Space Wreck Review

There is a certain kind of person who revels in the idea of exploring the vast unknown of space. To many, it seems like a grand adventure filled with the wonders of the unknown. However, there is a side of space exploration that is rarely looked at, namely how truly crushing the experience could be. That is part of the reasoning behind Pahris Entertainment SIA’s latest game Space Wreck.

Space Wreck is an isometric RPG, a design made famous by games like the original Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game and Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. The game relies heavily on building the right character and having multiple choices and options for how to deal with situations. This is not a game where combat should be the main avenue of problem-solving, in fact, it is often the worst choice. So the main question is if this is a journey you should space-jump into, or would it be better to stay planet-side?

Space Wreck’s plot starts simply enough, you and your ship have been attacked, and you need repairs. You manage to reach an abandoned space station, and the rest of the crew elect you to be the first person to find the fuel and pieces that you need. From this humble beginning, you will begin your quest and what a journey it will be. Space Wreck doesn’t hide the fact that you will constantly be offered a choice in how to proceed. You can, in theory, break into a locked room and shoot everyone to get what you want. However, you could also explore the map and talk to people to discover a secret route instead. 

Honestly, I found a wealth of different routes during my playthrough, and the writing and story worked to keep everything going as it should. One of the standout interactions for me involved convincing someone to let me reach their base safely by making use of my Lord of the Rings knowledge. It was fun to see and fun to experience, but it isn’t perfect. While the writing is good, it is occasionally too sparse with information and often leaves everything up to exploration. This is great if you like that kind of design, but it makes it much less appealing to the casual player who just wants to explore the universe.

The actual gameplay involves using the mouse to move around the level rather than using more standard movement controls. It’s usable enough and simple to set a moving point and wait for your character to reach it with no issue. The same is true for interacting with crates, people, or computers, as it is all a simple button press to find what you need to find. The only issue that comes up is that, if there are many things in one place, it becomes tough to differentiate between them so it can become a game of moving the cursor around slowly to see if it touches the right thing.

Outside of movement, there is the other part of any RPG, the character creation and how it affects the player's ability to interact with the world. When you create a character, you have a select number of points to put into stats and skills, and they’re all pretty well explained. You don’t start with a wealth of points so if you want to spread your skills out, then you won’t be very good at anything. There is an argument that the game wants you to focus on only one aspect, but I didn’t feel that I was suffering unduly during my playthroughs as I multitasked. These skills come into play when you need to take certain skill checks, which take the form of several rolling dice while attempting to reach a certain number. The dice can either be neutral, add more or subtract to the base number. Essentially the goal is to reach a certain number to succeed and each point in that specific perk adds another dice to the roll. It is a system that works well enough, and the game is clear about your chances, but the mini-game does get dull quite quickly. 

Combat, when it is used, is suitably unforgiving but not impossible. There are a wealth of weapons and methods of fighting but it all boils down to action points. Now, nearly everyone has some experience with the concept of action points, and we know what to expect. You have actions but a limited number of points to use in engagements, it’s a good system and it flows well. However, there is an issue in that the enemy AI can be easily tricked. I spent one whole fight walking into a room, shooting, leaving the room (which broke combat) then walking back in and starting the fight again. It is probably helped that your partner AI is also…quite thick sometimes and the lack of simple direct control is somewhat hampering. The main challenge for combat comes from the general lack of healing items, making each fight potentially devastating. 

Visually, the game holds its inspirations close to its chest, namely that the visual design is simple but effective. The character models are nothing spectacular and it is tricky to tell the difference between characters but that is solved when engaging in conversation. Like the fallout games that were Space Wreck’s inspiration, there is a separate screen when engaging in conversation that shows a more detailed picture of the person you’re talking to. It isn’t much better visually, but it makes the conversation feel more personal, which certainly helps.

Space Wreck is a game that feels like a recreation of a bygone age of gaming, and it is certainly a nostalgia trip to play. The writing is interesting, and the combat is serviceable, but it isn’t a game that will draw in people who never liked isometric RPGs in the past. There is plenty here for fans of the style clearly, and hopefully, the series will see more in the future. The gameplay is also simple enough that new players won’t feel overwhelmed so if you ever wanted to know what it was like to play PC games in the 90’s then this could be for you.