Stellar Tactics

Stellar Tactics asks for patience, because it is a sprawling space role-playing game built around squads, inventory management, and a lot of system reading. By our assessment, its real strength is the sense of breadth: ship work, party building, exploration, and tactical combat all sit in one place. That breadth is also the downside, since the game can feel busy and demanding before it feels elegant. In practice it is the sort of thing where menus matter, builds matter, and learning the rules is half the work. Compared with streamlined space RPGs, it is rougher and more old-school, with less hand-holding and more room for the player to tinker. The ceiling is mostly for people who like complexity and do not mind a slow start, while others will likely bounce off the amount of systems on the screen.