This is gonna be a brief first impression from the 47min that I played today. While sure it wasn't a long time played(I have my left arm to blame, since I've hurt my left elbow yesterday and it hurts like hell, so it makes kind of uncomfortable to use my notebook), but I enjoyed it a lot nonetheless.
First off, the combat, since is the first thing that we are introduced on the game. I really enjoyed it, specially the way we can balance the attack/shield/speed every turn. I liked the "special attacks" too, specially those small ships that help me(good thing I don't have to control those, hehe). I've been reading some changelogs before and I know that the combat was real-time before, but even though I didn't played it back then, I can say for sure that making it turn based was for the best. While I love the real-time on AI War, I feel like this turn-based worked really well here, specially because we only control one ship on this game, so having time to think helps a lot since we don't want to lose this ship
The "diplomatic" part of the game is awesome as well. I made a lot of enemies because I tried to help as many planets as I could to get the "be able to go to space" thing, hehe. I should probably try not to do that a lot the next time I play, because getting the pissed-of guys to be friendly again takes a long time, specially if they have -280 friendship towards you
. While I was trying to make this -280 friendship race be my friend by spending 20 months doing some stuff for them, another race entered war with 2 other races, so it probably wasn't a smart move to waste 20 months on a single mission. Then I saw that there was an option to make them stop war, but I didn't have enough money to convince them, so.... ¯\_(?)_/¯
The "create a federation" thing I still need to learn. Unfortunately I died on a "destroy pirates" mission before I could try it, by making some silly mistakes on combat
(note to self: getting too close to the enemy while your shields are down is not a smart move, but a kamikaze one).
Overall, my first experience was quite positive. The game seems to have a really huge dept, and it seems I was only able to see the top of the iceberg on this first playthrough, but what I've seen has made a really good first impression. I liked the way the game teaches you the basic stuff but at the same time don't try to burden you with lots of information, and just informs you where you can learn more. Not trying to talk bad or anything, but in AI War I usually need to replay the tutorial when I pass some months without playing, so I can remember the controls and everything, while in TLF I don't think I'll ever need to re-read the basic stuff again, so it's a really positive point for me, hehe.
Well, that's it. Hope I can play some more in a few days when my elbow heals, and I really hope this game sells awesomely-well on launch, since it's really a "different" kind of game, in a good sense. Wish you guys the best
