Part 4 (Dec 2025) · #6 of 10 in that tierWatch the moment (2:19:02)
Star Renegades
- Developed by
- Massive Damage, Inc.
- Published by
- Raw Fury
$24.99
Star Renegades is a dimension spanning rogue-lite strategy RPG. Outsmart uniquely generated adversaries, forge bonds between heroes and end the cycle!
Consensus
C70.1/100
Steam players82.6% positiveVery Positive3,083 reviews
Metacritic ↗77/100Users: 6.6/10
VG Insights estimate ↗≈92.5K copies · ≈$1.5M gross
What creators say
What players say
A pixel-art sci-fi turn-based tactical JRPG roguelite by Massive Damage (published by Raw Fury) where you chain attacks on a timeline, break enemy turns, and fight an invading empire across dimensions over multi-hour runs.
Star Renegades is received as a flawed but distinctive and deeply tactical roguelite. Critics landed at a Metascore of 77 on PC (40 reviews on Metacritic), with many 85-90 scores praising the art, combat and variety, and a few lukewarm ones (Edge 50) citing overwhelming systems and difficulty. Steam players are more positive than Metacritic users: 82.6% positive across about 3,083 reviews (Very Positive), while Metacritic users sit at a mixed 6.6. Long-time players say it has been effectively left as-is by the developer (bugs and balance issues remain), and it is frequently discounted to under $5-10. Players who bond with the timeline system sink hundreds of hours in, while many others bounce off the run length, RNG and writing.
Players love
- Timeline-based turn combat: chain attacks, delay enemies, and 'break' them so they forfeit their turn and take crits; reviewers call it innovative and puzzle-like, often comparing the feel to Into the Breach
- Very strong pixel art with modern lighting and effects, plus an energetic synth soundtrack, highlighted by critics (Digital Chumps, GamingTrend) and players alike
- Deep build variety via classes, weapons, perks and skills, with lots of synergies to discover
- Nemesis-style system where escaped or victorious mini-bosses return stronger with new modifiers, giving runs memorable loops
- Camp and affinity system between party members produces cutscenes and unlocks alternate appearances and movesets; progeny system unlocks new characters
- Escalating difficulty ladder (Harsh up to Entropy levels) and new-game-plus style restarts where unlocks carry over give strong replay depth for dedicated players
- Great value on sale; several players report 200-700+ hours played
- Runs on Steam Deck and is praised as a handheld game despite minor lag when fast-forwarding
Common complaints
- Runs are very long (commonly 2-4 hours, some report 6+), so a death late in a run feels punishing
- Heavy RNG layering (rewards, enemy backline placement, nemesis modifiers) can invalidate a build through no fault of the player
- Timeline predictions are sometimes inaccurate or ignore certain moves, which can cause run-ending surprises; mechanics are poorly explained in tooltips
- Writing and tone are a frequent complaint: irreverent, cliched, fourth-wall-breaking dialogue that clashes with the world; thin story with no Hades-style narrative progression across runs
- Bugs: soft locks when returning from the map view, chests or looting ceasing to work, stuck end-of-run states, and autosaves capturing broken states; heavy CPU use reported
- Weak tutorial and steep learning curve; players often need outside guides to understand time manipulation and statuses
- Meta-progression is slow or uninspiring and many players unlock the important items within a few runs, while higher difficulties effectively force a narrow set of builds
- Too few regions, so repeated runs feel samey; map navigation is point-and-click and slow, especially during night backtracking
- Full price ($24.99) is widely called hard to justify: several top reviews say it feels unfinished, like early access, and recommend buying only on sale
Can feel tedious
- Multi-hour runs that must be restarted from scratch after failure; several reviewers say it would be better as a linear JRPG with saves
- Night-time backtracking and clicking through empty map segments
- Grindy, repetitive structure: similar fights and few regions across runs, with small incremental upgrades between runs
- Learning phase of reading about elements and statuses, and dying to unexplained mechanics
- Cringe character banter, and a perceived janky UX and controls that several reviewers say bury a good core game
What's unique
- Timeline combat where pushing enemies off the timeline breaks them and forces crits, mixing tactical-RPG puzzle logic with roguelite runs
- Nemesis-system-inspired boss and mini-boss memory across attempts, with special dialogue on revisits
- Dimension-hopping sci-fi JRPG setting (Star Wars meets cyberpunk flavour) with mech and pixel-art aesthetics
- Progeny and relationship system that generates variant heroes and unlocks characters through affinity rather than simple currency
- Alternating male or female sibling protagonist between campaigns, and a true-ending chain that restarts you at higher difficulty with all systems scaling
Players want
- Shorter or more modular runs, or mid-run save points and healing options, to reduce the cost of dying
- Reroll or refresh systems for rewards to mitigate bad RNG
- More accurate and complete timeline predictions and better in-game explanation of mechanics and statuses
- More regions, bosses and content variety so later runs differ more, plus richer meta-progression
- Rebalance difficulty tiers and weak synergies or combo skills so more than a handful of builds remain viable at high difficulty
- Bug fixes and stability work (soft locks, looting, performance); players also ask for a sequel that addresses the feedback
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
Steam tags
Rogue-likePixel GraphicsTurn-BasedRogue-liteJRPGSingleplayerTactical RPGMechsRPGStrategy RPG
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Tier list Part 4 (2025)
Star Renegades is a turn-based strategy RPG roguelike with a party of up to five characters, a timeline bar for turn order, and heavy Darkest Dungeon inspiration. He finds the core combat satisfying and strategic, with great art and animation, but is deeply frustrated by a messy UI and unclear information. After about 10 hours he is still confused by mechanics, and runs can drag. He places it mid B, says a UI overhaul would make it much better, and plans to return to it.
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