Skyshine's Bedlam

 PC
Metascore
67

Mixed or average reviews - based on 26 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 26
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 26
  3. Negative: 2 out of 26
  1. We Got This Covered
    Sep 17, 2015
    90
    Whether you love fretting over turn-based shoot-outs or watching people become mutant food, Skyshine’s Bedlam is an apocalypse of considerable intrigue and polish.
  2. Game Over Online
    Sep 30, 2015
    80
    My early assertion that Skyshine’s Bedlam is a lot like The Banner Saga with a sci-fi setting is pretty close. The story in Bedlam is far thinner, but they’ve tweaked the combat and added some resources to balance and I think they’ve ended up with a better game.
  3. The Escapist
    Sep 16, 2015
    80
    Skyshine's Bedlam is a tough but rewarding trip through a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
  5. GameStar
    Sep 22, 2015
    78
    I hate this game. And I love it. No other game managed to motivate me so often to have another go. But the crashes and some unfair situations are frustrating.
  6. Ragequit.gr
    Sep 21, 2015
    77
    Despite some rather controversial combat mechanics, Skyshine's Bedlam remains a fun and artistically beautiful roguelike experience, following in the footsteps of games like Faster Than Light.
  7. COGconnected
    Sep 27, 2015
    75
    Overall, if you’re in to punishing yourself with some turn based violence, than Skyshine’s Bedlam is for you. It’s not exactly polished and it still needs a little work, but it’s definitely a worthwhile game.
  8. Softpedia
    Sep 21, 2015
    75
    Skyshine's Bedlam is a pretty good mix of turn-based strategy and rogue-like mechanics. However, the sheer difficulty at the beginning of a campaign and the randomized unit placement does make it very tough for players to survive their journey into the Wasteland.
  9. GameWatcher
    Sep 18, 2015
    75
    Bedlam is a pretty amazing balancing act on multiple fronts. It has a feel that fondly reminds me of Oregon Trail, but with more head shots and acid-scorched bones.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
5.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 39 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 39
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 39
  3. Negative: 16 out of 39
  1. brian130
    Sep 17, 2015
    6
    An interesting take on the Faster Than Light rogue-like game concept. Start out as a group of humans attempting to cross a vast wasteland byAn interesting take on the Faster Than Light rogue-like game concept. Start out as a group of humans attempting to cross a vast wasteland by traveling from one dangerous point on the map to the next. You'll use meat and crude to get there and there is a finite amount of the stuff so you'll need some generous random events to boost you along the way. It's all very tense and exciting, hoping the next encounter (and many of them are well-written) will give you the resource you need to get to the next border crossing.

    Sadly all of the positive elements are overshadowed by a very poor combat system. You only have two actions per turn (spread out between your troops) meaning you can have one guy move once and one guy shoot or the same guy move twice, etc. It's awful. Troop health means some can be one-shotted, or if the AI takes both of his actions to shoot you, almost all of your troops can be two-shotted. And there's really nothing you can do about it, particularly because there's no way to position your troops for battle. They just plop down randomly. Combat was a huge part of FTL and you had excellent control over all of it's aspect, weapons, shields, damage control, troop placement, invasions. It was frantic and fun. Here combat is brief, bloody, and frustrating. An overhauled combat system would easily bump my rating up 2 points or more.    … Full Review »
  2. Hideyoshi123
    Sep 21, 2015
    3
    This game was on my radar for awhile and I was looking forward to it (I love a good turn based strategy game). Most notably that it was usingThis game was on my radar for awhile and I was looking forward to it (I love a good turn based strategy game). Most notably that it was using the Banner Saga engine, a great game if you haven't tried it!!!

    Sadly this is NOT The Banner Saga, its a close copy but without ANY and I do mean ANY of the combat depth (or meaningful choices).

    I was hugely let down within 5 minutes and after watching my entire squad get wiped out because I simply ASSUMED you could move and position your team (your "whole" team). However after watching the tutorials I realized they had basically implemented an absolutely dumbed down version of just about every other decent turn based strat game on the market.

    Your ENTIRE squad (depending how many you choose to take to battle) gets 2 action points per turn, the AI gets the same, you can either move or shoot, move twice or shoot twice, move once attack once, etc. So instead of a position / cover based system it ends up being a terrible zerg what you can without moving too much while you watch your squad members get nailed (you'll basically have to sacrifice a lot of them to simply level others up) because everybody has ridiculously low health.

    After completing the "main" objective of the game, I had seen so many of the not so random encounters repeat themselves again and again, which seemed to be par for the course, just a flat out lack of depth to the core game mechanics, although it does come in a very nice looking package.    … Full Review »
  3. Mikimax
    Sep 20, 2015
    7
    Interesting rogue like/indie/fallout/banner saga game with nice graphics, art style, music, characters and concept.
    Bad sides:
    I was    Interesting rogue like/indie/fallout/banner saga game with nice graphics, art style, music, characters and concept.
    Bad sides:
    I was expecting to be able to fight with Dozer, upgrade it even more. Fights are ok, but not deep enough. They should have used the XCOM style turn based fights. 2 moves are just not enough.
    Game needs more depth, mainly unit battles and Dozer battles.    … Full Review »
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