Rogue Eclipse from HUSKRAFTS is a space combat roguelike with more than a hint of Star Fox about it. It’s not a dogfighting sim, really, but rather an arcade shooter that keeps you on steady rails with its fixed camera.
What story there is, is mostly glossed over even by the game itself. Suffice to say you are an elite pilot despatched to destroy dozens of enemy ships in short, frantic missions with simple objectives. Rewards are doled out in the form of upgrades for your ship and weapons systems, and although there’s little exciting about it, it’s enough to keep you engaged in the core loop.
Mechanically, Rogue Eclipse feels somewhat like the aforementioned Nintendo classic. You’re locked into one viewpoint, but you can move freely within it, barrel-rolling and strafing to avoid fire while you spend most of your time frantically trying to draw a bead on the enemy. Actual combat is straightforward, with small rapid fire cannons to take down the whip-fast enemy fighters, and larger changeable heavy weapons for attack ships and cruisers. These run the usual gamut of massive rockets, homing missiles, and beam weapons for cutting through thick hulls.
I found Rogue Eclipse to be most enjoyable in smaller doses, as the overall loop becomes a little samey after a while. Backdrops are pretty enough, but there’s not a great deal of variety in enemy types, and chasing down the whippy fighters can give you serious neck and thumb ache as you slam your ship into handbrake turns that defy the laws of physics.
More often than not, death came from careening into large enemy ships, debris, or asteroids rather than from enemy fire. Something feels slightly off about the manoeuvrability, which is probably down to the tight camera behaviour rather than the innate difficulty of the missions. It’s not quite responsive enough, and I much prefer having full control of the ship and the camera.
You’re rewarded for carving your way through the objectives with upgrades to weapon damage and your shields. Harshly, there are no heals while on mission, no way to repair your ship mid-fight, so improved shields are a must. Conversely, enemies get tougher and tougher, so improving your weapons feels equally valid. It forces a little choice each time you finish a mission, but my money is on the shields as a priority.
My biggest gripe with Rogue Eclipse is the archaic way it treats its central conceit. There’s almost no permanent progression outside of unlocks that give you shortcuts to skip areas you’ve already tackled. Problem is, the stat upgrades you earned do not persist, so you’re just jumping to tougher areas with no boosts. Modern roguelikes have found numerous ways to do this better, and it’s frustrating that Rogue Eclipse feels weirdly old-fashioned in this regard. It becomes repetitious to do the same thing over and over with little to show for it.
That aside, it’s very pretty at times. You can reach satisfyingly reckless speeds and the craft design, when you can see it, is decent. If you’re hankering after a space combat game, Rogue Eclipse is available for a low enough price, but there are better options out there. Games like Star Wars: Squadrons, Everspace 2, and even Chorus offer similar experiences but with more polish and deeper mechanics. Rogue Eclipse is a fairly fun little time-wasting blaster, but it feels quite limited as it stands.