The Red Juggernaut

[i] My Experience [/i] The idea of this game really piqued my interest - a modular ship-building RPG. I tend to appreciate it when games give me a lot of freedom to customize my character and create a build, and in [b]The Red Juggernaut[/b] you quite literally create the build by adding blocks to your ship. I also appreciated that the game is focused on a single character (ship) - JRPGs often lose my interest when I have to manage an entire party with pre-existing personalities and skills. However, once I got out into space I found myself a bit lost. I would've welcomed a bit more tutorializing when it comes to ship building/components and the in-game menus (radio? warp? search?). I was victorious against the first few simple ships I faced, but after a while I found myself damaged and vulnerable. You can repair your ship a limited number of times during combat and at a station (?), but I couldn't figure out what the limiting factors here were. Eventually, I was unable to repair my ship and was defeated. Afterwards, I just wasn't motivated to try again. I wasn't interested in "feeling my way" through these inscrutable systems, and the random battles felt like such a time-wasting …

I'll start with the obvious, this game is not for everybody. Now with that out of the way, this is a great NES-style game, by that I mean that after a bit of storytelling, it drops you into the world and you are expected to figure things out. You are expected to grind at the start to survive but after gaining 1-2 levels, you are in much better shape to tackle the maze-like areas to reach your next objective. I was tempted to take out my old notebook and draw a map as I went along. The battle system is turn-based ship to ship combat. You can pretty much fully customize your ship, getting new parts as you level up and buying or finding new weapons. Each part you add increases your hit points and also adds new functionality depending on the part. An extra engine allows you to evade farther, a power core gives you more weapon power so you can add more weapons and so on. You can target individual sections of the enemy ship, at first just hitting the cockpit works but later you may want to target other systems such as particular weapons or maybe the engines to prevent them from evading. The music is great as it fits the mood and atmosphere but they are short tracks on repeat so they …

So Im at the end of the game, and came across a ship called "Big Tiny" This thing has 3 actions per round. It has a laser cannon, 2 machine guns, 4 power generators, a launcher, and 2 shield gens. I also have 4 power generators, and I generate something like +45 energy per round. HOW is Big Tiny able to fire a Laser (75 power) launch a torpedo (25 power) and either fire a Machine Gun (15 Power) or refresh its shield (50 power) EVERY ROUND?! So I blew up 2 of its power generators. Guess what? nothing changed. It was still able to do over 100 power worth of actions every round, with only 2 remaining power gens. And this guy isnt a boss! And the point that you encounter him at? Theres no save point for the last third of the game. I am ready to just lose the war of attrition against this game, and walk away. The only reason Im still playing it is that my ship hasnt blown up yet. Ive also had to keep the app running in the background on my PC for two days now because have I mentioned there's NO SAVE POINT for the last third of the game? Oh and the music volume option? Doesnt work. Its like 8 notes repeated indefinitely. Had to mute the whole thing from volume mixer. This suc…

The Red Juggernaut is 2D top down retro pixel RPG. The developer describes it as a JRPG, which is wrong because the gameplay is closer to games that predate JRPGs. Imagine making retro pixel garbage to dump on Steam because you know so much about retro gaming but you never heard about Ultima. Anyway, I digress. This is an old school RPG/spaceship combat game where you move around a square "space" grid and interact with stuff and fight stuff using menus and so on... Well, the concept of a space RPG is really quite a good concept and can be absolutely amazing when done well, just take a look at The Outer Wilds, Starfield and Mass Effect. The Red Juggernaut is not done well. It turns out the success factor in game development is not in fact "I had a good idea for a game", rather, the ability of the developer to develop games in a professional manner. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of t…

Great twist on the old school Dragon Quest/Warrior style rpg. Building your ship with parts is very cool too.