects themselves vary a bit in quality this is forgivable on account of the soundtrack being -really- good. Again, it's not something you're going to get tired of even after extensive farming runs.


There's a -few- but we're into "Nice to haves", things which probably were limited by the constraints of Early Access. Being able to insert more than one DNA mutation into new clones at an exponentially increasing cost would be useful, since some mutations are strictly more useful and others more situational.

Cyberhacking in combat still needs too many clicks right now, this could be rectified by adding them as additional skills as a second row in the combat skill palette. The Research tree could be cleaned up (It's still very much about passive gains, many of which could be rolled into more important nodes), and one or two of the classes could do with some extra love.

That's about it. Everything else is great. Oh, and possibly the ability to have permanent upgrades for the drone. But that one has been on my dream wish list ever since we could tinker with the thing.


Do you like dungeon crawlers? If so, this one is an easy win. At this price point, you'd be nuts not to get involved.
Do you like the idea of a cyberpunk dungeon crawler? Ditto.
This game set out with a very definite design goal. It's pretty much -nailed- that and done quite a bit more on top. For an Early Access triumph, I'm quite happy to see that it turned out pretty much as hoped.

Verdict: Highly recommended, especially to fans of Dungeon Crawlers who fancy a change of pace

Written for Balance Patch, if you'd like to see more of their work, follow the link in the italics

[H1]Need your Cyberpunk fix whilst CDPR are busy putting the finishing touches to the game that will eat your life? Ever wondered what Satellite Reign would be like as a turn based RPG? Well, you can scratch that itch. Thoroughly.[/H1] This is a rare beast. Meet an example of Early Access done correctly. The game started off somewhat basic but with a good core concept. A cyberpunk version of Legend of Grimrock but with Turn Based Combat and with stellar music and graphics. That concept then got refined and added to over several months with the introduction of narcotics, with better hacking, with the ability to delve into a mini cyberspace layer, with a timed campaign where you need to complete your objectives within a fixed number of weeks (thankfully Endless mode was retained for people like me who just like farming and blowing stuff up). Polish was layered on, bugs were fixed and new classes were added until eventually the 1.0 version stands before us now. With a solid tutorial and intro that drops you into the game and gives you a thorough idea of how the game works, but not quite so hand-holdy that you feel like you're being spoon fed everything. The game still expects you to do some legwork and learn how to minmax your team, there's still some QoL refinements that could be worked on, but by and large where we've got to now is worlds ahead of where we began. This is a very full blooded dungeon crawler with brilliant surroundings, enemies that will punish you if you get too cocky, and a suite of upgrades that force you to often make tradeoffs as to what kind of build you'll be gunning (literally) for with your teams. [H1]Syndicate meets Starcrawlers meets Cyberpunk, and the result is an effective and addictive dose of dystopia.[/H1] Your missions start out in the overworld city level (EDIT: You can optionally skip this now at least in endless mode, but I'd really recommend you do not), where your meat and veg is discovery of transit that takes you to your mission zone as well as accessing randomly generated vendors and dealing with, or avoiding street thugs who act as attrition encounters (as well as sources of credits, tech, and mods). Once through them you enter your target mission zone via elevator, and enter one of several brilliantly detailed and featured areas, the graphics here are genuinely high quality, and the enemies are well designed and in keeping with the theme. Praise really does need to be heaped on the art design team, the level geometry is some of the best I've seen in a dungeon crawler, you're not going to get bored of these environments even after several hours farming the same places over and over. The music, similarly, works well, and the menus in the corp screens where you manage your merry little band of misfits along with the combat beats are solid, well delivered and make sure you're always "in the environment", whilst the sound effects themselves vary a bit in quality this is forgivable on account of the soundtrack being -really- good. Again, it's not something you're going to get tired of even after extensive farming runs. [H1]Any downsides?[/H1] There's a -few- but we're into "Nice to haves", things which probably were limited by the constraints of Early Access. Being able to insert more than one DNA mutation into new clones at an exponentially increasing cost would be useful, since some mutations are strictly more useful and others more situational. Cyberhacking in combat still needs too many clicks right now, this could be rectified by adding them as additional skills as a second row in the combat skill palette. The Research tree could be cleaned up (It's still very much about passive gains, many of which could be rolled into more important nodes), and one or two of the classes could do with some extra love. That's about it. Everything else is great. Oh, and possibly the ability to have permanent upgrades for the drone. But that one has been on my dream wish list ever since we could tinker with the thing. [H1]Closing thoughts[/H1] Do you like dungeon crawlers? If so, this one is an easy win. At this price point, you'd be nuts not to get involved. Do you like the idea of a cyberpunk dungeon crawler? Ditto. This game set out with a very definite design goal. It's pretty much -nailed- that and done quite a bit more on top. For an Early Access triumph, I'm quite happy to see that it turned out pretty much as hoped. Verdict: [b]Highly recommended, especially to fans of Dungeon Crawlers who fancy a change of pace[/b] [i]Written for [url=https://sp.zhabite.com/groups/balancepatchers]Balance Patch[/url], if you'd like to see more of their work, follow the link in the italics[/i]