FTL is a strategy roguelike set in space. To simplify it, your goal is to destroy the main bad guy’s ship. This sort of setup is very generic and for most games would be a negative, but FTL has a very specific focus. FTL only really cares about the journey, not the destination. While your overall goal is to be the hero, along the way you have complete freedom to craft your own story. Most playthroughs you won’t even get close to beating the game before you die to a pretty average, unremarkable ship. It gives the game a sense of realism, in that your character/ship isn’t special. You don’t have any unique advantages or anything like that, you are just an average guy.
On the strategy side of things, FTL usually succeeds. It’s got a very solid gameplay loop in which you and the other ship trade blows while attempting to make the right choices when it comes to which area of the ship to target. The wide variety of weapons and crew members means that you wind up with a new ship everytime you play. The first and only misstep FTL makes is the balancing. There are a number of builds that are significantly better than some of the worst ones. Usually, it isn’t too glaring, but it can be hard for some players to resist the urge to min-max their ship.
Presentation-wise, FTL has visuals that can be a bit basic, but they work very well with the overall vibe of the game. The ship designs all have a cohesive theme that differentiates each group of ships from each other. It feels great to recognize a ship type just from its shape or colors, and being able to use that information to guess what tactics the ship might use.
The soundtrack fits the game and is much better than your typical background music. Most tracks set the tone of an event fantastically, serving to heighten the already tense experience. The sound effects are good, although somewhat generic. They don’t take you out of the game, but they don’t add much to the experience. There is a good variety in weapon sounds though, which helps separate the different variations of equipment you can use.
The one aspect of FTL that brings it from good to great is the modding community. FTL Captain’s Edition is an amazing mod that fixes nearly every issue I have with FTL, both the big and small problems. It rebalances the entire combat system, bringing bad builds up to the levels of some of the best. The new events and items blend seamlessly into the vanilla experience.
FTL manages to get so many things right, while avoiding any glaring issues. A classic strategy roguelike that influenced a ton of games.
*rating is based off of a modded version of FTL
