Star Renegades Review

Star Renegades has you controlling a group of units out among the stars as they try and fight back against the Imperium, a shadowy and evil collection of creatures well deserving of their imposing name. Thankfully, the people you take control of after the tutorial have been warned by a mysterious service robot about this impending danger. Of course, a warning can only do so much; you’re still going to have to fight back against this threat yourself.

The good news is that you can fight. In fact, you’re probably going to end up very good at it. Naturally, as is the case with any roguelike, the combat is where Star Renegades really shines. Battles take place in a turn-based fashion. However, while normally you would just take turns thwacking each other, things are a lot deeper than that here.

Each character has an array of attacks to utilise. Each one has its own attributes, potential status effects, and timing. The timing thing is especially important because if you can hit an enemy before they’ve acted, you’ll get a critical hit. Better yet, if you hit an enemy enough, you can knock them off of the timeline at the top of the screen, and if you do that, then they don’t get to attack at all.

Before you do anything

Combat in Star Renegades hinges on these ideas and this timeline. By managing not only your own timings, but your opponent’s, you can completely control the flow of battle. Suddenly big enemies will never hit you, and you can get through a lot of fights by merely studying the enemy weaknesses, striking them before they can move, and basically never letting up.

Of course, if you could do this constantly things would be rather unbalanced, so each enemy can only be staggered like this a certain number of times. That means that sometimes you’re better off letting them hit you, after all, if it’s not a massive attack, then maybe you can just absorb the damage and destroy them next turn.

That’s one hell of a view

Now, while combat is definitely my favourite thing about Star Renegades, it’s not the only good thing here. Screenshots don’t do the game justice; it’s just astoundingly pretty. The mix of 3D viewpoints and stunning 2D pixel art is like a fine whiskey for your eyes. You drink it in slowly, absorbing all of the colours and little details and before you know it you’re intoxicated with these gorgeous worlds.

There’s also the roguelike elements themselves, which are rather unique amongst roguelikes, and almost worth exploring the game just to discover them. Oh, also, Star Renegades has its own version of the Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor, and honestly, it’s a damn good interpretation of it, and it works incredibly well here.

Star Renegades is an excellent game, one that will keep you entertained for as long as you’ll let it. It’s pretty, the gameplay is exquisite, and ultimately, it’s just a lot of fun. The fact that it’s also got some of the most interesting systems of a roguelike I’ve played helps a lot too. The difficulty can be a bit wonky in places, and the writing doesn’t always hit, but overall, Star Renegades is a deceptively deep and really rewarding game that’ll beat you over the head just as often as it’ll reward your ingenuity.