Recent reviews by Bralex

Mixed bag - as I understand it devs are still working on it. Right now I'd give it a hesitant recommendation. The new combat system is heavily automated while also complex - I autofight almost all battles, combat feels tedious for the most part. I'm not sure what the logic is for allowing a character to appear multiple times on the battlefield. The initial quests (first ~50 turns) are boring, even annoying, after the first few plays. Interface oddities - lots of times you only have 1 option but require a keypress/click to progress. Why? Sometimes escape works to exit a screen, other times not. You can click/drag the tech screen, but not the map. When you have resources turned on, it can get hard to select a stack. Crafting/building feels pointless - build a few gathering items, everything else will come as drops. A good weapon and a mediocre weapon feel almost the same - everything is a spectrum. Too many events - I can hit "end turn" and have 5-7 attacks, random events, etc. happen while sitting still. Can't do anything about physical or sanity damage, only faith has a repair action.

That's a big mass of criticisms, sorry! The slavic mythology theme is fun, though I haven't found much difference playing different gods. Exploring and events are kind of interesting. Graphics are good to excellent. Pacing is fair-to-good, resource gathering is somewhat satisfying but can drag when trying to refine advanced materials. I'm hoping for continued refinement - a lot of games release with rough edges then turn out great, and Thea:Awakening was excellent.

The art and music are nice. I found it tedious, dying over and over while finessing the timing of a platform or switch, and can't imagine replaying it now that I finished it once. It may be your cup of tea, but surely isn't mine.

I give it a B+. It's fun to explore, find habitable planets, all the things that make for a good 4x game. The custom ships are fun.

Gameplay-wise, I feel that there is too much pressure to build ships - the "ripe for conquest" mechanic is, in my opinion, flawed. The AIs build huge fleets that would completely wreck the player's economy to attempt. Some events, like the one that drops artifacts everywhere, are a bit too easy to exploit. I also feel the interface is clumsy - there's no keyboard shortcuts to move through your planets and starbases, for example, and often the targets for your mouse clicks are a bit too small (e.g. build queues).