I've always loved space operas, this game comes as close to living a space opera story as I've seen in a while and it's brilliant.

Taking cues from games like FTL and Nexus Jupiter Incident, Crying Suns melds turned based decisions with real time pausable battles to create a game play loop that brings in that 'one more turn' feeling. Partnered with a compelling story I was captivated with it's pace and style.

It has it's flaws, some of the mechanics can feel a little hands off, and as you get closer to the end of the story you start to see events repeat, but it's easily forgiven. The base of the game is solid, I literally had an urge to finish it.

The rouge-lite nature of the game gives rewards from previous runs, each run has the potential to give you the edge in the next, but mistakes can cause you to lose characters you've gained for a short while. New ships can be unlocked with different strengths and weaknesses. This last thing was actually quite nice to see, rather than unlocking stronger and stronger ships, you unlock different ships that require different tactics -bringing new challenges to the table and enticing you to take one more run.

One of my favorite mechanics may not be yours: the away missions. In Crying Suns, away missions are hands off, you send your team lead by an officer down to a planet and they take a route fighting, picking up loot, fighting big bad in events and finding treasure. Before you send out your group you can see an estimate of the outcome, warnings on how many commandos will be lost, and if your Officer will make it out alive. But once you hit that button to send them on their way, you'll get a chance to randomly pull them out early with a penalty (or up to three chances if you upgrade your ship) but that's it for the most part their fate is sealed. But it's pretty hands off, and although i took great pleasure from watching my team's little blip trek along a digital line as they did their best to beat the dice rolls, I can see how some would find this part of crying suns less compelling.

A mix of well thought out game mechanics and story elements keeps this game on my mind, it is one of my top games of 2019 and is worth a try if any of this spiked your interest. If you like strategy, rouge-lites and space, you'll have a great time.