Not knowing much before I went into playing the beta demo I expected more of a strategy or simulation affair. When you boil it down it seems to be a resource management meets very light adventure game with a dash of CYOA in there for good measure. To draw a more direct comparison – if you enjoyed the bits in Dragon Age: Inquisition where you got to sit on a throne and pronounce verdicts upon your subjects this appears to be a more distilled version of that. Do you give that initial funding to a merchant looking to start a tavern or do you save the gold for rainy days considering your kingdom isn't exactly up and up? There's definitely a story brewing involving some ancient promises, political plays and dealing with your own royal family disputes, but even after a pretty dope opening demo still end on a cliffhanger promising more.

VERDICT: It will remain unchanged on my wishlist, now waiting for a decent sale, with further clarity cast on what it actually is. I didn't really feel that tense “What do I do with these resources to not screw up?” the way I usually do when you make hard choices, but that could just be generous balancing early on. Week-by-week structure also doesn't come off as tense because you can basically do everything each week so it doesn't appear like you're missing out on anything. Story beats seem interesting enough, but I would probably add game could benefit from stronger soundtrack. I just hope there are actual long term consequences for your actions in the full game and I wasn't exactly big on game forcing one event on you... until I realized how it panned out.

Sit ye comfortably for you'll be spending a lot of time making decisions that affect your kingdom in turbulent times ahead.

---

This, on the other hand, turned out more or less the way I expected it to. Clunk included considering we are talking about a two people development team. Not that I'm really throwing blame or anything considering you can always work around the lack of polish if you have the fundamentals and good core concept nailed down. Premise is straightforward – you create your character, a child from six to twelve years of age along with stat customization, and after an act of mercy you and your sibling find yourselves orphans struggling to survive. Strong simulation aspect translates to managing the needs of your characters (sleep, comfort, hunger, etc) and building up facilities like camp fire and scrap storage to combat the ever decreasing status bars. What surprised me was the fact this is presented in the form of a strategy where you take control of each individual character and go about your business, and most of the time you'll be occupied with scavenging through cabinets in your destroyed apartment. Demo is sadly timed, but once you bust the doors open you can apparently send kids scouting through the wrecked city for more stuff and events.

VERDICT: Keeping an eye on, but not wishlisting for now. Why? Because from what I've seen game appears to lack focus. Yeah, it's one of those “emergent storytelling” experiences where you're basically telling your orphans' story through actions, but it could also benefit from some player guidance because this demo throws you in deep real fast. Speaking for myself I didn't really get a clear idea on how the game's pacing should work because you don't really need to rest or eat during those 30 minutes demo lasts.

From campfire to hopscotch – everything a kid needs to deal with the realization they're on their own.

---

You could say Chaos Galaxy achieves perfectly what it aims to be which happens to fit a particular brand of crazy “SF grand strategy mixing stuff like feudal Japan, zealous cyber ninjas and space pirates galore” concept. It's a melting pot of cool ideas you'd see in anime couple of decades back echoing shows like The Heroes of Galaxy Wars and other space operas leaning less on serious stories and more on action. I was surprised by its kickass soundtrack, albeit one with short looping tracks that could've benefited from some extension and over a dozen of playable factions. Demo restricts the player to just one so I can't exactly compare and contrast yet even then they have identities in terms of fluff and most deployable units. Gameplay-wise it would fit right in during ye olden SNES days and plays like Advance Wars meets Fire Emblem with varying degrees of influence, I guess?

VERDICT: I had this wishlisted for some time back before removing it. I have no idea why after trying it out. Even after a very brief stint with the demo, turn-based strategies aren't the genre I would indulge in extensively without having full access to all the features, there are some issues like combat dragging on, lack of explanations when something like tooltips would help greatly and shoddy translation. All of these can be remedied with enough polish considering the game is in its final stretch, though.

Quickly, point out the signs indicating you're playing as the canonical faction of the anime!