Good game, bad AI
Sun Sep 03 2023 mklinkerMy only complaint is how stupid characters play when using the auto-play feature. It shouldn’t be too hard to implement some logic like maybe the doctor should heal the person about to be defeated instead of the one with full health and thousands of shields. Or maybe a warrior shouldn’t taunt a whole other squad when they have no hit points. It’s amazing how many times I just see my team destroyed because of the dumbest decisions. It’s almost like the players choose random moves against random targets.
Another great scenario, 2 players remaining, both almost defeated - the next attack will win the round. And they’ll go back and forth doing up morale or tech increase and cleans and whatever… 4 rounds go back and forth before one of the characters deals 5hp and wins the round; just the simplest of logic would be great!
Fun, but needed more QA and UI design attention
Tue Jul 11 2023 TerranAlchemyGood points: good writing, decent turn-based combat system. Bad points: many minor bugs in the non-combat parts of the game, cumbersome non-combat UI designs (the store is especially annoying). Fortunately, virtually all the bugs I’ve seen are cosmetic UI glitches in information presentation, and have simple workarounds or can be ignored; the combat parts of the game are pretty solid, with just some annoying finickyness around targeting (on iPad, I’d hate to play on a smaller iPhone screen). I’ve only seen one or two cases where bugs impacted gameplay, in many hours of play. Combat can feel too tedious if you don’t turn up the speed setting; it’s fun to watch for a while, but 1x speed is just annoying after a while. The characters have a pretty interesting range of powers, though it’s pretty easy to play through the entire game with just the same crew, with one substitution- there’s definitely a “winning” crew for the missions. PVP teams from other players only have a few more common variants, though I’ve seen a few very different, and successful, teams. The game feels like it was originally designed for in-app purchases like the developer’s other ST: Timelines game (which is chock full of annoying upsell ads). Fortunately, as an Apple Arcade title, it has none of that, and I probably wouldn’t play it if it were a non-Arcade title.
Stagnant Gacha TNG Game
Thu Feb 22 2024 Ikwl94mdnisnofdliThe developers of this game seem to largely be knowledgable of TNG lore, less so of Discovery, and next to nothing about DS9 or Voyager. (There are characters from Enterprise, Picard and Strange New Worlds, but they don't figure into the storyline at all.) Worf looks like the TNG Worf, but sometimes acts like the DS9 Worf. He knows Odo but doesn't seem to know Martok at all. He knows Sisko, but Sisko doesn't seem to know him. I know the developers might wave their hands and say this is a time travel story, so we aren't necessarily getting the versions of these people from the prime universe, but it just feels like lazy research and writing. The character choices are sometimes weird. There are 4 versions of Picard, but no Lore or Wesley Crusher. We get Thadiun, the guy who turned out not to be Picard's son and only appeared in one episdoe of TNG, while there are other major characters (like Captain Archer) who aren't included.
This is designed to be a casino type gacha game like Raid: Shadow Legends or Summoners War. Of course, a gacha game doesn't work within the Apple Arcade business model. Gacha games require third-party payment methods from impatient people who don't want to work through games, so the developers took their game over to Steam and apparently stopped adding new content here. Unfortunately, Steam is only offering the newer version for play on Windows.
Too repetitious, buggy
Sun Mar 20 2022 Dad of a. 6yoThis game has an interesting premise, and it's cool to be able to build teams of Star Trek characters to compete in various events or to go though the missions. My difficulty with the game comes primarily from three aspects. First, the repetitive nature of the combat makes working through the missions a grind. The "multiple paths" thing would be interesting if there were multiple stories or outcomes. Gaining and building characters is a slog. Second, the design of combat is frustrating. You don't get to pick which character goes first, that's determined algorithmically by speed (and in a tie the computer player always goes first). The constraints on play make PVP battles unnecessarily repetitive. Third, there are a number of bugs in the game, such as the manner in which characters are flagged for upgrades, and interface issues, such as the horizontal scrolling required to use the store, that make the game more frustrating to use than it should be.
For me, the most interesting part of the game comes in the form of the PVP battles. So it's frustrating that the characters fight in an algorithmically defined order as opposed to one that would make more tactical sense, and that the attack and defense options are so limited. Granted, it does make for short battles.
Still buggy but fun
Tue Mar 08 2022 haus blendStrange that this game has lots of recent one, two, and three star reviews but still manages a 4.6 star rating. The numerous bugs are annoying but I’ve found a way to work around some of them. The bug that makes the upgrade button disappear for ranking up your equipment is actually there, just doesn’t display. Tap where the button should be and you’ll see. Wish they’d fix survival mode. When I first installed the game, I think I saw the screen where you could buy upgrade items and add crew. The screen I saw doesn’t appear anymore. Still surprisingly fun game. Star Trek fans and even those who aren’t will enjoy the unique character mannerisms and special abilities, some of which are hilarious. Kirk’s “invigorating speech” is classic, and Uhura’s “encourage” is fun to see over and over. If the developer gets serious about killing bugs, this game could be excellent. NOTE to devs: just because we don’t pay to play like with those annoying money grab games doesn’t mean we don’t pay. We pay a monthly apple arcade fee. You need to stop thinking that you’re wasting time supporting a free game.
Was really enjoying but now can’t load in
Wed Apr 27 2022 StrawbabyJellyI’ve been playing this game for about a week and I’ve been really enjoying it. I was super excited about finally get a team I wanted and advancing but randomly the game just would not let me. It would get to the opening loading screen and then get stuck at 50%. I checked for updates, turned phone on and off, let it alone for several hours to see if that was the problem but no change so I bit the bullet and deleted the app to see if a reinstall worked. Got back on to see that the icloud backup seemingly failed as the first cutscene played but at least I could get into the game now. Except I can’t. I got off the app for a short period of time and got back on and once more it’s stuck loading at 50%. I would very much like to play, don’t even mind starting all over, but I can’t get in. I hope this is an issue that’s fixed soon
A work in progress
Sun Aug 29 2021 djryandelapThe premise for this game began really fun. But, as the updates roles out, things started to break. As mentioned in other reviews, once the storyline is completed in all 3 difficulties, all that really remains is accumulate new characters, and PVP. PVP is borderline useless as of this review because, since the computer plays another user’s characters against you in a PVP match, and the computer always goes first, it’s possible to have a player with 30-50% less power than you wipe out your team before you can get off a single shot.
Additionally, the crew summoning system is glitchy at best: it continually draws Latinum rather than needed characters to rank up, and after a few consecutive pulls, it crashes. Support has yet to respond to email about this.
I hope to update this review after some bugs have been fixed!
Buggy
Wed Oct 27 2021 Kiwi8472Was excited to play this game but keep running into bugs that ruin the experience. Several times I’ve had syncing errors switching between playing on different devices causing me to lose progress.
I’ve had operations errors where I lose my attempt after winning because “cannot establish online connection” error despite all other aspects of the game being online.
I’ve had mission errors where suddenly it thinks I have no one assigned on the mission causing it to fail.
Alliance activity logs are buggy and do almost nothing.
Finally the last straw was with the new survival mode. After getting all the way to level 100, I was not getting any resources or rewards. I had managed to assemble an amazing survival team that I felt was not even close to being beatable at that stage. However the whole point of survival is to get more resources. Tech support’s fix? Abandon the run and start over. Unbelievably frustrating. So much that I’ve decided not to waste anymore time with this game.
Good game, but still needs a lot of improvements.
Sat Jun 04 2022 nemesea088Overall fun game, technical issues are my problem. I just fought through 5 pvp matches. Witch you need to do for your daily rewards. You don’t just need to fight 5 matches as it says. You need to WIN 5 matches, not play 5 matches. Or I just completed other mundane missions, but they are not listed as being completed. This happens often and is really taking away from this game. Forcing you to repeat such missions, operations, whatever over and over again. Or just not collect the reward for that day. And why can you not upgrade you officers skills past level 2? Make zero sense. Good game, very fun. But the technical issues are a big problem. And just wondering why is dr. Phlox and t’pol in the game but not capt archer, or commander “trip” tucker???
So many bugs ... where to begin
Sun Aug 22 2021 ÆtherScythePvP is completely broken (and always has been). The dev's have made really bad attempts to fix it ... but always far too little.
The point of a game is to "play" the game. When you finish all your missions and reach the end-game ... there's a big emphasis on PvP. Except it isn't real PvP... you play a computer.
In "PvP" the computer ALWAYS goes first and there's a pecking order based on each crew members "speed" rating. But the computer wins all ties (not a random chance... it's a guarantee). This means the compute could make multiple moves before you can even go once ... and you'd think this would be rare ... but it happens all the time.
Next ... there are a number of OP players who can wipe out many party members on their opening move. So when the computer is guaranteed to go first ... and may have 3 of 4 crew members go first ... and may get "morale" where ALL the computers players go first ... they can wipe out your entire crew (or maybe leave one guy standing with just a few health left) ... and you didn't even get to play.
There are also numerous "nuisance" bugs. Between fights, the computer may randomize your party or drop crew members from your party. You have to be careful to make sure it didn't do this to you (it happens all the time).
