This review is for all three of the DLC episodes.
These episodes work well as more Citizen Sleeper even though they aren't seeking to add much to the game beyond a bit more narrative. It isn't quite as striking to me as the base game is and the mechanics begin to break down a bit more by this point.
I enjoyed playing through them and the narrative is pretty much in line with the rest of the game. It works well enough, but most every character is a familiar combination of extreme emotional availability and deeply rooted trauma. This is definitely just the writing style of the game, but the more characters that get added, the more apparent it becomes. The events are sort of unique and interesting sci-fi that I enjoyed having a hand in. Like the base game, it feels afraid to pull its punches -- everything has most of the consequence removed from it and bad outcomes are eminently avoidable.
My sleeper is basically a god at this point. I can do any task immediately and most of the timers and tasks here to provide some level of difficulty simply don't. I don't know if this is avoidable in the systems themselves, but part of the problem is that the systems are used as problem solvers for every situation, rather than skewing occasionally into ways for the player to make decisions or influence things. One specific roadblock at the end of these DLCs almost feels like you are going to be making intentional choices about how things play out, but in the end you just do everything for everyone and the narrative moves along to where it was always going. Your binary choice at the end only having a minor impact on things.
These episodes are quick to play through and give a bit more shape to this world and a bit more catharsis to the base game. Definitely worth checking out, but I would have liked them to push these systems, narrative, and world a bit farther.
These episodes work well as more Citizen Sleeper even though they aren't seeking to add much to the game beyond a bit more narrative. It isn't quite as striking to me as the base game is and the mechanics begin to break down a bit more by this point.
I enjoyed playing through them and the narrative is pretty much in line with the rest of the game. It works well enough, but most every character is a familiar combination of extreme emotional availability and deeply rooted trauma. This is definitely just the writing style of the game, but the more characters that get added, the more apparent it becomes. The events are sort of unique and interesting sci-fi that I enjoyed having a hand in. Like the base game, it feels afraid to pull its punches -- everything has most of the consequence removed from it and bad outcomes are eminently avoidable.
My sleeper is basically a god at this point. I can do any task immediately and most of the timers and tasks here to provide some level of difficulty simply don't. I don't know if this is avoidable in the systems themselves, but part of the problem is that the systems are used as problem solvers for every situation, rather than skewing occasionally into ways for the player to make decisions or influence things. One specific roadblock at the end of these DLCs almost feels like you are going to be making intentional choices about how things play out, but in the end you just do everything for everyone and the narrative moves along to where it was always going. Your binary choice at the end only having a minor impact on things.
These episodes are quick to play through and give a bit more shape to this world and a bit more catharsis to the base game. Definitely worth checking out, but I would have liked them to push these systems, narrative, and world a bit farther.