They announced that they’ll add it as free DLC, but the game didn’t sell all that well on PS4 or PC, and steam achievements show only a fraction of those people got that far, so it’s got to be disheartening working on something that only a tiny fraction of your players will get to experience. But hopefully now that it’s a PS+ freebie, they know that a lot of people will get to experience Chapter 5 once it comes out.
Yeah, I just had the same reaction. I finally beat season 4 last week, and was looking forward to finding some time over the weekend to get into 5. Then I loaded it up and it’s marked as “coming soon”. Apparently it actually is coming soon despite some development snags, but it’s still a disappointing way of presenting it.
I just see Sorcerer King. Did I miss it? I’d love to own a version on the PC too.
Edit: Oh man, watching the GoG.com page as all these titles rotate in is the most annoying way to do a sale EVER. I hate this.
Edit 2: Over 30 minutes later. I can’t take this anymore. I’m walking away. I’m sure it will be on sale again someday. This just isn’t worth it.
RIGHT NOW Rock!
For what it’s worth, $10 was the same price I got it for in the last Steam sale, so it’s not an unprecedented bargain. It’ll surely be that low or lower again in the near future, without the need to keep watching the GOG page.
Looks like I missed it. But Thraeg is right. I’m sure it will be on sale again soon.
Meanwhile, the game is currently too tough for me in 2-1. The second form really is such a hard form to get used to. I’m thinking of starting over. Back when I got to 2-1 the first time, I traded in 6 purple coins. But at the time, I only had crappy upgrades available to me before 2-1 with those cashed in credits. Maybe if I got there again, this time I’ll randomly get better upgrades at the shop. That’s got to be better than the current setup, where I start from scratch in 2-1.
That’s probably unnecessary. Only a few of the available upgrades affect ship mode anyway. You’re probably better off just putting more time into practicing with it in 2-1 until it clicks than trying to build up purple coins.
According to Galak-Z’s Steam forum, the company that made it is in danger and really going through a rough patch. It’s a shame, I think this is a really solid title, but I admit I probably wouldn’t have touched it if it hadn’t been a PS+ freebie.
I made it to 2-3! You know how I did it? I gave up on trying to transform back and forth and trying to find the best form for the job. Now I just stay in my first form which I’m already a master of, thanks to playing through Chapter 1 for so long. Heehee.
Also, I’m loving the almost non-existent load times on the PC version. PS4 takes forever to load a level in comparison. I wonder why? I’m not even using my SSD for Galak-Z, just my 7200 RPM HDD.
Episode 5 is now in beta. But only on Steam. I own the PS4 and GoG.com versions. Plus I’m still only on Episode 2. Last weekend I got to the last level in Episode 2, but then I died early in the mission.
Most of my skills have atrophied by this point. I gave this another spin briefly last night. Gosh, this game is so good.
I need to make room in my “Best games of all time” list for this game, somewhere in the Top 20 I think.
Back in 1992 when I was playing Star Control 2, I thought games like this would be so common in the future. How foolish! It took 23 years before a game had similarly satisfying physics-based 2D space combat again. (Unless I missed something in between?)
Honestly, this would definitely be a desert island game for me, right along with a Civilization game.
Way to make me feel bad that I didn’t get very far past the part where your spaceship turns into a frickin’ mech!
-Tom
You do realize that he probably has Ryse: Son of Rome on his top 20 as well, right?
Ryse is number 1 in the “games made by Crytek” category, but sadly it did not crack my top 100. It did make the Honorable Mentions category though, for getting me excited about Roman history for the first time. I’ve listened to a lot of lectures on the Roman Empire since then!
I don’t like that game at all. I am being nice, here. I haven’t played it in a long time.
It felt to me it was a two-headed beast.
You basically get two conflicting games/views and it seems nobody at 17-bits had the guts to make the decision to pick a side.
On one hand you got a pretty nifty and simple shooter with some inertia and cute enemies interactions - the game Rock8man loves. The permadeath makes it very tense and there is quite a few adrenaline rushes to be had there.
On the other hand, you get a weird mix of anime and American morning cartoon presentation, with tons of talk and silly sounding, repetitive voices. At best, none of those things make much sense considering the punishing nature of the afore-mentioned game. Most of the time, it even crushes its atmosphere under the noisy soundtrack and that clutter of childish references (props to Tom for showing me how great the game’s ambiance was once you cut the music off, by the way).
But here comes the worse to me: the whole game’s pacing is modified to adequate to this unasked narrative layer. Here is an overly lengthy roguelite with tons of talk, unskippable cutscenes and drawn-out levels, but minus any of the variety usually found in the genre.
I think that’s a problem. Roguelite and 1 hours-long levels don’t really mix well. Adding to that some really stupid design choice, like the fact you install upgrades on picking them up without way to identify them (awesome, in a permadeath setting!), and the initial solid good little game ends up ruined by over-ambition and the seemingly lack of a clear idea of what it should have been.
Also, it is my understanding that they tackled on an Endless mode in lieu of the promised last level(s). Early Access in disguise.
Sorry for crapping all over your thread, Rock8man, but the game must indeed have some pretty nice space combat for me feeling so frustrated by what it turned out to be.
Now I will take my morning coffee, and probably will delete my rant once I have done that.
I think it’s the oposite. The game started as a story driven linear shooter, and it was midway through development that it became a roguelike. I still remember the announcement when they announced the shift.
Ah, so it’s stuff that should have been cut, and not stuff that had been tackled on after. I understand that sort of decision is as hard to make, but I still think it should have been made.
I don’t disagree, I just wanted to point out that it wasn’t supposed to be a roguelike and that the roguelike structure was tackled on because, by their own admission, they didn’t have the resources to handcraft the campaign.
This game cracks me up. Like the discussion between your pilot and Beam, who runs the mothership -
“I’m hungry. You need to get us food.”
“Is there food in space?”
“I’ve detected some crates. You’ve gotta shoot 'em open.”
“Won’t that ruin the food?”
“It’s space food. It’s resilient.”