My squid-like drones were weaving through an asteroid field, taking the long way around the battlefield that my fighter squadrons were busy engaging the enemy squadrons in. My fighters, with the support of the massive laser cannons mounted on my warship, were holding back the entirety of the enemy’s forces. But “holding out” isn’t enough to win a battle. My drones were the little swarm of aces I had up my sleeve.
My crew had already been through a lot. Crying Suns challenges players to make some tough decisions and put their crew through galactic hell while doing so. After a lucky streak of peaceful encounters, I stumbled upon an enemy captain who was clearly planning to ask questions later, if at all.
So there I was, watching my drones squirm through the void of space, their auto-nav systems sending them straight to the enemy’s hull to hopefully deliver a fatal flurry of damaging blasts. As my fighters began blipping out of existence in the center of the battlefield, I kept a hopeful eye on that little swarm of drones.
They almost made it. Just as they were about to pelt the enemy warship, the enemy fighters surged at my warship. My already low shields collapsed under the strain of concentrated fire. A final blast from the enemy’s warship was the goodnight kiss that put my brave space soldiers to sleep forever.
The whole conflict lasted a half-dozen minutes of tense, fast-paced decision making. Then it was over, just like that.
And miraculously I wasn’t stressed out. I was relaxed and having a great time. That sensation felt like a breath of fresh air after playing high-intensity, reflex-based games like Apex Legends and Mordhau all weekend. Here, in Crying Suns, was an exciting adventure game where I could just chill out and maybe save the galaxy if I’m lucky.
Crying Suns is a rogue-lite strategy game that has players controlling Ellys Idaho, a reactivated clone of his former self. Crying Suns does an excellent job developing an interesting story that players have the ability to skip through, should they desire to just focus on the decision-making sequences and combat scenarios.
However, though I have not completed the game’s story (yet!), what I have experienced has been interesting to the point where I find myself pondering the storyline while I’m not playing the game.
What’s been keeping me from getting to the end of the game is the fact that Crying Suns is a tough game.
As a rogue-lite game, I expected to fail. The game builds on the rinse-and-repeat gameplay loop by explaining that a base powered by artificial intelligence keeps clones of the protagonist ready to go like a fridge full of beer bottles. When one clone dies, another is plucked out of hibernation and activated to probably go die too.
The A.I. is also kind enough to provide each newly cloned Ellys Idaho with a new ship and a selection of crew members to pick from. Players have some agency in each adventure as they can choose which ship to set out with (once new ships become unlocked) and can pick from a randomly selected group of crew members who each come with unique skills and abilities.
Once a ship and crew are selected, players are launched into space to resume seeking answers as to what happened to the empire that once controlled the galaxy — and employed Ellys.
Each chapter is broken up into space sectors, and each sector has a sprawling star chart linking galaxies, all of which players can choose to explore. Fuel is needed to travel from location to location, “salvage” is used as currency, and commandos are your foot soldiers who can be sent to planets to resolve minor conflicts or scavenge for resources.
Crying Suns sets itself apart from other, similar games by keeping the gameplay systems simple. Even the strategic space combat involves a rock-paper-scissors-like dynamic to ensure that you’ll always know what type of space ship counters what other type. The straightforward presentation helped me quickly fall into Crying Suns’s gameplay groove and remain comfortable there for hours.
Once I got settled into a session of Crying Suns, I found it difficult to break away. The game doesn’t require a ton of focus and precision like other rogue-lites like Enter the Gungeon or Dead Cells do. Plus the game’s chill soundtrack lulled me into clicking just one more star system to explore before I shut my PC down for the night.
However, one strange — and frustrating — exception to the continuity experience is that between chapters, the game forces you to reset. So if I successfully build up a crew and warship that gets me through chapter 2, when I start chapter 3 I have to start from scratch. It didn’t make sense. The story continued on, my Captain Idaho didn’t die, but I came to life as a new clone.
The other slight downside is that I’ve started to notice a lot of the same scenarios pop up. A cargo freighter full of slaves…a pirate ship about to mutiny its captain…a ship full of civilians who are hopelessly infected…it seems like the number of randomized scenarios is small. Considering you’ll probably be playing through sections of the game over and over, having a limited number of scenarios to work with felt repetitive — especially when I learned how they turn out depending on which option you pick.
Overall though, Crying Suns is great. If you’re looking for a relaxing strategy game that utilizes rogue-like mechanics, Crying Suns is totally going to scratch that itch.
A retail copy of Crying Suns was provided to Epic Brew by the publisher.
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[…] have easily relaxed into a trance — much how I felt playing the ultra-chill space strategy game, Crying Suns, […]