Failed Cosmos. Stars of Akarios review

 Note: I'm more than halfway through one act. The parties consisted of both 2 and 3 participants. The number of ships was as follows:

 2 players - 2 ships;

 3 players - 3 ships;

 2 players - 3 ships;

 2 players - 4 ships.

 Our company considers itself to be quite experienced players and lovers of story games. We've gone through almost every known game with a campaign mode; "Gloomhaven", Descent, Middara, Etherfields, "Tainted Grail", 7th Continent, "Pandemic: Legacy", Clank Legacy, Aeon's End Legacy, card "Arkham Horror", Bardsung, Roll Player Adventures, Kingdom Death, " ».. .

 So, let's begin.

 I really wanted to like Stars of Akarios . We were looking forward to the game and expected a lot from it. Similarities with "Gloomhaven" and 7th Continent were striking. And we, as I already mentioned, love story campaigns... However, after traveling with Akarios for 30-40 hours, we felt... tired. So the review will be critical. Critical, but not purely negative.

 Our first problem, like many other players, was the confusing rulebook. While she does a pretty good job of introducing the basic rules, her attention to detail is sorely lacking. Personally, I really didn't like that a lot of the basic pilot/ship skills weren't covered in the pilot/ship skills section (???). Just take a look at the BGG forum and the game's Facebook page to see how many questions arise about these skills, because the rulebook should answer those questions. I understand the desire to reduce the size of the rulebook (which is typical of many recent games), but it hurts the players.

 And with the description of the mechanics of exploring the surrounding world, things are even sadder. The rules of this section are just terrible. Due to unclear wording during the game, you have to interpret them according to the principle "well, it's more logical, probably" or based on experience. Case in point: Which skill checks can I retry and which can't I? We re-read the chapter several times, but still couldn't figure it out. The Akariosa rulebook is just as weird as the Akariosa world map.

 I still can't help but note the "push" and "pull" icons. Why is the first arrow pointing to the ship, and the second arrow pointing away from the ship?

 The second problem is tracking progress in campaign mode.

 Additional tasks are thrown at you, story lines emerge here and there. What are we even doing here? You can get into the plot only if you make special marks on a piece of paper. Instead of dozens of copies of the pilots' tablets, it would be better if the authors put a large notebook in the box to track the progress of the campaign. There is almost no space on the available sheets. So much extra paper that will never be needed... Hardly a single player in the world will play the campaign 24 times. And if it passes, such an enthusiast can independently print the tablets he needs.

 The third problem is the plot itself.

 I'll be honest: the plot here is... lousy, to say the least. It lacks descriptions. It is very lacking.

 I still have no idea what kind of humans/inhumans are on my crew. I don't know what a yur looks like. Is Captain Soma a man or a woman? And is a person at all? It is unknown. How many of us are here? How is everyday life on the ship?

 The script book feels kind of soulless, empty. I didn't feel drawn to the plot. I wasn't drawn to any of the characters. The Sparks vs Establishment showdown was interesting in theory, but even knowing that I work for Sparks, I have no idea who they are, who their boss is, or what she (or he?) looks like. And we joined Sparks essentially purely by accident, stumbling upon their base. This is probably what the characters wanted, but it doesn't cancel out the feeling of railiness. Of course, I didn't expect Akarios to be Middara or Despised Grail, but given the hype of a "story driven campaign" the result was... underwhelming.

 But maybe the mediocre plot is compensated by the great gameplay? What about game mechanics?

 They are not very good either.

 Exploring the world around you is actually a walking simulator. All problems are solved with ease. Several times the game "pressed" us... but the pressure was very slow and gentle. We managed to easily complete all the tasks and move every location we visited. In places, there is interesting lore, but enjoying it is hindered by the already mentioned lack of descriptions and constant throwing here and there; the plot thread is lost very quickly, and you no longer understand who is who and what is where.

 What about space battles?

 Well... There are some very interesting ideas there. In general, the battles did not leave the worst impression. But there are still complaints.

 Enemies make U-turns very often. On the one hand, it creates the atmosphere of a dog dump, but on the other hand, the enemies are like space balls, lobbing lasers from all directions. According to my feelings, I do not have the opportunity to "outwit" them due to competent positioning and evade the attack. I can position the ship to gain some advantage on my turn. However, the actions of enemies are completely uncontrollable.

 Enemies are too unpredictable. Most II decks have 16–20 cards. It's not so scary... if they had a certain consistency. And yes, according to feelings, there is no difference between a fight with a Synthetic or with a Ronin. They will all move, then either drain my random ability or crash into an asteroid. All enemies are similar. And the stupidity of AI is compensated by the fact that their parameters are much higher than ours.

 We cranked the difficulty slider all the way to "hard" and still didn't fail a single mission, except for one of the opening missions where we flew in the wrong direction and unsurprisingly lost.

 However, I'm not complaining about the lack of challenge; it's not so scary anymore. I complain about the game's overall balance; that enemy ships are made very strong to compensate for the randomness of their actions.

 Sometimes they'll randomly vanshot you with a +2 armor drop hit. Sometimes they will suddenly stun your entire crew. Sometimes they'll lock onto an asteroid or fire at you with the accuracy of Imperial stormtroopers, unable to find a target.

 This, in my opinion, is the main drawback of the game along with the weak plot and descriptive part; enemies are completely unpredictable. The progress and outcome of the battle depends almost 100% on the drawn AI cards. Even if you play like a god, get in the best position, cleverly maneuver through enemies and obstacles... only to draw an AI card that hits everyone within 3 hexes.

 I still can't help but mention the immunities. Why do enemies have so many immunities? What's the point of getting a cool new gadget if it's useless against more than half the enemies you encounter? And they don't have immunities even with justifications like "oh, synthetic shields are immune to armor-piercing blows, of course." Just "this guy is elite, so he's immune to half our arsenal." It gets even worse if you play with 4 ships because more elite enemies will enter the field.

 And finally, modifier decks. We have to constantly shuffle them, which is a bit annoying. Is your stress level up? You need to add a miss card - shuffle the deck. Is your stress level down? You need to find this card, remove it from the deck and shuffle it again. As a result, changing the deck starts to become almost maddening, considering that the results are still extremely unpredictable because we are always shuffling it.

 Overall, navigation and moving ships around the map looks great. The atmosphere of the dog dump is also great. I really like the basic mechanics, the dice, the  upgrades... but once the enemies enter the field, everything goes to hell. In my opinion, the current rules would be more suitable for a PvP game. And in Akarios, it would not hurt to radically rework II decks and immunities.

 As a result, we turned in our last batch early because we just got bored. Not sure if we'll make it through the campaign; probably, we will, considering that we prefer not to quit halfway and that we have had nightmares (Etherfields, hehe-hehe).

 I should also note the abundance of typographical errors - from small mistakes to unsightly scripts (the same paragraph is repeated five times). Every few pages I had a typo.

 I really wanted to love Stars of Akarios. The game has enough interesting ideas. The ship management and stress mechanics are just great in my opinion. The concept of the campaign with an emphasis on the plot and alternating exploration of the surrounding world in the spirit of the 7th Continent and space battles is also excellent. Ship upgrades and modifier decks like Gloomy Harbor are also interesting. But playing space battles or exploring the map is not interesting at all.

 Together : great ideas, big ambitions, bad execution.

 Rating - 5/10 . Most likely, I will force myself to finish the campaign. I definitely won't play a second time (unless a miracle happens, and Acts 2-3 will turn out to be superior).

USEFUL LINKS

Stars of Akarios on the BGG portal

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/273910/stars-akarios

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