The Trese Brothers churned out yet another masterfully made classic-style RPG with Star Traders: Frontiers on Steam last year, and now the game is available to download on Android. A $6.99 asking price for a 2D-animated indie RPG may seem steep to some, but fans of the type of old-school goodness the Trese Brothers have offered down the years will tell you it’s well worth every penny.
This game continues what the original Star Traders started, and does so in the grandest fashion yet. You’ll be managing your ship, your crew, your cargo and more in just about every way imaginable. You’ll do all this while moving through a grand storyline and carving out your legacy in the vast game universe. To give you a basic idea of what to expect for your $6.99, you’re getting a management sim, an old-school turn-based RPG, and a massive space opera, all in one package.
Putting it shortly, if you enjoyed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic or its MMORPG cousins, if you pored through the pages of Simon Green’s Deathstalker series, if you’ve played classic RPGs like Wizardry and Pool of Radiance, or if you’ve blasted and possibly romanced your way through the Mass Effect series, you’re going to feel right at home. Even Star Ocean fans will find a lot to love, despite the vastly different core of that series’ relationship with players. If this is your first space opera, on the other hand, you’re in for a real treat.
You’ll start off with the humblest of origins, and work your way up to being a renowned captain. How you do that is entirely up to you. There are 26 different jobs your captain can have, from space pirate to smuggler and bounty hunter, and over 350 different upgrades to customize 45 different ship hulls with.
This game is unique in that its vast universe and dynamic storyline follow your actions in a lot of meaningful ways. You can incite faction warfare, have your loyal crew follow you into the edges of space, or become an infamous scoundrel, just to name a few options.
The storyline in this game centers around the concept of hyperwarp. This new method of space travel closed distances of millions of lightyears, making the universe one giant community, complete with everything that entails. Make your mark on interstellar trade, brutal conflict, and universe-spanning politics while managing your own crew on board your ship.
This storyline is the first direct continuation of the original Star Traders, the Trese brothers’ very first game, and one that has thus far seen four other games set in the same universe. The features of this entry include varied difficulty settings, the most detailed management system yet, and refined strategy and classic RPG combat in ships and with your crew, just for starters.
While the Trese brothers have been pumping out RPGs like this one for quite some time, this one may yet have a lasting impact on the mobile game landscape. As of this writing, it’s the #8 top paid game in the Play Store, and that comes after a good few months of garnering high ratings and rave reviews on Steam.
The indie RPG scene on Android is massive and populous, but even so, there’s nothing quite like the absolutely colossal RPGs that the Trese brothers are known for. With this latest game seeing such great success, it’s quite likely that other RPG makers are going to learn a thing or two. Expect to see more expansive, story-second RPGs that you can play forever, if you want to.
