Salvation Prophecy is a space epic. Four warring factions battle over control of the known galaxy. Space stations and planet colonies endure constant assault. You begin your journey as a soldier recruit. Through intense planet and space battle, your combat skills will be put to a grim test. Success is rewarded with powerful skills, combat gear, and ship upgrades, and you may rise in rank to become commander of your faction. Lurking in the dark recesses of the universe is a threat foreseen by an apocalyptic prophecy. A danger far greater than mankind's endless battles. The pursuit of the prophecy leads through distant alien worlds with deadly creatures and untold secrets. A chance for redemption, if only we find our way through that dark hour.
Enjoy Salvation Prophecy and many other great games on Desura.
I played this abit.
It's not horrible.
But it is really, really badly done. I'd say, if we wee to grant most movies to be "A;s", and well, you know, B Movies, like on TV...this would be a "C".
That's generally what I got from watching the trailer. At least the gameplay looks more compelling than M&B, which was waaaay too stiff in the area of its combat sections.
I think maybe some mods or additional dev content would help this game along. Hint: there are writers like me who would be willing to work on games like these. We've even recently gotten ourselves a section on the ModDB development forum. We can help liven things up a bit, and usually can be good testers/brainstormers.
Sorry it wasn't your cup of tea Mkilbride.
For anyone else looking for a more in-depth review, here's the most recent ones for the game:
Out of Eight Salvation Prophecy review:
Outofeight.info
Squadron of Shame review:
Squadronofshame.wordpress.com
I think these are pretty fair reviews. They do a good job of explaining what makes the game fun, as well as providing some interesting critique.
I really enjoyed the demo for this game, and intend on buying it one day.
More polish is definitely needed before this is a must buy.
This sounds like the kind of game I've been wanting to play for ages. A living galaxy with wars that the player can influence but is not the only factor? A military career-ish progression system? Sounds intriguing. I will try it and post my impressions.
Alright, having played the demo I would say I agree with the comments on polish, but also that there is a lot of potential here. The good parts first: The setting is fairly original and there is a real sense of progression, although the demo doesn't really illustrate how the universe will evolve as you play. Both ground and space controls feel good and intuitive, although using [space] instead of [e] or [f] as default "use" button feels a bit off. It would be great if the game could be developed in scale, as so far the battles could feel more epic if there was a bigger picture beyond just the run around on space station - wait for mission - do mission - rinse and repeat, wait for promotion cycle.
As for the bad parts: The game is clearly low-budget, and unfortunately that is to its great detriment. I don't mind the graphics as much as I feel the sound design is lacking. The sound effects are really weak, and some improvement here would go a long way towards a better atmosphere even without investing in expensive music. I originally had expected space battles to feel much more epic than ground battles, but it's actually the other way around. For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, the space battles lack direction and a sense of scale, while the ground battles - despite being "pile of bots charging another pile of bots" - at least give some flavour to the factions with different tactics (shields, melee versus ranged etc). I'm also not a huge fan of the art direction - especially the human fighters feel a bit too "alien" while the dropships have a more classical VTOL craft look to them. I prefer the latter.
All in all, this has a lot of potential, but it's currently really more en par with Mount and Blade's beta .600 versions (if anyone remembers those) than a full game. Nonetheless, I will probably buy it if only to fund the development of a worthy sequel, add-on or patches.
Thanks for your thoughts monsterfurby. I do appreciate that if someone is critical of the game, they explain why as you have done in your post.
A few comments:
The reason I used [space] instead of [e] is because I needed [e] and {q] for rolling clockwise and counterclockwise in space, so [e] was already taken. The controls are fully configurable though, so you can alter them however you like.
That's the first time I've heard the sound design critiqued of any feedback I have ever read. The planet invasion battle music, as well as the alien planets (seen later in the game) do use tracks orchestrated by a pretty famous game music composer. I've also had complements on the clarity of the sound effects in large hectic battles. But of course I'll take your feedback under consideration.
There certainly is a bigger picture in the game. But the demo is simply the tutorial and first couple of missions of the game. Like most games, these intro missions are designed to be relatively easy to teach you how to play.
Perhaps it would have been a better idea to have the demo instead include later game content. But the reason I didn't do this was:
1. I wanted you to be able to continue with your demo character if you bought the full game. That only works if you start at the beginning.
2. Without learning the controls in a couple easier missions first, you'd get slaughtered in the late missions. Plus, there'd be too much to learn at once, and it would likely be overwhelming.
Still, people's reactions to the full game seem to be much better than those who have only played the demo, so that's something I need to learn from as a game designer. It is often said the first 5 minutes of a game need to really grab a gamer's attention, and it appears I could have done a better job there.