Sunrider 4: The Captain’s Return Review – A Glorious Return?
Entry posted by Pallas_Raven in Review
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This is a condensed version of the full review which can be found on my Main Blog Here.
Genre – Sci-fi, Action, Mecha Play Time - 22 hours Developer – Love In Space Steam
Return From Exile
A fall from grace changes a man and exile from all he has ever known can break him. Such is the state of Kayto Shields as the curtain rises on the fourth game in the Sunrider series. This is the tale of how he pulls himself up from the pit he has fallen into, but this journey will be far same smooth sailing. Love In Space are back again with another space adventure through the brilliant Sunrider universe with a familiar crew, but now on the back foot as both enemies and former allies see them as a threat. The game also features a complete rework of the combat systems and leans into creating more realistic feeling battles with tactical depth. But how does the whole package fit together and is it the worthy sequel we have waited five years for? Let’s jump into our ryders and travel to the edges of the universe and find out.
The War is Over – Narrative and Themes
To be in exile is to be left behind by the world and on your return you may find that the world no longer wants you. It is this feeling which Sunrider 4 focuses its plot and themes around to great effect and manages to balance the needs of a sequel with its own unique identity. It builds on Liberation Day in all the right ways, picking up the plot points left by that game and running with them inside its own narrative. The choice to put the heroes on the back foot also factors strongly into the effectiveness of the core events of the game and they work together to communicate the journey of the crew. Of course it is not perfect and the game’s relationship with the additions to Liberation Day is an uncomfortable one at best.
A sequel should build on what came before in its own distinctive manner and this is no easy task, especially so when that game in the fourth in a series. The way in which Captain’s Return chooses to tackle this problem is by taking the points which defined the previous games and asking what they really meant and what people beyond the crew thought of them. This extends from both the obvious fallout from the Liberation Day massacre to smaller relationships between the crew and works to create an overall sense of both progression and returning to a familiar place. It takes the ending point and runs with it, drawing many ideas presented in that game to their logical conclusion within the tone and context of Captain’s Return, be this reinventing familiar mechas in new forms or haunting the characters with past traumas. Relying on this pre-existing backbone means the game does not have to worry about explaining every little detail again to the player and can focus on the heavy lifting of expanding the already rich universe in new and exciting ways. These all combine to make Captain’s Return a benchmark most sequels can only dream of reaching.
If there is one flaw in this otherwise excellent narrative it is the uncomfortable relationship it has with the additions made to Liberation Day after its release. These changes expanded on some key points of that game’s plot and by extension the plot of Captain’s Return. However, the reality is that Captain’s Return picks and chooses which parts of those modifications it considers cannon and this leads to many moments where the player will experience a sense of whiplash as what they have experienced in the previous game is ignored by the new one. These points vary from minor details from the side story to major events and set up from the main game’s ending. It is clear that Love In Space were not entirely happy with the choices they made in the rushed additions to Liberation Day and wanted to trim back things that did not fit into their vision for the future of the Sunrider series. This does not change how this choice can take the player out of the experience which counter to how much effort the game put in to making you feel as if you are a part of this world.
A Captain Is Only As Good As His Crew – Characters
Sunrider’s cast has always been one its biggest strength and means of getting the player invested in the plot. Captain’s Return does a good job of developing the characters and focusing the new additions to help create a lively universe with people who exist beyond the main conflict of the series. However, there is a glaring issue staring you in the face for much of the play time and this is the inconsistent characterisation of some key characters.
Captain’s Return could have relied on the affection the player base already has for the cast and cruised through the narrative without emphasising the characters too much. Instead of resting of their laurels Love In Space made sure to give every member of the main cast some sort of arc both big and small. Sola and Kryska being the crewmates who get by far the most exploration of their personalities as both are faced with very different events which shake what they once held as fundamental truths. There is also notable elements of discord between the crew and Shields who's actions create a disconnect between them and him in a subtle way which never oversteps its bounds but instead highlights Shields’ increasing desperation. This compliments the generally darker tone of the plot by providing a dose of much needed reality to the more idealistic characters and pushing them to the extremes of their beliefs. Shields as the protagonist embodies this push into an examination of the true motives for each person’s actions as he starts at the edge of what he can mentally take and is then pushed far passed breaking point. What results is a fascinating presentation of the kind of mind set that lead him down his path to ruin and having him face and accept this truth sets his character up to be ready for the challenges of future games.
Most of the new characters added by Sunrider 4 serve the purpose of expanding the world building and help provide a more balanced perspective of this universe. Previously the player’s view of the Sunrider universe was limited to the areas directly involved in the conflict which gave a very narrow perspective. To rectify this issue Captain’s Return makes all the new characters serve the role of fleshing out this setting. Since the player is no longer limited to the area of conflict for the war, the narrative can take them to places and people who could not have otherwise been interacted with. Pre’ator Qisah is a good example of this technique as she serves as the player’s main point of interaction with her culture. She is a part of a people who live at the edge of Alliance territory and had their resources bled dry by them, now they are just a backwater nobody cares about. Despite this the player gets a sense of how proud this people are through the actions and words of Qisah who fervently acts on to defend her people with the will of someone that truly believes in their cause. There are countless examples of this communication of place through characters and it helps make Captain’s Return the powerhouse in the series it is.
Space, Mecha and Soul Searching – Visual, Audio and Gameplay
Love In Space have upped their presentation and gameplay with every new game and this is especially true for Captain’s Return as the gap between Sunrider games makes their vast improvement even more obvious. A distinctive visual and audio identity has always been a critical part of the Sunrider games and this fourth instalment does not disappoint. The overhauled gameplay mechanics help inject new life into a system which had reached its limit. Despite these positives there are a few areas where the gameplay stumbles and brings down the experience.
Sci-fi has a set of expected design elements when comes to visuals and audio, especially for a game set in a far future. While these are adhered to by the Sunrider series, it has always strived to inject its own flare into proceedings. Perhaps the best demonstration of this is with the mecha designs. On a base level they adhere to the expectations of a mecha, they are humanoid and adhere to the mechanical aesthetic of the setting. However, in practice the strong use of angles and sharp points gives these machines a strangely otherworldly quality with them appearing to almost be an exaggeration of their pilot’s personalities, which is helped by their smart use of colours to make them stand out from one another. It also goes a long way to help sell these mechas as part of the greater setting and when an ancient or special rider appears their designs lean even more into these aestheic choices. This ensures a consistent presentation without losing what makes the regular mechas special. The rest of the visuals and audio follows a similar trend and together allow Captain’s Return to stand out from among its peers with an identity that many game can only dream of.
The change in the foundational gameplay made by Sunrider 4 is exactly what the series needed. The system which had been in use for the three previous games was already at its limits and Liberation Day clearly felt like the end of the complexity the developers could realistically add to it without the whole thing collapsing. So this reimagination of the old system was definitely needed and the results speak for themselves. More free-form movement mechanics are the new core of the gameplay and involve a conservation of momentum over the course of several turns. No long is movement a static consideration, instead the player must think ahead about where they want to end up and plan for the future accordingly with it becoming increasingly hard to correct course the faster you go. On the other hand it also means you do not have to dedicated valuable turns to movement and can instead focus on attacking the enemy units. What Love In Space has created here is a uniquely dynamic series of interactions which demand the player consider an array of important actions each turn and keeps them constantly engaged.
It is a shame then that this excellent system somewhat goes to waste due to the the other elements of gameplay, most notably the lack of mission variety, long enemy turns in the late game and basic AI. There is some attempt to spice up the mission variety throughout the game with a few mission types, but they can all be boiled down to two type, kill all enemies or move to a place. Within these two types there are some changes made to the standard formula, such as using the move type missions as a form of puzzle, but they ultimately do not stray too far form the base formula leaving them to feeling lacking and repetitive, especially as the game goes on. Compounding this problem is the long enemy turns which are a feature of the late game due to the enemy having a lot of units and each one having to perform their actions as well as move. This causes the pacing of turns to be reduced to a crawl as you can spend up to two minutes waiting for the enemy to finish a turn that only took you maybe thirty seconds due to your lower unit count. As you can imagine this kills the pacing of battles and makes them feel like a slog. The final nail in the coffin is that the AI is not even doing anything interesting during their turn since their patterns are incredibly basic. Broadly speaking they will do one of two things, move into point blank range to shoot at you or fire all their missiles at once. This predictability makes them easy to counter when you realise these are the only tricks in their book and results in the player repeating the same actions each battle and by extension causes them to tune out of the actual events of the battles.
Verdict – There are few series which continue to impressive so consistently in each new entry with their narrative, characters and gameplay in the way the Sunrider series manages to.
Pros
+ A wonderfully crafted space adventure which builds perfectly on the ending to Liberation Day.
+ The cast of Sunrider has always been its biggest strength and they are just a likeable and human as before.
+ Putting the heroes on the back foot allows for characters to show their less desirable aspects and be forced to confront them.
+ Achieve a more lived in feeling universe through a nuanced look at how the politics and people have shaped the world the player witnesses.
+ The new gameplay mechanics are a strong basis from which future games can build.
+ Love In Space continue to up their visual and audio presentation with each game and Captain’s Return is no exception.
Cons
- Implementation of the gameplay is weakened by samey missions, long enemy turns and one note AI.
- Some character directions stretch believability and seem confused, particularity related to Claude.
- Has a very uncomfortable relationship with the additions made to the original Liberation Day.
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