Citizens of Space – Review

Name: Citizens of Space
Developer: Eden Industries
Publisher: SEGA
Released: 18th of June 2019
Platforms: PC
Reviewed on: PC
Acquired: A copy of this game was provided by a publisher for review purpose.

As an entry into the summer holidays, I was going to relax a little bit. And as we got a copy of Citizens of Space, the opportunity was there. As I do like to just sit back, relax and play some singleplayer games every now and then, this was right up my alley.

Story

Well, I must admit I hadn’t heard of this game before, and I didn’t know there was another game called Citizens of Earth. I am still not sure if you should play them in order, but I managed without. Basically you’ve been elected the ambassador of Earth, and are on your way to your inauguration. Once there, well first of all the other lifeforms doesn’t much like your excuse of a representative from Earth, but as if that’s not bad enough, how can you be the ambassador if Earth doesn’t exist? Now, this is where your story begins. Earth is missing and you need to gather a bunch of characters, fight your way through the galaxy and figure out what’s happened and if possible (it’s so very possible) undo the damage. The game sends you further down the storyline through humorous conversations, increasingly difficulty fights and completing missions for different characters. It may get a bit tedious at times, but just as you’re relaxing a bit too much, you get a breakthrough and something wakes you back up to go further.

Graphics

The game is set in a 2-D drawn artistic universe, and some of your character’s movements may be a bit out of touch because of this. What really makes up for it though, is that characters have more details than I expected and some of the environmental touches are pretty well done as well. And then of course, you have the standard easy-drawing of a flower and such, fitting in more than it probably should. The game’s graphics are well done, building into the humor of the game’s feel and commentary.

The soundtrack is filled with upbeat and happy music, guiding you along as you cross the world naively thinking everybody in space loves you, never taking no for an answer. Different soundtracks follow the different areas, always somehow managing to keep fitting with the environments and battles got their own little thing going. There’s not much commentary to be talking about but what little there is, is well made.

Gameplay

The gameplay itself is simplistic, which is pretty much what you want in a game like this. You walk the inhabited planets of the galaxy, always looking for new companions to build up your roster of fighters and boosters. Missions can be found anywhere. Some of them will make you progress the story, while others are missions to unlock characters in your rooster. And some still just work as regular side missions. All well worth to peek into as you traverse the universe. Be ready to explore though, as the missions themselves don’t always give you the best of leads on where to go. There is a quest tracker, but when it tracks several quests at the time, not showing you which is which, it could get problematic.

As I started getting into the combat system of the game, i got a strange feeling of playing Pokémon. You don’t necessarily capture your fighters as much as you gain their trust from completing missions from them. But once you start fighting, it’s all about using your fighters in any way possible to finish off the enemies, leveling up through fighting. Some characters, like Captain work as fighters (Battle Citizen) and physically, delivers punches in combat, while other characters, like the Geneticist, which you can equip to a battle citizen to improve their offensive abilities and unlock new abilities.

And that’s basically it. Progress through the story to save Earth, and fight increasingly powerful foes with your expanding rooster of citizens on your way to glory and that sweet title; Ambassador of Earth! Of course, this might become tedious, but follow the story and you’re in for a couple of treats along the way.

Controls

The controls may be the games one real weak point. You can easily change these to be more fitting through the settings, but as I started fiddling with the settings to improve the controls while roaming, I realized that the same controls made the combat system worse. So my best tip would be to just let it be and get used to the standards. With the standard settings, you move about with the arrow keys, and once you get used to it, you figure out its ok, because you don’t really need your mouse for this game. Interact with ‘Enter’, use abilities with Z, X, C and V and that’s about the most important ones. In the combat system, the arrow keys are used to pick your fighter and the abilities you want them to use. You choose with the Enter key, and then for an added bonus to your attack, press Z, X, C or V in the manner the game tells you to. Likewise, you use the same four keys to defend against attacks.

Replay Value

There’s not all that much need for a second replay here though. The game is built for you to play through, and continue your life, one fun experience richer. Then again, so was plenty of other games, I’ve still played through them a bunch of times. You could always try to finish off all the achievements if you like that, or perhaps just level up your citizens to the max, just to see exactly how powerful you could get. Other than that though, you’re basically done. There are no real choices in the game and you walk a linear path through missions to get to the end.

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