Star Renegades

An overall fun game for anyone that enjoys a turn-based RPG take on a rogue like/lite formula. I dig the aesthetics-although the character and enemy design aren't anything unique or memorable. *Disclaimer* -anyone that decides to progress beyond the lower 2 difficulties will find that the game becomes very punishing. Even with a complete understanding of the combat system it's still easy to have a run completely fall apart due to random luck with an enemy strength vs. a type of attack or not having an optimized party - just to name a couple of scenarios. Simply put-the game will not forgive your mistakes or lack of planning/detail from the onset of a run on anything above normal difficulty. In conclusion, I think there is plenty to enjoy from this title if you are casual towards it and aren't looking to invest a large amount of time into it. Only the hardcore type that enjoy a masochistic experience will venture into the higher difficulties and grind out all the game has to offer.

I've got to say, I'm loving it so far.

There's enough strategic overlay to make min-maxers happy, and genuine choice on what you focus on. Sometimes you need a bit of a few things, sometimes you've got to double-down on one area. The map offers visibility of many development opportunities but restricts how many you can pursue.

Each game takes a few hours, so you get a good feel for the unique development that you're on - and there is a good mix of "normal" opportunities (that you can plan to pursue) and random ones (that you have to optimise on the fly).

Amusing chatter from the characters - fun if you like that stuff and feel it adds flavour.

The most underated indie game to ever exist. XCOM fanatics, here is your chance to prove your mettle in this unrelenting turn based roguelite.

The pixel graphics look charming.

The UI is clean.

No bugs whatsoever.

It has tons of replaybility as well because of it is roguelike mechanics.

Also, it is super cheap during sales but is also worth at full price.

Bought it. Played it like less than an hour, and already disappointed.

An underrated gem, if a tad bit rough around the edges when it comes to UI. This is an extremely rewarding game for the people willing to learn its mechanics.

It's a fun game.
Nice graphic, nice music.

The game mechanic is nice, to know what your opponents moves, and anticipated it. So this game can scratch that strategy/turn based itch, while keeping it casual enough to play as a rouge-like.

This is one of the game that I came back to when I don't know what to play.
Hope they make a sequel for this.

Star Renegades is a game that has interesting concepts, but flawed execution.

The ability to unlock new classes fire emblem style by pairing up specific characters? Very cool, but the bond system overall is very barebones and basic.

The turn based, FF10 style time bar? cool...until you realise how basic it makes every fight.

The Nemesis-esque system? pretty neat...but can completely kill your run if you don't account for a single specific weakness (which means most runs end early due to not having a certain damage type)

The story? Pretty interesting and cool...but the characters themselves are stale and boring.

This game is extremely interesting in all the concepts it offers...but somehow, fails to execute them well. and is one of the few rougelikes i can genuinely say i find...boring.

I like the combat system. The mechanic that hitting a unit before their turn results in a crit, combined with a lot of attacks focused on delaying enemies' turns, keeps things interesting. There are also a lot of unlockable characters which keeps replays fresh. The story is a bit thin, and there is a lot of repeated, semi-random dialogue, which unfortunately includes several instances of anti-capitalist garbage propaganda to the game's detriment.

A very fun pixel art roguelike in the style of a jrpg! This game has a really fun combat system with lots of different team comps, plus plenty of weapon options as well as upgrades available. Kinda cooky writing i thought but it gave me some laughs! TONS of replay value with altering enemies and what not. Would definitely recommend!

Star Renegades is a mechanically interesting turn-based combat game with questionable writing, but it boasts amazing pixel graphics that looks great on the Steam Deck.

So much variety of team combination. Great theme and soundtrack. And the best thing is you can what enemy action that you want to delay or stop it.

That's a no from me dawg. Aesthetic is neat, but animations take too long and the fast-forward feature makes the screen fuzz in a nauseating/unpleasant way, and I'm not even sensitive. The movement is complete butt, almost every UI choice makes me actively angry, and rather than build on what other rougelikes have done they did something different, but worse in their map traversal. Rather than look pretty, the world map is confusing, choices are unclear, and things flash and change color with no rhyme or reason. The UI makes every little thing a misery and a slog, and as such I cannot recommend at all.

Fun fact: I conflated this game with Sea of Stars, another style-over-substance RPG (though this one seems more substantive mechanically), and this conflation was reinforced when the very first NPC that I was given the option to interact with on my own volition was just doing a gag that was identical to a gag done in the Messenger. At least in the Messenger, there is a subversion at the end and the overall dialogue has an arc to it (though I could not have more contempt for the moral of the scene). In Star Renegades, it's just random utterances with no resolution.

"Random utterances with no resolution" is basically what the entire game is. Just a bunch of awkward Marvel quips that, at best, demonstrate one of up to two personality traits that a given character has, but sometimes not even that. As others have noted, when you are looking at environmental objects, sometimes I guess you don't have a good party configuration or else there is some RNG involved, because you'll end up with one character talking to themself incoherently. Even when you get a "dialogue," it's still usually incoherent. Let's not even talk about the story, because there mostly isn't one, and half of what is there is just the characters throwing out keywords that mean nothing and the other half is the most cookie-cutter shadow of a skeleton of a stereotypical plot you can imagine.

That terribly executed dialogue about the environment must be really important to the devs though, because it's literally the only thing justifying (?) the point-and-click navigation which is probably the most absurd feature of the game. It serves no real utility, but it takes up time and has pathfinding that is legitimately worse than some 90s adventure games. There is nothing you get from this that you could not get from a more streamlined interface. What's worse, the default passive on the party causes items to randomly spawn in already cleared areas at night, just in case you didn't get enough of clicking around for scraps.

People keep saying, even in the negative reviews, that the art direction is good. It is not. The art is pretty good, albeit too focused on uninteresting features like rim lighting because I guess that's how you wow peopel? The art direction, however, is not great. The "HD 2D" thing that they seemed to have helped lead the charge for (terrible name for something that is neither HD nor 2D, by the way) is a hazardous way to design things when normal 2D works just fine. It leads to numerous instances of severe clipping in both the overworld and even in combat. What's the benefit? Having an annoying, swooping camera? The things people will sacrifice to be "cinematic," I guess.

Oh yeah, and the devs went to the WoW school of costume design. Interpret that how you will.

I partially disagree that the UI is bad. Yeah, the wording on debuffs on items can be a bit ambiguous, but the timeline system and the rest of it are fine. In the tutorial, I think you get ample warning that the predictions are very incomplete, though it calls the combat system "deterministic" when it seems to actually mean "transparent" and does not exactly accomplish either (as there are attacks that target randomly). The most annoying of all is that the game just seems to not want you to click on sprites, because of the stupid swaying camera making it annoying to get the hitbox of a specific over-crowded sprite, and the bug they apparently just never fixed in Inspect Mode that makes you unable to click on enemies.

The camping system is just a worse version of Darkest Dungeon that has less player agency. The bootleg Nemesis system seems to be 100% meaningless. The Fire-Emblem-style human breeding system is still creepy, despite being very pared down from what you see in FE, and seems really arbitrary in general.

The art is the high point and I thought the gameplay was alright, however repetitive the encounters were. It just does not leave it as being worth it to try over and over again to unlock even the main cast.

I gave it a few tries, but it's really not for me. Pardon my rudeness but the writing is just very bad, and it prevents me from enjoying an otherwise perfectly okay game. The battle system is novel and interesting, the art is good (and sometimes great even), the music is fine, but the dialog is fan fiction levels of bad. I'm talking "aaaannd he's right behind me, isn't he? / Erm, so that's a thing now I guess!" levels of bad. Maybe their next game will be a bit better. If you can look past the bad writing you might like it a bit more than me.

if u likes strategy games . i must play this game.. worthy for u time

Its an interesting rogue-like but I can't in good faith recommend this game. The turn based combat was fun and the unlocks per run were satisfying. And learning the mechanics were fun as well. What was not fun was the last mission with the freaking defenseless bot.... The fact that it does nothing but be a damage sponge that will kill your entire party is horrible game design. This game is riddled with strange game design choices. Not having perma death was a strange choice. Movement is pointless. A much more simpler movement design would be similar to Slay the Spire. The current movement is tedious. And the fact that you need to fast forward through animations is again tedious. This game shines half way through. But honestly it doesn't really bring new to the table. If you don't like sci-fi or roguelikes just pass. Losing two runs in a row due to that bot killed any love I have for this game.

Man, I despise this game. At first, I thought it would be a fun turn based, strategy game and what I got was utter disappointment. The disappointment is on par with having a daughter in your family after having two daughters already, and at this point if you didn't roll the dice like any gambling addict and walked off the table, you're nothing but a beta male cuck.
Except for the artstyle I hated every single thing about it, be it the tutorial, the enemies respawning every time I die, and even the programming of the enemies. Don't buy this pile of sh*t and spend it on some indie shooter like Warhammer 40k Boltgun or Amid Evil.

Im addicted

Had a strong start but very quickly fell off with some beyond frustrating game design. A lot of mechanics that are either poorly implemented or poorly explained, with a lot of fights that just become tedious beyond tedious if you don't have the right party (it's also random which party members you get beyond your initial three).

The plot feels like there are just cutscenes and dialogues that were omitted, as the start of the story gets started and then immediately jumps ahead with no explanation, while dialogues beyond that are completely forgettable random conversations between party members. The "main character" has to fight some alternate universe version of her brother and there's just absolutely no weight behind it.

Some honestly genuinely interesting combat mechanics and the stylings of a sort of Nemesis system but just completely overshadowed by a myriad of problems. Got sick of it after just a few runs.

Not too complex to get into and challenging enough. I've seen some small bugs, didn't affect the game too much. Good game with fair price.

turn based sci-fi combat

Yes yes its a pretty game.

However the gameplay is dull and the writing is super cringey, Marvel Disney level juvenile slop. I returned it so you dont have to dear reader.

I was barely even past the tutorial but i already know i'm not gonna like this game. The combat has some really cool concepts in it and the spritework is honestly insane, but the writing is so obscenely bad I can't see myself liking a single one of the characters no matter much time I could've spent. The whole first section of the game just jumps around randomly and doesn't bother fleshing out any of the characters, even after introducing a friendship system that honestly seems like it could've been insanely fun to interact with. Then your first party is introduced, neither of them getting any explanation as to who they are or why they're where they are, just throwing out one-liners and showing no signs of actual personality or a single bit of dialogue that isn't trying to be funny for the sake of it. Very few times will I not even give a game a chance, especially since I only spent 5 bucks for this, but there's no way to skirt around it if you care at all about reading dialogue/being invested in the characters.

Very Nice

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.

The balance needs work—most of the armory becomes useless at higher difficulties. The UI and information presentation also lack polish, making it difficult to understand what’s happening. Players are often left to rely on Google searches, Reddit, or Discord just to grasp the mechanics.

Do I like the game? Absolutely. Could it be better? Without a doubt. Honestly, Steam could use a *"maybe"* option because while I enjoy the game, I wouldn’t give it a full thumbs-up unless the UI were improved.

Higher difficulty tiers (called Entropy) can only be beaten with specific team setups and item combinations, which limits replayability. I get that it’s an indie game and time constraints may have played a role, so I’m willing to give them some leeway. Still, this had the potential to be great, but as it stands, it’s just *okay* to *good*.

Rating: AA

The story is constantly getting in the way of game play. The map exploration just makes linear encounters take longer. The combat is interesting, but it just all types of armor and damage at you instead of giving you time to learn all your units attack types. I want to like the combat, but I feel it is so clunky to try and optimize your plays.

It's fun. A Turn-based party RPG, where you defeat your enemies by stealing their turns by causing break procs. It's quite sci-fi looking too. As a roguelike, it's not that special, the amount of procedual generation here is mostly static, and it comes and goes in the format of your party members you recruit to your party, or how a final boss of a stage is selected.

I'd Say the coolest part of this game is the team-up abilities, where as if you bond enough certain characters with others during the campfire rest phase, you can get team-up abilities, which are massive game changers.
The pixel art is gorgeous,the soundtrack is pleasing, but nothing to write home about.

The game is a bit slow to get your runs going, and most of your progress will be rogue-liteish.

i give this game a solid 6/10 Sci-fi not cyberpunk, if you like turn-based RPG's this one will scratch that itch.(hey that rhymed!)

I've got 100% achievements in this game and i can say that this is a WONDERFUL piece of art.

Visuals and Sounds aside.... The gamepley is extremelly well made. Game can be ruthless and you can't comit any mistakes when playing in the final difficulties and to me, that's what made the game SO good.
Every battle is pretty much like a chess game and you REALLY need to think, rethink, think again. The strategy factor is VERY SMART and you need to UNDERSTAND how the game REALLY works to be good at it.

Choosing the better route, knowing when to take risks and LEARNING how to properly build your team is CRUCIAL to success. If you enjoy HARD ROGUELIKES with SCI-FI atmosphere. Pick this.

10/10 game.

Great RPG

awsome

I'll preface this by saying I haven't finished Star Renegades on higher difficulties, so balance might be hugely off on Entropy+. However...

This game totally rocks! I've long searched for a strategy game based on deterministic predictions and Star Renegades doesn't disappoint in that regard! Every action is based on time units. When you're quicker than the opponent you'll do critical damage and extra attack proporties. When you're slower you'll just do regular damage and still some attack proporties (though diminished). So the game quickly turns into who's hitting who at what moment of time in the timebar. It's possible to stagger opponents and even "break" them by pushing them completely off the timebar. Oponents loosing their turn are extremely susceptible to your heaviest attacks, even when these take a lot of time to execute. Sounds easy on paper, but in practice opponents will try to do the same thing to you and stagger/breaking them only works a few times, whereafter opponents will be immune to stagger for at least one round. It's quite an unique system and marvelous in its setup,

There's a bit of roguelite going on between runs, but the unlocks don't neccessary make your characters a lot more powerful. The unlocks just present more choice in your party composition, so they're not much of a crutch in getting further in the game. You'll have to get better at Star Renegades yourself.

Auidio and visuals are top notch. Visually I especially like the lighting, which seems quite advanced. The cyber techno music hits all the right notes too.

The overarching plot is quite simple, perfectly fine for this type of game. The party banter however it totally nonsensical. Funny in some cases (the party must be sniffing those magic mushrooms all the time), but also extremely repetitive. It's best ignored after a while.

What takes Star Renegades down a notch are the lingering bugs and these bugs all have to do something with the combat (damage) calculations. Very rarely the game predicts a "kill shot", but when the round plays out the target survives by a sliver of health. Not sure what's going on in those cases. More commonly the game predicts all the armor being stripped from certain opponents, but that's just a faulty prediction. It seems to happen more often with certain characters, like Empath and her mind knife ability. Lastly things get downright fuzzy when the game tries to correctly calculate reflect damage. Again too much inconsistencies. The calculations in these situations aren't competely undependable, but it happens a little bit too often the outcome deviates slightly from prediction. On medium difficulty this isn't much of a problem, but on higher difficulties this might spell trouble for your run.

Besides these bugs however the game is great. And besides the above cases the deterministic predictions seem to work as intended. There's a lot to love in Star Renegades and I wholeheartedly recommend this game when you're looking for something new and different in the strategy genre.

Rating: 8,5/10

Im very good at dying in this game. I will be sure I will never buy a roguelite again, such a time waster. The variety of the heroes are ok at least.

This game has been a blast for to play the last few months. The roguelike formula mixed with the turn based RPG mechanics comes together well, and utilizing delays to control the flow of combat and get your team an advantage rewards foresight and planning.

Great little turn based game, eats time like crazy. Fun, challenging a little frustrating but often rewarding.

Overall, I feel Star Renegades is a brilliant tactical gem with amazing pixel art, good music/sound, and satisfying progression. I have stayed up late many times on a "just one more turn" journey that i didn't regret. (Just Ignore the writing) I can't play it as much as i've played FTL, but i love it for some of the same reasons.

Here's my overall take on the game:

The Story
Visually there's storytelling, and there are cool world building elements. The story elements and overall big ideas are very cool as far as science fiction. But all you get is visual world building as you observe the beautiful pixel graphics, and there is a very cool intro movie that makes you want to play.
Now to get my main complaint out of the way:
Once you're playing, the attempt at humor in the writing is unbearable. The dialogue which reveals more about the world makes deeper elements of the story difficult to consume. I actually REALLY hate the writing... a lot. Annoying, unfunny nerd humor that over-saturates has turned me away from games as good as Divinity Original Sin I and II. I can't do them. And the writing here is executed more poorly compared to those.
Luckily, it’s not chock full of insipid JRPG style story tropes either... Cut-scenes are not forced on you every five minutes. You can safely mash through dialogue and still enjoy yourself. That's a good thing. I wouldn't want to wait for cut scenes between playing in a game like this or FTL. Though FTL is an example of well-written story elements that didn't feel tacked-on.

Tactical Brilliance
The strategic elements are so good. I feel like my efforts of thinking my way through a battle pay off. The time system featuring turn order and “stagger” mechanics add a whole extra layer of strategy, letting you plan out exactly how to delay or interrupt enemies. Even if the odds seem stacked against you, smart use of timing can cut enemy actions off before they happen, leading to miraculous turnarounds.
There are interrupts, buffs, debuffs—and Star Renegades amplifies them with a reactive timeline that rewards forward-thinking. You really feel like you’re outsmarting the opposition.

Rogue-Lite Progression Done Right
It does take a few runs to unlock better characters and weapons, but the game doesn’t force a grindfest on you. Each run teaches you more about the combat system and drops interesting rewards that expand your options.
As you gain new heroes and gear, you’ll feel your party’s power growing organically. It’s nowhere near the slog you might find in some other games (cough Banners of Ruin cough). Instead, these unlocks offer fresh strategies and keep the game engaging across multiple runs. And elements are procedural, so what map layouts, and rewards are different every time you play through.

Visuals & Style
The game is absolutely stunning in motion. Characters and enemies pop off the screen with vibrant animations that make every battle feel epic.
The interface has a cool neon-futuristic vibe, though it can be a bit cluttered at first. Still, if you’re used to dissecting complex JRPG menus, you’ll adapt quickly.

Music & Sound
The synth-heavy score perfectly matches the game’s neon-soaked aesthetic, amplifying tension in battles and making exploration feel futuristic and grand. Each track seamlessly blends pulsing electronic beats with atmospheric melodies that ramp up at just the right moments. It’s the kind of soundtrack you’ll find yourself humming to yourself.
Meanwhile, the sound effects pack a satisfying punch. Skills and abilities all have distinct audio cues, letting you know exactly what’s happening in the heat of combat—even before you see the results. From the crackle of an Archon’s lightning blast to the metallic clang of a Paragon’s sword swing, every effect feels meticulously crafted to heighten immersion. Fans of synthwave vibes and energetic battle themes will absolutely love what Star Renegades brings to the table.

Character Building & Loadouts
Building a squad feels incredibly rewarding. Each class has unique strengths—tanks, healers, DPS, support—and you can combine them for potent combos.
If you like managing gear, fiddling with stats, and optimizing your party’s loadouts, there’s plenty to dig into here. Gearing up is half the fun.

The Interface Hiccups
Some parts of the interface aren’t intuitive. Expect a few runs to learn which menus hide certain details or how to read the timeline effectively. Sometimes i can't read important parts of the timeline because little pop-ups cover them, which is a fail, but there is only one spot on the screen where this happens repeatedly.
Once you get used to the interface, you will be in for lots of satisfying replays. If you enjoy a bit of complexity, you’ll find it satisfying to master. I actually really like to pore through the details of what makes my team build strong.

Final Thoughts
I’m in the camp of gamers who do care about story, and for game types where the story is featured front and center, my standards are quite high. For the type of game it is, it's good that the existing story elements are snappy and can be skipped. . Star Renegades delivers well in turn-based tactics, progression, and replayability.

If you:

Appreciate well-crafted JRPG-style combat without the usual bloated narrative,
Enjoy rogue-lite progression systems like in FTL or Slay the Spire,
Love leveling characters and tweaking gear for maximum efficiency,
Then you’ll have a blast mastering the timing system, planning each encounter, unlocking new heroes, and watching your squad evolve into a formidable fighting force. I know I did.

I love this game. Great challenge. Great music. Great visuals.

I do wish they had been willing to go more serious with it. The intro video and other things set a far more serious tone than the game ever ends up having. Also, you can hurt your odds by unlocking the wrong stuff, though there are systems to cut down on the negative consequences of having a larger item pull, the fewer things you can unlock in the realm of equipment, the more predictable your pool of options will be.

Cant skip dialogue, fast forward is annoying to look at with crappy vhs effect. Gives me a headache.

pog

This game is an excellently constructed roguelike, with complex combat and a solid unlocking system. It's also hard. Well worth it if you dig these kinds of games.

I watched the trailer and thought “Wow, it looks promising” as I liked the visual style and gameplay looked intriguing. In reality, it’s complicated.

interesting graphics, but rogue-like system, you get bored pretty quickly as the locations don’t change much.
As it has limited amount of locations, you’ll get the same enemies again and again. Low variety of enemies.
“But, there a lot of different characters and you can build relationships within a group!” - Yes, it can add to the variety as you can build different groups, but with deterministic system it just doesn’t fit the pace of the game. Feedback loop is quite long if you assembled your group wrongly and it quickly gets boring.

So, the game tried to mix different mechanics, but it just doesn’t work well together.

Logged 300+ hours into this game on Xbox, absolutely fantastic game! Decided to buy on PC for the bit of DLC that isn't available on xbox.

Artwork and soundtrack are very engaging and create an epic experience. Not many roguelikes keep me entertained for more than 20 hours so this game is truly solid!

Character dialogues and banter have a cynical humor to them, which fits the theme of a never-ending quest to stop the interdimensional swarm.

Only three things I wish were different:
1. that the progeny were a bit more unique compared to there progenitors in stats and abilities
2. the planets and their respective behemoths could be fought in varying order rather than only fighting specific enemies/behemoths at planets 1, 2, and 3.
3. more things to spend meta-currency on!

Entropy IV and V were the real challenge and found I could only beat them with specific team setups.

Overall great game with massive replayability. The devs truly made this game with passion!

Highly recommend!!!!

Okay... im not sure how to feel about this game. To get this out of the way:

This is the type of game where you should have a podcast/youtube video/movie going on in the background. This game is systems-heavy JRPG gameplay with a lot of strategic choices in between fights. You have RPG elements with a ton of upgrades between runs. This game throws a ton of random encounters at you, so, so much. The combat is time consuming and heavy.

But I found it FANTASTIC. The decision making is extremely deep, and I find optimizing fun. Probably one of the best JRPG combat systems out right now. It also has something similar to the shadow of mordor nemesis system for some reason?? IDK but it's a good addition.

The story was alright, but the actual gameplay was so dense I wasn't all that invested moment-to-moment.

If you want a game you can chill out to, this is a good choice. Keep in mind, you'll be going through a lot of menus, and there's a pretty big mental stack.

Yea i guess you could say i like it.

Here I go, thumbing down yet another highly praised game.

Ok, so, quick synopsis from the 90 seconds, er, minutes I played. It's a story-driven action game with turn based battles. From what I gather, a bunch of bad guys are up to no good, starting lots of trouble in the neighborhood.

Now, I like games with a story. The best recent game I must recommend for story is Outer Wilds. DO NOT watch videos. It will ruin the experience. Here, you have a typical conflict where you are fighting against a stronger force with encounters as you travel around a quiant map. I say 'quiant' because I would have really loved this game as a kid back in the early 90s. If this had been released back then for the SNES, I wouldn't have left my room all weekend. But here we are.

And I mean that by the entire build of the game. The story is great so far...I think...but kinda seems like I was supposed to have read a comic book to get to know everyone first before playing. Then comes the actual gameplay and....ehhhh....it's...nice? I guess....? Remember: early 90s SNES, THAT'S where this game should be.

The encounters have you mix and match abilities and teammates. Now, that seems interesting but for me it didn't seem to matter what I did as I would always win the battle with little effort. If I tried really hard to come up with amazing attacks they were REALLY REALLY not much more effective than when I just spammed the attack.

So, is it good? Not for me. Hopefully you'll like it. I wish it well as it's not bad, it's just....ehhh...

Really fun

I really wanted to like Star Renegades. I finally bought it. And, well, it's ... fine? But just fine. If I pick up a new rogue game the bar that I set whether to recommend it or not is: "Do I immediately want to play again?"... And I don't. In fact, I've beaten the game the first go around. Yeah, did some save-scumming, but I was at the final boss already, and had him almost down, so I figured, I'd just try again. So, once you've beaten the game you unlock new characters, you can invest in some upgrades, but they are mutually exclusive, which is a DAMN shame. You also unlock new equipment ... and I'm sorry to say, but the equipment in this game is atrociously boring for the most part. It's mostly debuffs and buffs sort of stuff.

The moment to moment gameplay is interesting, buuuuut it's a grind fest. EVERY enemy in this game is a damage sponge. They just soak that shit up. So ... one playthrough takes around 6 to 7 hours. That's just not a good time for the gameplay on offer. The UI is ... not the most helpful, either. And while the whole game revolves around pushing enemy actions into the "next turn", the next turn isn't actually the next turn. You push someone OFF the track, you do NOT see when they will take their action next turn, which means that the entire enemy team could attack you and wipe you out in one go, because they start their actions immediately next turn. And that is information that you cannot see. Added to that is the issue that you will likely do the same string of actions in most combats, once you have a strategy down. Of course, you have no idea what your strategy is going to be, unless you already know what each character will do once upgraded to the max. And there's no overview once you have. So, if I started playing again 2 months later... I will have already forgotten everything.

The art style is great, gameplay is fine, music is cool, story is absolutely forgettable, but has ONE interesting twist at the end, at least. All in all I would not pay 25 bucks for it, sadly. While there is enough to unlock, technically ... in reality I just don't feel compelled to start another run, unlike with most rogue-lites. It's just too samey and tedious. And the meta progression is utterly boring.

The turn system turns every combat into a meaningful puzzle as you try and figure out how to break as many enemies as possible each round. All of the moves are impactful, including the basic defend move, which in a lot of games is usually simply not as effective as attacking more. I'm usually not a JRPG fan, but this game is good.