It’s been more than four years since Eden Industries released its RPG Citizens of Earth, and after Vice President of the World managed to save the planet, mostly with help from his friends he collected along the way, the developer is back with a new sequel in the series titled Citizens of Space.
In this sequel, Eden Industries has added noticeably better visuals, refined the game’s battle system and addressed issues with the first game, so it should be an overall better game, right?
The story in Citizens of Space begins with our protagonist from the first game having recently elected as the Ambassador of Earth to represent our planet in the Galactic Federation. Soon after arriving and briefing the Galactic Federation, the Ambassador is alerted to news that Earth has somehow gone missing and must fly to a nearby moon base to begin his investigation into where Earth has disappeared to and who might be behind this dastardly deed.
Citizens of Space has a very Earthbound-like feel to it mixed with some smart, smarmy writing and a charming visual style that succeeds in many ways. The dialogue between characters is mostly voice acted and, for the most part, is very good.
Like in the original game, you’ll need to recruit characters into your party to do the actual fighting as the Ambassador has no interest in getting his hands dirty, although he does have the ability to help heal and support the group during battle.
Overall, there are more than 40 characters you’ll be able to add to your team, but this is one of the parts that really confused me, as a newcomer to the series. You see, as you recruit new characters to your team, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will join you in battle. Some characters serve as support members, who you essentially “equip” to your main fighters that provide boosts and other talents that can be used in battle.
For instance, the Assistant allows you to control the random battle rate, so you can lower it down if you want to get through a particular section without being bothered with battles, or, if you need to do some grinding, you can really crank up the percentage to engage in battles with every few steps.
It’s not bad, mind you, and actually works pretty well, but it was confusing and took a lot of navigating through the menu system to understand which characters do what and how to attach them to my battle squad.
To get characters to join your team, you’ll need to go on side quests to help them in their own agendas, like finding some key ingredients for the Chemist to create a new concoction or answering all the questions correctly on a space game show.
The most interesting aspect of Citizens of Space has to be its battle system. While it doesn’t do anything incredibly new, it does keep things fresh by requiring you to essentially play mini-games with each action a character takes, whether that’s to attack, defend, heal or use abilities. The better you do in the mini-game, and the more effective that action is.
For the most part, the mini-games are fairly fun and straightforward, like having to press the correct button combination or timing an attack to correspond when bullets hit an enemy. They really help break up the monotony of battles, which is always welcomed in an RPG.
Citizens of Space runs at a quick clip on the Xbox One, but I’ve heard there are regular framerate issues on the Nintendo Switch version. I did experience more than a few instances of the game locking up for a few seconds before resuming, and thankfully, it never completely crashed.
The game’s mini map doesn’t do a lot to really help with the location you’re supposed to be going, despite displaying quest and character icons. Pressing a trigger button will open a full area map but doesn’t let you zoom in far enough at times and the cursor moves at a frustratingly slow pace.
Summary
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Citizens of Space’s eclectic group of alien characters. The game has plenty of charm, fun writing and the battle system is one of the more fun I’ve played in an RPG in quite some time. It’s definitely worth your time and at a budget friendly $14.99 price tag, it’s a no brainer pick up!
Citizens of Space is available on the Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam. A review code was provided to us by SEGA.
PROS:
- Interesting and enjoyable battle system
- Funny writing and voice acting
- Charming character design
CONS:
- Overhead map can be confusing
- Several instances of game locking up briefly
