Sunrider Index

The Sunrider games are anime-esque visual novel/turn-based strategy hybrids initially awkwardly constructed in Ren'Py, which is to say inside an engine expressly for visual novels in specific. There's... jank as a result.

I found the first game promising, but was pretty unhappy with the second game, and have yet to get to the third game. Even so, I've covered the series enough to justify its own index.

Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius as an Experience. I do think Mask of Arcadius does an unexpectedly good job at selling the 'lone capital ship amassing allies and so on' aspect of things.

Mask of Arcadius: Sunrider. Awkwardly, the Sunrider series shares its name with its primary capital ship, the Sunrider, presumably in imitation of anime doing exactly that. This post is for talking about that ship within the context of the first game. I also explain a bunch of core combat mechanics here, because I'm going over a bunch of stats and contextualizing what they actually mean. (And explaining why the Sunrider's Shield generator upgrade is a trap choice)

Mask of Arcadius: Blackjack. Impresses initially, but is oddly underwhelming once you're getting into the real meat of the game.

Mask of Arcadius: Liberty. Unfortunately a bit of a design-warper yet saddled with some very dubious abilities. The core points have potential, but the tuning really needed some more work.

Mask of Arcadius: Phoenix. The unit whose intended usage is so contrary to the game's overall incentives it ends up being a really bad unit, easily the worst unit in your fleet.

Mask of Arcadius: Bianca. The shield bubble completes! And also the pink mecha eventually drags people around, which is pretty useful. But seriously, most of its value is contributing shielding.

Mask of Arcadius: Seraphim. The sniper unit! I actually quite like the Seraphim, with my main complaint being that Awaken is very poorly-considered in its design. The rest of it works well and is interesting, though, and Awaken can still justify itself at times.

Mask of Arcadius: Paladin. Your best tool for busting cap ships -or second best after the Sunrider- and in general marks the point at which mission design changes quite a bit.

Mask of Arcadius: Mercenary Ships. Even more big guns and the best answer to enemy shield bubbles. Though with strangeness from the fact that losing these is more bothersome than losing your named characters, mechanically.

Mask of Arcadius: Orders. A system that is unfortunately pretty flawed in several ways, but the idea is sound.

Mask of Arcadius Characters: Ava, Asagara, Chigara. Ava's great, I like Ava. Asagara and Chigara are... not so great in execution.

Mask of Arcadius Characters: Icari, Claude, Sola. Icari and Claude... eugh. Sola is okay.

Mask of Arcadius Characters: Kryska, Cosette, And... My final post about Mask of Arcadius. I do still find it interesting how the player-stand-in character ended up being so metamorphic in a way that seems like it would work from the opposite direction of the intent, and wonder if it did indeed work out that way for any players.