With an initial £40 price tag on launch, Star Trek: Prodigy: Supernova was never going to be high on my list of purchases.
But the Black Friday sales just tipped the scales with a 50% drop that was too good to miss out on.
The last console ventures for Star Trek have been...ok. The VR-reliant Star Trek: Bridge Command and a prequel of types to Into Darkness back in 2013. Tying into the latest animated series, Supernova takes a tried and tested step into a third person adventure/puzzler.
Offering horribly basic controls, the trips through the levels, at least early in the game, are heavily dependent on moving boxes to complete or block power lines and blast away at Watcher drones. It's unfortunately repetitive as you hunt out parts for the Protostar which only comes into the game as a menu area and staging point to begin the next part of the story. As you do progress through worlds there are slight changes. Objects can be transported, you can cloak Dal to pass by sensors but the core stays the same in its playability because you're told where to use these features even after a few levels.
Problem is that there's no jump, no way to step outside of the allotted path, no chance to explore further. It's very much plotted out with a straight-forward path and little to deviate. Even the points where you need to push/pull, climb, lift or crouch are literally signposted on screen so you can't miss a thing - troublingly easy for the more mature gamer.
The other members of the Protostar crew do step in as well to add bonus abilities when activated and can be selected for mission specific duties to beam down when required but that's the heights of their involvement. Jankom for example gets automatically called in to increase your damage level for example when you reach a certain "kill" achievement. Rok-Tahk assists by reducing enemy damage and also by unblocking paths.
It is a lovely game to look at although stylistically I was confused as to why the opening cut-scene story was rendered as a comic rather than using the graphics which perpetuate through both the series and the rest of the game itself. The voices are also those of the series cast including Kate Mulgrew as Hologram Janeway. She tends to appear to offer advice in painfully slow explanatory moments throughout. Annoyingly both Dal and Gwyn have set phrases when you change between them which become teeth-grindingly painful after about the second stage of the first world - as does the grunting when you dash. There's only so much "Let me take point" or "I'll show you how it's done" one person can take.
That said, there are some neat touches in the story with wall art illustrating plot points but the ability to skip through sometimes annoyingly tedious talky parts in chunks (especially if you accidentally click to restart said talky bit) is a flaw that comes up quite a bit. You have to be in exactly the right spot to activate a feature (and I mean PRECISELY) and on the flip side its equally easy to replay something you don't need to.
If you want in depth then this isn't the way to go and I'd wait for Resurgence or grab a copy of Bridge Commander or something from times past. This one probably won't fulfil your requirements.
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