Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius

If there is anything to be learned from this game its that this is not how you should make a game. The turns take to long because every unit needs an animation showing them firing, the target being hit and your character telling you they got hit but don't worry you can click through except that the game will just regularly crash. The late game just turns into torture when the enemy has the ability to just disable your characters energy regen for a single turn so you just can't move or attack at all against an ever growing swarm of enemies. If you can beat this game at the regular difficulty without cheating good on you

This game is just not fun. Not just that it is not fun, it is frustrating to the point I just don’t want to play it. The balance is way off and the idea of a challenge here is just throw ridicules amount of enemies at you and then keep spawning more and more. Every simple escort missing here is like the “last and decisive battle for the galaxy”. Your units are really not that good and you have very limited options and resources. I started at Captain difficulty and along the game just reduced it and reduced it until I realized, I am not having fun anymore. So even though I am late game, I just don’t want to keep playing. Bad game design.

Interesting turn based style game.

Fairly fun, quite difficult. If you run into memory-related crashes on modern systems, try holding down shift while launching the game and picking the ANGLE/DirectX renderer instead of OpenGL

Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius is one of those games that gives me a lot more than I expect from something that is completely free. It mixes a visual novel with turn based tactical battles, mechs, space combat and a big science fiction story. I play as Captain Kayto Shields, who is trying to gather allies and take back his home world after it is conquered. What makes it more interesting for me is that this version includes the earlier First Arrival story as well, so I am getting the first two parts of the Sunrider story in one game. The story is probably what keeps me moving forward the most. There is a lot of dialogue between battles, and I get to learn more about the crew and the wider conflict as I travel around the galaxy. I like the space opera feeling, especially when the story starts bringing in political problems, moral decisions and larger battles. The characters can be a little exaggerated at times, but that fits the anime style. The artwork and music also work well together, and I think the game does a good job making the crew feel like an important part of the journey rather than just units I send into battle. The tactical combat is where I think Sunrider gets surprisingl…

Rather fun, if exactly what the genre implies.