Skystrike: Wings of Justice
By E. Chris Ambrose
You sink lower, letting your shadow merge with those of the trees, buildings, and clouds. A long skylight protrudes from the roof, like a miniature greenhouse, emitting a fair amount of light. Somebody’s in there, no doubt. A single car sits in a spot right up close to the building, with the license plate “XCELL.” Seems like Berhane is in there, too, and he may be in trouble.
There are a lot of table-top roleplaying games that I’ve made characters for and never played. D&D is the prevalent system that people actually play because it’s the one that is most collectively known. It is super easy to sit down and tell someone to imagine a Tolkien-esque world and roll up an elf. Much less so to ask someone what caste is their Solar Exalted, for example. The Champions TTRPG is one of those games that you’d think would be a lot easier to get people to settle into. It is literally just a TTRPG representation of the comic-book characters we already knew. I’m pretty sure my first character was just faux-Wolverine.
General Story:
Take to the skies as Skystrike, a hero with mysterious origins returning to your hometown. Can you protect it, and your identity, from those who would do you harm?
Part of the reason I brought up the Champions TTRPG is because this feels like a solo adventure being run through that system. The story is straight off a GM’s table, and is presented in the same format. It feels like someone is narrating the story to me, and I’m choosing my specific actions. The only thing missing is the die roll, honestly.
You are pitted against another super-powered individual, and an organization designed solely to investigate unlikely occurrences. Think X-files, but for supers. This all sets up for what seems to be a super (ahem, no pun intended) exciting story that would intertwine the RatKing’s plans and the Director’s machinations, but almost none of it really seems like it is the focus. Each separate direction the story goes in feels like it weakens the potential for the rest.
Format and Typos:
I couldn’t find any overt typos or coding errors. But some new additions do affect readability a bit.
I had thought that I was not a fan of some of the new portrait art, but this title confirms it. I understand that the content of the art is subjective, so I never wanted to use it as a negative; but what I can do is say that the way the stats screen is laid out and the use of images making every page at a minimum twice as long as it needed to be really hampers format and readability. For example, before meeting the person in charge of your sanctuary, you can see all of your skills on average on the website. After meeting them, I can only read my name, a few options, and no numerical stats without having to scroll down. And I have a pretty big screen, so I can’t imagine what it is like on mobile. An option to turn off images would do wonders.
Also, any game with multiple stats screens should have the ability to access every page from the first screen. I didn’t even know there was a ‘third’ screen for stats (partially because I stopped wanting to have to scroll down the Community page).
Game Mechanics and Stats:
Opposed pairs cover personality styles, and skills accumulate based on choices throughout the title instead of just at the beginning. You’ll need to manage your cover, maintain your health, and try to keep to the personality of the character you’ve created. There are also accumulating stats for different parts of your investigation. How well do you know your enemy? Plans, habits, powers?
Skill checks often include personality gates (so, if you decide to bust in and fight; but you aren’t quick or bold enough, it can fall flat even if you are an extremely good fighter). This feels somewhat right simply because it is a reward for sticking to personality, though sometimes I like the ability to choose a different path without having to devote my style to that from the start. For the humor and style, grades of success and failure (and maybe just included personality types in the responses instead of being the success or failure) might have worked a little better.
Replayability:
Replayability is pretty good. Most superhero interactive fiction relies on different powers and abilities, but here you are Skystrike and you have Skystrike’s powers. What is different is your origin, your business, and the multiple romance options within the title. This is a game that relies on failure to provide exceptionally different epilogues, so you’ll want to spend a few times going through the title blind. Make some mistakes, and the story will seem much different.
Dislikes:
- Not a fan of how the portraits are presented and used in the title. Breaks up readability, and clouds the stats screens usefulness. More options to hide them, or put them in their own section of the stats screen away from numerical values.
- Is this our universe? Real life superheroes are brought up, but it’s never confirmed if they exist in the world or as media. They are referenced, but you are considered to be an oddity, so I am assuming it isn’t. Just a little bit of immersion breaking.
- If you play well enough, RatKing almost never seems to be a big and competent threat. You never get blindsided unless you specifically seek out failure.
Likes:
- Really does feel like a solo campaign run by a GM. They may have handed you a pre-made character sheet, but you can do what you want with them.
- Origin story and character set up was interesting.
- The investigative story and accumulating stats allowing for what are essentially counter insights helping you win in the end is a really interesting idea, especially because you might know everything about the organization but nothing about your enemy and their true powers.