Faster Than Light Review

The game makes use of classic 16-bit graphic visual style, but we’ve seen so many games opt for this “retro” feel that it’s starting to feel a little overused in this case. It’s a style that works best when going for a feeling of charm, humor, or maybe nostalgia, but Faster Than Light doesn’t really capitalize on any of these aesthetics. With gameplay centered around brutal combat, this title has its fair share of dying crewmen, bloodthirsty slavers, and murderess aliens, but there doesn’t seem to be a unified tone for the game to focus around: is it supposed to be cute, or adventurous, or threatening? In this vein, Faster Than Light also has almost no real world building to speak of, which feels like a missed opportunity. Granted, it’s so easy to lose crewmembers that you can hardly expect a narrative to build up around the game, but even your interactions with the various space factions seems underdeveloped: each faction is essentially reduced to a ship type and attack pattern, without character or conflict, and with quickly-repeating one-line motivations for attacking you or your ship. For an indie game so entirely focused on a unique gameplay experience, a critique about the story and trappings may seem to be nitpicky. However, these are the aspects that can tip a game from ‘good’ to ‘great’: a well-crafted fiction and style can amplify the joy of good gameplay, and in the past decade the indie game market has raised to a new standard in this respect. Perhaps this wouldn’t bother me so much if the makers hadn’t mentioned the cult classic TV series Firefly as one of the inspirations for the game.

The music in the game similarly does not feel particularly inspired, keeping to simple background synth pads and leads, and with something of an underwhelming title theme. It does at least appropriately change the music to suit the situation, fading out ‘combat music’ for ‘safety music’, which always helps emphasize the mood of any game. Overall, considering that the game quickly focuses on (admittedly very well done) grinding gameplay, I think most people will find themselves switching the music off.

Faster Than Light has no multiplayer component, and while a little bit of experience with the game might make the player eager to battle his ship against those of his friends, the game design in general simply isn’t built for multiplayer. To lure people back for replay, Faster Than Light has a lovely ship unlock system that gives you access to new designs and layouts. This is an unlock system done right, because these aren’t merely cosmetic niceties and doodads; since each ship includes a unique set of starting upgrades and capabilities, they can make for very different experiences, and in order to beat the game you’ll need to pick out the ship that best complements your style of gameplay. This system even balances the method of unlock nicely: new ship designs are awarded to you for reaching different hidden objectives or completing surprise side missions, but each design has a unique alternative layout that unlocks after completing two out of three designated achievements. In other words, some unlocks you’ll get as a mystery, and others you can actively chase after.

Faster Than Light is a little bit like a “golden-toe” football player: it only does one thing well, but it does it so well that it overshadows other deficiencies. In Faster Than Light, the developers pushed for rock-solid, beautifully polished gameplay, and they absolutely nailed it. The actual encounter-based combat is among the best of ship-to-ship combat simulators (which is actually a big pond). The rest of the game pales in comparison, but these are just the weaker fighters circling around the flagship feature. If you have a special place in your heart for that captain’s chair on the spaceship’s bridge, you’ll be delighted by this chance to finally test your mettle.