Recent reviews by Kashar

funny italian man go zoom
sheesh

What's not to love about being a small little bug lad exploring a dilapidated kingdom and thwarting a literal deity

I played this over the free weekend, and I absolutely loved it. I played the first Endless Space for over 150 hours now, and have played Endless Legend for 57. I'm no stranger to the Endless series, and have played other 4X and turn-based strategy games. For the most part, this is going to be a review for other people like me who have played the first game.

Pros:
• Tech tree got an overhaul, with most of it being better. I'll say what I mean in neutral and cons. Along with this, planet exploitations have been retooled, and streamlined. Also, related to this; I'm glad that the tech tree was not like Endless Legend, where the researching items cost more when you had much of the trees researched, leading to tier 1 tech costing more than tier 3 tech for example. The best thing to come of this though is that you don't need any specific research to access luxury resources.
  
• Way more planet types now, each with their own features, as well as gas giants now just being their own thing (where in ES1, there were three types of them).
  
• Races have their own unique traits to them, giving each a unique feel to them.
  
• Everything looks fantastic. I was playing on the lowest settings because my computer is pretty old, and even then it looked great and ran well.
  
• More unique planets to find in systems, as well as things like black holes, nebulae, and collapsing stars (that are not colonizable, but give a boost to FIDSI on a system/a +/- effect on battles).
  
• Battles look great, and are much easier to do (for the most part) than in ES1. Much of the card system has been stripped down and refined.
  
• Ship building is way cooler now. It utilizes "nodes" that you can place weapons/defences/etc in, and can customize it however you want, rather than picking enough things to fill your ship's capacity.
  
• Exploration is much more fun, in my opinion. You can send probes down to planets to investigate curiosities (atmospheric, life, subterranian are examples) to find either loot, an anomaly, a resource, or nothing at all. You can also send probes out into space, giving you a secondary method of exploration that eventually fades after a few turns.
  
• Much higher potential for making custom races, involving things like starting minor factions on your home planet, political influences, naming of your people, and the returning benefits like extra movement on ships, bonus to food, negatives, etc.
  
  Neutral:
  
• Tech tree got an overhaul. For people like me, this means re-learning the tech and where things are placed. Just an adjustment, really.
  
• You can't terraform unique planets. This both kinda bugs me, but at the same time I understand, so that's why this is here. As much as I'd love for Auriga to become a powerhouse of research points as a tier 1 planet, I get why it's supposed to be an icy husk.
  
• The Amoeba, Pilgrims, and Hissho from ES1 aren't playable; they've been turned into minor factions, but the Harmony, Sowers, Automatons, and Sheredyn are just gone (Vaulters too, but I think they were more of a bonus for Endless Legend?). Maybe they'll be added later on?
  
• Politics. Everything you do will effect political parties under your control. I like that they brought something new with this, but sometimes it feels a little weird when I build an improvement only to have it been mostly ignored by the party it's supposed to be liked by.
  
  Cons:
  
• There are a lot of things that are gone from the original tech tree that I enjoyed from the first game (like most of the end-game industrial constructions and a couple involving trade routes, which have also gotten an overhaul that i'm on the fence about.)
  
• There are a few bugs still to squish. Nothing super game breaking, but just a little annoying. One such one made me (and a friend in a multiplayer match) unable to click on our own ships orbiting a system to get them to move. I think one other where a minor faction kept attacking me, even though I was at maximum "friendliness" with them and doing a quest for them.
  
• Though I really like the abundance of planet types, it makes it somewhat hard to get a foothold in the galaxy for some races.

And that's about it. Overall, I love this game and it's a big improvement on the first one while still being fresh and fun. I can't wait to actually buy it when I get the funds.

Edit: Update Nov. 2018
Most of the bugs that I had have been adressed, with the exception of the occasional crash. The Hissho and Vaulters are back as DLC, and boy are their expansions worth it. Much of the DLC for this is worth it - even the ones that add music (and great music at that). The base game is still definitely worth it alone though, if you like 4X games.

Play this game.

Fans of Endless Space and the Civ series should find themselves enjoying this game quite a bit, as it blends the two together in a phenomenal way. The visual style of the game is very appealing additionally, with a great soundtrack to go with it.

PROS
-Great Music (as stated)
-Fun Gameplay
-Unique factions and the ability to create custom factions
-Expansive tech tree
-Eats up a lot of time (in a good way)
-UI is easy to learn

CONS
-Tutorial is kinda flat, needs improvement
-Sometimes the AI can be a bit weird
-The scaling Science is a bit awkward

Overall, if you're a fan of most 4X turn-based games, you should enjoy this one.

it's pretty good

It's TF2.



What, you were expecting a witty, humorous comment that summed up the game?