Crying Suns is both a great strategy game and a shit roguelike. It walks and talks like FTL, the 2012 hit that directly inspired it, but ultimately fails to mimic the endless replayability and daunting challenge that made FTL enchanting. Don't get me wrong, though, Crying Suns isn't a bad game—thanks largely to its surprisingly human story and frantic space combat. It just isn't the spiritual successor to FTL that it wants to be.

The good news is that Crying Suns' little identity crisis ultimately doesn't get in the way of what is still a great game full of cool ideas. Like FTL, I captain a spaceship through a randomly generated gauntlet of solar systems trying to keep my crew alive while navigating increasingly difficult encounters with the local populous. But where FTL gives these decisions a thin narrative dressing, Crying Suns creates a grim and vivid world that tees up an ambitious story.

I play a clone of an intergalactic admiral, Ellys Idaho, who wakes in a mysterious cloning facility decades after the empire he once helped rule collapsed into chaos. Idaho's rebirth is part of a grand plan to save the empire, and it's my mission to set out in a battleship and discover what happened, why, and (hopefully) reverse everything. It's a story that leans heavily on sci-fi tropes, especially if you're a fan of Isaac Asimov or Frank Herbert, but Crying Suns' setting is fun to discover because it's so meticulously thought out and grandiose. Transcendent robo-gods and 800-year-old emperors juxtaposed with an intimate story of friendship and betrayal make for genuine science fiction.

Like FTL, though, layers of the world are revealed through random encounters. Each of these beats involves a decision that will either reward resources to upgrade my ship or leave me significantly worse for wear. Early on, I encountered a group of religious child refugees who I agreed to shelter on the Odysseus. They turned out to be kamikaze terrorists. When I encountered the same kids on a different playthrough, though, they turned out to just be regular, non-exploding children looking for a ride.

There's dozens of these scenarios brought to life by vivid writing and Crying Suns' crisp pseudo-pixel art, but it's annoying how repetitive these events become over the course of the campaign. By the time I saw the credits roll, I must've encountered those exploding kids dozens of times. And it seems that some events do have a single, predetermined outcome. Every time I was extorted by pirates, threatening them always caused them to acquiesce. It sucks a lot of the tension out of these situations when I know the optimal decision to make.

That's endemic of a larger problem with Crying Suns and why it ultimately fails to be a good roguelike, even if it's still a fun game. There's just not enough variability or randomness to its various systems to promote the endless replayability that I love in games like Enter the Gungeon or Slay the Spire.

Starship shooters 

Combat, for example, plays out like a pausable RTS on a grid flanked by my and the enemy battleship. Between volleys from our main weapon systems, squadrons of fighters take the field to battle one another in a constant ebb and flow that makes fights chaotic and tense. Managing cooldown timers is key, so if I throw everything I have at the enemy ship in an all-out assault and don't finish it off, I leave myself vulnerable to attack while my weapons and fighter squadrons recharge. 

It's a great foundation with some surprising nuances that I really enjoy. Fighter squadrons each occupy their own tile, for example, but will still overlap temporarily when repositioning themselves. Those brief moments are a window of opportunity to kill two birds with one stone if I time a shot with my railgun just right.

I also enjoy the way that debris gives texture to the battlefield. Small asteroid clusters act like a temporary shield while bigger asteroids block sections of the map entirely. Sometimes neutral turrets will shoot anything that gets within range, or meteor showers will blanket the grid and destroy ships on both sides. Like I said, it's chaotic and really fun.

But Crying Suns fails to realize the full potential of this combat system. Unlike FTL and other roguelikes, where death constantly looms overhead waiting to punish a wrong move, Crying Suns is too forgiving. My ship has multiple health bars that will recharge after each fight so long as they're not depleted entirely, resources needed to repair my ship and buy upgrades are a little too plentiful, and enemies often lack firepower and frequently use the same tactics again and again.

Early on in a run, it's common to encounter ships that only have one or two offensive options while I'll often have three or four. It makes early fights a breeze, which in turn lets me farm resources to upgrade my ship further and snowball to a point where I feel unstoppable. By the time I beat the game on normal difficulty, I had only died a few times—not the kind of challenge I want from a good roguelike.

I miss that critical sense of uncertainty that makes most roguelikes so exciting, pushing myself  further knowing the odds of survival are slim. Crying Suns doesn't inspire that same maddening desire to keep chasing that ever-elusive combination of luck and perfect loot.

But, damn, it sure looks good. I love the pixelated 3D graphics and the intimate perspective through which I explore the galaxy. It makes me feel like a member of the crew rather than a disembodied ghost. Little touches, like the way the bridge and its crew glow with the color of a nearby star, help create a forbidding, unsettling atmosphere. It makes Admiral Idaho's journey through the twisted remains of the empire he once helped rule captivating.

Together with the inventive combat and gauntlet of narrative choices to be made, Crying Suns is a good strategy game that's absolutely worth playing as long as you're okay with it not being much of a roguelike. Repetitive encounters and a general lack of challenge made my journey through this corpse of a galactic empire not nearly as hardfought as it should.

Above: Here's 10 minutes of uncut Crying Suns combat gameplay.

Crying Suns is a lot like FTL but with a much bigger emphasis on story and RTS-inspired combat, and it's great. You race from solar system to solar system, encountering random events, battling enemy spaceships, and trying your hardest to keep your crew and fighter squadrons alive. And just like FTL, that's all a lot harder than it seems. You're going to die a lot on your journey to figure out why a 700-year-old space empire has collapsed into chaos overnight.

That's half of the fun of any roguelite, but there's a lot to learn before you'll be a capable captain able to survive even the first chapter of the story. We'll have our full review of Crying Suns early next week, but in the meantime these tips should help make your roguelike runs in the vacuum of space less disastrous.

Spend all your resources before the final sector boss 

Unlike FTL, which requires you to brave eight consecutive sectors full of random encounters before challenging the final boss, Crying Suns breaks its campaign up into five chapters that each have three sectors. Each sector will have a dozen or so star systems you can explore as long as you stay well ahead of the enemy fleets chasing you.

But each of these three-sector chapters is like a self-enclosed run, and when you beat one you'll start over from scratch in the next sector. While that can be frustrating if you're lucky enough to be flying a particularly well-fitted ship, it also means you shouldn't hold anything back for the final boss battle of each chapter (which always happens in sector three). Before you engage the chapter's boss, spend all your scrap on whatever upgrades you can. Every little bit helps, but be sure to prioritize upgrades that'll actually influence the battle ahead. Don't spend what precious scrap you have left on upgrades that fall under "subsystems" since those are helpful only in non-combat scenarios. 

Boomer drones actually kick ass 

Early on, one of the most effective loadouts I've discovered is loading up on Boomer drones along with upgrades that lower the respawn rate of your squadrons. When boomer drones die, they explode and deal damage to all nearby units. When coupled with any upgrades or auxiliary systems that decrease their respawn time, you can quickly field an army of kamikaze drones to overwhelm your enemy.

After beating chapter two, you'll unlock the Kaos class battleship which specializes in this tactic by giving you a hangar full of boomer drones. The trick, though, is to never repair those boomer drone squads in between fights. While it might sound like a good idea, repairing them restores their maximum HP to full—and we want them to die quickly so they can blow up enemy squads at the same time. 

Experiment with all the other weapons 

Like boomer drones, it's easy to write off different battleship weapons and squadrons as useless. The sub-zero gun, which temporarily freezes enemies in place for a few seconds, feels particularly toothless compared to other weapons that deal devastating amounts of damage. But that's because weapons and squadrons often combo together in clever and destructive ways.

Cruisers, for example, feel particularly fragile since they can only attack enemies one space away and most enemy squads can quickly get in close and destroy them. But when you pair cruisers with thesub-zero gun you can freeze those incoming squads in place and let your cruiser quickly mop them up. It's tempting to only go for weapons that do raw damage, but it's better to carefully consider your existing arsenal and how you can manipulate the battlefield to your advantage.

Look before you jump into a new solar system 

Unlike FTL, where each point in a sector represents a single random encounter, Crying Suns has solar systems with several points of interest you can warp to (for a cost). Some of these will be merchant stations or planetary excursions—or dozens of other events—but you should always pay careful attention to anomalies.

Represented by a yellow checkmark, anomalies represent either really good or really bad events and they can appear on top of any point of interest, creating a kind of roadblock you have to first clear before getting to the actual encounter. They're risky, so you should only take one on if you're confident you can handle whatever they throw at you (usually they trigger a really tough fight). Be warned,anomalies can spawn on the star that you automatically warp to when first entering a solar system,forcing you to deal with the anomaly immediately. If you have the choice between two systems and one of them has an anomaly on its star, it might be better to avoid that system altogether. 

Do the math on planetary excursions 

One of the unique features in Crying Suns is the ability to send a squad of soldiers to a planet's surface to scourge for resources and rare loot. These missions play out passively, with you deciding at certain points whether to press on and potentially endure more casualties or pull out early and leave behind whatever valuables you might've found. It's often tense, but don't let the game fool you into thinking your squad matters that much.

Look, I might be an asshole captain, but soldiers are an expendable resource that can be bought from most trade stations for 10 scrap—dirt cheap. When a planetary excursion says you might lose five to ten of them, it's worth doing the math on what you can get in return.

Before disembarking on the excursion, you have to send one of your officers to lead your squad of commandos. The game will tell you each officer's chances of acquiring rare loot and keeping your squad alive. Assuming your odds of earning good loot are high, you can expect to return with around 100 scrap—in addition to any valuable weapons or ship upgrades you might find. Even losing a full squad of 10 soldiers is worth it if you return home with well over 100 scrap worth of gear. So ignore your conscience for now, you can always replace soldiers later.

Plan for enemy reinforcements 

During combat against enemy battleships, it's common for extra enemy reinforcements to spawn on the field periodically. In the bottom-right portion of the screen a countdown timer will let you know how long you have while the tiles where these extra units will spawn glow faint purple. During the chaos of combat, it's easy to ignore these warning signs but you should always prepare to be on the defensive—especially if these reinforcements arrive at the same time that your enemy's own squadrons replenish.

During those moments, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the rush of enemy units flooding your screen. To survive, it's better to position your own squadrons defensively and save your battleship weapons for when you really need them. If you can, try and set up ambushes using long-range cruisers to immediately attack enemy reinforcements the moment they spawn and before they have a chance to respond. And always make use of this final tip…

You can hit multiple enemies with one shot if you time it right 

Normally squadrons will spread out so as not to stack up on a single tile, but there's a bit of leeway there you can exploit to your advantage. If the enemy has several squadrons rushing you, they'll often overlap,giving you a perfect window to kill two birds with one stone. When this happens, you can pause combat to line up a perfect shot that'll strike both enemy squadrons. This works with any battleship weapon. Using the sub-zero gun, for example, you can freeze two enemies in place instead of just one.

Be careful, though, because the enemy will also use this against you. When positioning your units, do your best to make sure they'll never overlap or you'll take unnecessary damage—which can too often be the difference between life and death.

There are few scenarios in games as inherently doom-laden as being told you're a (mostly) expendable clone. Granted, in Crying Suns—released today from new studio Alt Shift—you're an important clone. A famous admiral, even, rolled out along with a ship and crew as a last ditch effort to restore power to an entire (ostensibly evil) galactic empire that has mysteriously gone dark. But you're still a clone, and that means that you're probably going to be exploding at some point.

With your expendability confirmed, it's not too surprising that Crying Suns bills itself as a "tactical rogue-lite", and bears no small similarity to the high-stakes spaceship management sim, FTL. Where it diverges is its focus on narrative. It's a large, strange universe out there, inspired by Dune, the Foundation novels (which I admit to not having read), and I can't help but feel a bit of Warhammer 40,000 and Lexx inspiration in here, too. Understanding what makes the factions prowling this dead empire tick is essential for survival, and your clone's memory is a bit fuzzy on the specifics, at least until you have a chance to ask some questions.

As with FTL, there's a mixture of large-scale navigational decisions to be made, tactical real-time ship battles (commanding wings of support craft instead of individual crewmen, as in FTL) and away team actions. Planetary excursions in particular are a lot more fleshed out, with the status of each crewman involved being broadcast back as they explore the map below. While having certain officers assigned to a mission can option up more options and improve the odds, it's your life and death call in the end. From what I've played of an earlier version, it feels like it expands nicely on previously established concepts.

All this death and suffering is at the behest of Kaliban, a sardonic and intimidatingly squid-like robot. He's an OMNI, and machines like him were servitors for the entire empire. They kept everything running, from maintaining volatile reactors to growing food for the people. As far as you know, he's also the only one still functioning, throwing the colonies into chaos and murder. The good news is there's backups of him too, and he'll restore your memory of past excursions (as well as delivering plot recaps) when you die and have to start again. Even when you're dying, there's a sense of constant forward motion as you uncover more mysteries and meet more characters.

I've had my eye on Crying Suns for a while, and I admit that I've been a little smitten with it since its Kickstarter debut, accompanied by a dark and brooding trailer. Now that it's complete, I'm eager to dig deep into its dark and hostile universe.

Crying Suns is out now on Steam and Humble for £19.49/$24.99/€20.99 along with a recently-expanded free demo.

The tactical rogue-lite space opera Crying Suns went to Kickstarter last year with a pitch for a game inspired by FTL, but more story-focused: The Galactic Empire has collapsed, and humanity's only hope for survival lies with a clone of Admiral Ellys Idaho, the greatest Imperial commander of all time. The crowdfunding campaign was a big success, nearly tripling its €25,000 ($27,400) goal, and very soon—as in September 19—the game will be upon us.

Your Idaho clone was awakened by Kaliban, the last functional Omni in the Empire. Omnis are massive, "god-like" machines that provide for all the needs of their human masters, and their influence was so entrenched that their sudden, galaxy-wide shutdown is what triggered the collapse of the empire. Your job, then, is to figure out what went wrong, and more importantly (in the short term, at least), to switch them all back on.

Fleet-based combat is real-time with pause, enabling you to put the action on hold while you figure out what to do next, while the story will unfold over six chapters, with more than 300 possible story events "to keep each run unique." The mix of "pixelart style graphics, 3D and HD special effects" seen in the trailer promises some very nice eye candy, and in case there was any doubt, developer Alt Shift warned that as roguelites go, Crying Suns is a tough one and players should "prepare to die very often."

Crying Suns will go for $25/€21 on Steam, and if you want to get a better feel for what it's all about you can pick up a demo there right now. There's also a website with more to look at up at cryingsuns.com, and the original Kickstarter video, which shows a little more gameplay, can be seen below.