Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog review

An appreciation for the past is an indispensable quality for fully enjoying Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog. Even a fleeting glance at screenshots reveals the developer’s visual inspirations. From a copiously-coiffed crew clad in dressy fatigues, mighty mecha that wield oversized ordinance, to the olive drab-coated space vessels, the game channels the same aesthetic as late 20^th century anime like Macross and Gundam.

But that’s hardly the only nostalgic element. In interviews, developer Space Colony Studios mentioned their aim to recreate the look of a PC-98 home computer game. Pleasingly, every illustration employs the trademark look of the era, where pixels resemble paint grain and shading is accomplished through dithering, creating a bit of texture.

If you want to reach back in time even further, Gun-Dog accommodates. There’s rendering that resembles the Game Boy’s pea-green palette, or even the game’s original graphics, which simplifies the art. Adeptly, it even captures the technology shown in ‘80s films and television. The Gun-Dog, a ship where most of the story takes place, contains everything from cassette tapes, and corded intercoms, to monochrome monitors.

Vintage Looks, but Modern Conveniences

Like many early adventure games, the right side of the screen provides access to five fundamental commands: Move, Look, Use, Talk, and Item. You’ll use all of them as part of your character’s daily security duties. As with most point-and-click titles, there’s always a main objective to undertake.

But pleasingly, Stories from Sol often provides a wealth of autonomy. Sure, there are some timed decisions, but most of the time you’re free to explore the recesses of the Gun-Dog and talk to other characters, which both provide particulars that enrich the plotline. Your conversational selections even affect how some of the ship’s other crew members perceive you, enduring this isn’t a linear outing.

Thankfully, No FAQs Required

Best of all, Sol avoids many of the frustrations often associated with the genre. Across the five-to-six-hour adventure, there’s some light puzzling (and expectedly, a hacking mini-game where you guide electrical currents) but none of the esoteric riddles that can bring your progress to a crashing halt.

With assistive components like object highlighting, a mini-map, fast-travel, task tracking, and the ability to save anywhere, the developers provide a wealth of amenities. But it’s hard to long for better conversational backtracking, adjustable font sizing, and character name entry where the Steam Deck’s floating keyboard doesn’t cover things up. Fortunately, most of the game’s imperfections can be rectified with a post-launch patch.

A Motley Space Crew

Stories from Sol weaves its storylineine from a wealth of recognizable strands. A prologue details the protagonist’s backstory, where a hardware malfunction prohibited his mech from being launched into battle. Subsequently, he was forced to listen to the defeat of each squad mate over an intercom, resulting in a demoralizing sense of guilt. Four years on, he’s trying to reconcile things, despite complications like another Gun-Dog crew member who blames him for the loss of his friends. While the game’s exploration of PTSD isn’t quite as nuanced as Evangelion or even Godzilla Minus One, it still makes for an interesting character study.

Where Stories from Sol truly excels is in providing personalities for the protagonist to interact with. From your delightful, chocolate-loving girlfriend named Cassandra (sorry, no space dating), an oft-domineering Chief, and the aforementioned rival, the game’s secondaries provide a heaping of pulp for you to wade through. Pleasingly, a plotline that sends the crew investigating a distress signal and the emergence of a potential saboteur ratchet up the intrigue. Really, the only expositional shortcoming is a cliffhanger that paves the way for a sequel.

Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.