Citizen Sleeper 2 was supplied by Fellow Traveller for evaluation. Thanks!
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector is a curious one. Whereas formally marketed as an “Journey RPG,” I might outline it extra as a Visible Novel with lite RPG parts. Usually, I might be up for this mash-up of genres, however once you keep in mind all the opposite elements of Citizen Sleeper 2, it left me feeling as if this recreation is one massive missed alternative.
Citizen Sleeper 2 is extremely text-heavy. I do know it is an RPG, and so they naturally are inclined to have an emphasis on story and textual content, however this falls into the realms of Visible Novel territory that sees you spending a number of minutes studying the non-voiced dialogue because it’s displayed on the display screen, with some occasional essential selections via the dialogue display screen.
Sadly, I wasn’t an enormous fan of the best way this was dealt with. The truth that there are not any voices for the characters is unusual, contemplating that the sport’s predominant emphasis is the story, the characters, and their background. Maybe much more unusual is that there appears to be little or no use of music or sound results to match the scenario. One thing tense occurs within the textual content on-screen, and the music carries on being a relaxed area ambiance. All characters are additionally represented by a nonetheless picture, which does not alter relying on the scenario.
Whereas the textual content is pretty well-written from my perspective and may trigger pressure and typically make you assume, the utter lack of atmosphere-building from a sound design and sometimes visible perspective is kind of baffling to me and harms the sport’s potential to inform its story.
The story itself is… Properly, it is pretty easy. You’re a “Sleeper,” a humanoid who emulates a human thoughts in a synthetic physique on the run from a company that constructed you and seeks to take care of management of you. Another person enslaved by the company helps you escape, and the sport is then centered on staying one step forward of the company pursuing you by ensuring your “Rig” (spaceship) is spaceworthy and assembling a crew to tackle new contracts and earn that coveted Cryo (the sport’s foreign money).
The story is not something outlandish, and to be trustworthy, I discovered many individuals on-line saying that Citizen Sleeper 1 was fairly an emotional recreation, and I did not discover that to be the case with Citizen Sleeper 2. The writing is descriptive, however I wasn’t discovering myself getting hooked up to any of the characters, presumably because of the already-mentioned points. You additionally do not get to dive deep into the character’s backgrounds, to allow them to typically really feel shallow.
You may’t identify your self within the recreation both; everybody merely refers to you as “Sleeper.” This made me begin to wonder if folks had been simply saying it as a type of derogatory time period at factors; it looks as if an alienating design alternative for the participant. It actually made me wrestle to care a few participant character who appears inhuman and basically has no dialogue within the recreation past the precise selections you might be given.
As for the gameplay, Citizen Sleeper 2 employs an fascinating mechanic the place the cube that you simply roll initially of every “cycle” (day) can be utilized to carry out sure actions. It goes a bit extra intricate than that, with sure characters having cube that may use their abilities to spice up the worth of their cube. Nonetheless, in the end, the gameplay hinges on RNG, with the random numbers in your rolled cube initially of the cycle largely dictating how your subsequent few actions will go.
It is a curious alternative so as to add RNG to a largely story-based recreation, the place gamers may really feel that they lose the sport via no fault of their very own, particularly contemplating the sport has a hardcore mode the place your save is misplaced upon loss of life. As I mentioned above, you may mitigate the RNG by leveling up your character and giving your self a bonus, however there’ll all the time be an inexpensive quantity of randomness that impacts your gameplay and the alternatives you resolve to make.
Other than the cube rolls, you may even be doing useful resource administration. Citizen Sleeper 2 has key sources so that you can steadiness, equivalent to gas, provides, and Cryo. Gasoline lets you transfer across the map and improve the timer earlier than your pursuers catch as much as you. Provides are used to maintain your power ranges up and thus stave off “stress,” which is a mechanic that may negatively impression your cube rolls. Cryo is cash, which is used to purchase gas, provides, and different sources, equivalent to parts that may repair cube which were damaged by stress, for instance.
This does add some quantity of technique to the sport, requiring gamers to prioritize what sources they need to collect at that individual time, principally to maintain extending the variety of cycles till you might be caught by your pursuers whereas nonetheless having essential sources accessible to progress the sport’s storyline. In my view, that is probably the most well-executed a part of the sport, and having to consider your subsequent few strikes helped preserve me engaged, even when it was disappointing how a lot RNG may have an effect on my plans.
When it comes to presentation, Citizen Sleeper 2 is fairly fundamental. The UI is laid out clearly and boldly, which I used to be grateful for. The “background” is a 3D rendered atmosphere that’s fairly low poly, however it does a good job of representing your world. The sound design, as I discussed earlier than, is a bit lackluster. The sport’s audio is basically simply area ambiance, with the occasional slight adjustment relying on what’s occurring on display screen, however there isn’t any actual music or sound results current within the recreation.
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector – Steam Deck Efficiency
Citizen Sleeper 2 works properly for probably the most half on Steam Deck. The sport helps 1280×800 as a decision, so there are not any black borders across the display screen. The sport additionally has controller help, though typically navigating the UI on a controller is usually a little irritating. Some textual content is small however usually readable. You may as well improve the scale of dialogue textual content, which I like to recommend.
The graphical settings are non-existent, so we can not alter them. I like to recommend you restrict your Steam Deck to 30 FPS within the SteamOS body limiter. In any other case, the CPU goes into overdrive to hit 60 or 90 FPS, and at factors, I dropped beneath 60 when taking part in. Given the sport’s model, 30 FPS is completely tremendous.
A TDP Restrict of 5W usually works tremendous, however you could want 6W for some environments.
With a 30 FPS restrict, the sport tends to make use of round 8-10W on my Steam Deck OLED, which means you need to see round 5 hours of battery life, whereas the Steam Deck LCD would handle round 3.5 hours. Temperatures largely stayed round 55C.
Accessibility:
There’s a capability to extend the textual content dimension of dialogue within the choices menu, which I like to recommend, in addition to the selection of three difficulties, Story mode, Regular, and Hardcore. Other than that, there are not any accessibility choices in Citizen Sleeper 2.
Conclusion:
Citizen Sleeper 2 is a curious recreation. Whereas billed as an Journey RPG, it performs way more like a Visible Novel with gentle RPG parts. Is it well-written? Completely. The textual content is descriptive and does assist construct some phrase photos in your thoughts, however that is not a alternative for the dearth of graphic and audio design that lets the sport down. The story additionally did not seize my consideration, as I struggled to care concerning the participant character on account of how “inhuman” the sport portrays them and their interactions with others.
Making the sport fairly reliant on RNG was additionally a curious alternative for a story-based recreation, significantly one which penalizes loss of life closely. Whereas it may well add some further pressure to the sport, it may well additionally really feel low-cost when your “25% probability to fail” retains failing repeatedly. It could possibly make you are feeling helpless via no fault of your personal.
As for the way Citizen Sleeper 2 runs on the Steam Deck, apart from some management points deciding on the correct buttons on the UI and a few overly CPU-intensive scenes, the sport runs properly when locked to 30 FPS, and you’ll absolutely benefit from the recreation on the Steam Deck.
Our evaluation is predicated on the PC model of this recreation.
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