Game file / ROGUE BY ROGUEStar Renegades
Star Renegades is a dimension spanning rogue-lite strategy RPG. Outsmart uniquely generated adversaries, forge bonds between heroes and end the cycle!
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Video reviews
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Community discussion
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.
What players praise
- 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
What players criticize
- 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
Distinctive features
- 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
Divided opinions
- Roguelite structure: some love the long, high-stakes runs and depth while others say the game would be better as a standard JRPG
- Story and humour: seen as charming and funny by some, unbearably cliched or off-tone by others
- Difficulty and RNG: 'perfect information' and cerebral puzzle-solving to fans vs unfair and luck-driven to detractors
- Value: a steal at under $5-10 on sale, but many feel it is unfinished at the $25 full price
Repetition and friction
- 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
Hoped-for improvements
- 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
Launched on PC on Sep 8, 2020 (Switch and Xbox One Nov 19, 2020; PS4 delayed to Mar 10, 2021 over technical problems), then added DLC and expansions (Star Renegades: Total Lunarcy, Prime Dimension, Enter the Dragoon on Steam). Critic reception was generally favourable at launch; Switch performance was the weakest (Metacritic 67). Steam sentiment has held at Very Positive for years, and recent reviews call the game slept-on but note the developer appears to have moved on, leaving bugs and balance problems unaddressed. Steam owner estimate is 200k-500k with an estimated gross revenue of about $2.3M (third-party estimate, not audited). Windows only on Steam (no Mac or Linux), Steam Deck reportedly works. OpenCritic could not be retrieved, so no score is given. Note: web search budget was exhausted, so community detail comes from Steam reviews, Steam discussion titles and Metacritic pages rather than Reddit (Reddit fetch was blocked).
Community sources
- Top helpful positive and negative English Steam reviews (local file) ↗
- Steam app metadata: 82.6% positive, ~3,083 reviews, owner and revenue estimates, tags ↗
- Steam store page for Star Renegades (price, tags, review summary) ↗
- Metascore 77 from 39 critic reviews, user score 6.6 ↗
- Critic outlets and scores (DualShockers, GamingTrend, Digital Fix 90; RPG Fan 87) ↗
- Metacritic user reviews: praise for art and combat, complaints about luck, grinding, run length ↗
- Release dates, platform Metacritic scores, critical reception summary ↗
- Steam community discussion titles: bugs, post-game content, story tone, sequel requests ↗
- Third-party Boxleiter-method revenue estimate (about $2.29M gross) ↗
Archived creator commentary 1
Third-party summaries based on automatic captions may contain transcription or interpretation errors.
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.
What the creator praises
- Core tactical combat is satisfying, enjoyable and fairly strategic
- Timeline/time-bar mechanic, where you manipulate enemy turn order and crits, is unique and strategic
- Art style and animations are excellent, with unique animations per enemy and attack
- Characters play drastically differently and there are many party combinations
- Solid story with attention to characters and camp relationship systems
- Items add roguelike variety so runs feel different
Issues raised by the creator
- UI is a mess: no quick inventory, information is unclear, and enemy intentions are hard to see
- Basic quality-of-life gaps, e.g. needing to press a button then click to inspect an enemy instead of hovering
- Overwhelming and confusing to start; unclear why some attacks are automatic and turn order can trigger accidentally
- Runs can be very long, with fights taking many turns of repeating the same few abilities
- Starting a new run feels like a drag; characters have no roguelike progression and level identically
Design observations
- The timeline bar, where positioning before enemies and pushing them back enables crits, is its most unique part
- Turn-based RPG roguelikes are rare despite the genre's roots, making this a notable entry
- Gameplay is more complicated than Darkest Dungeon, which he is unsure is good or bad
