What could be better than space adventures? Captain Surgeon knows the answer to this question—space piracy! Loot, pillage, plunder and sell all the lucre—that’s the motto of the Galactogon pirates, and Surgeon is doing his best to join their number.
But what is to be done when the enigmatic Uldans do not want to leave our swashbuckler in peace and keep laying new mysteries in his path, distracting him from his main goal? How does one become a formidable buccaneer, the scourge of Galactogon’s countless star systems, when an indomitable alien invasion is razing empires all across the galaxy?
Time and time again, the game hands Captain Surgeon the Black Spot and time and time again he refuses to take it. It looks like he will have to work extra hard to realize his dreams of piracy and find the answers to all these mysteries…
My Opinion: 387 pages, $6.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
Full disclosure: I received an advance copy for review. I purchased a copy when it became available.
Wow. It’s been 3.5 years since book 1 in this series was translated into English and you can kind of tell. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the story takes a hard left away from the big contest of book 1. The main character (MC) goes on this sci-fi space opera adventure with the goal of being a free space pirate and making as much money as he can for issues IRL. There are some really good space battles, lots of new characters, new quests, and exciting adventures. But the story has less focus, compared to book 1, and is more slice of life adventuring.
The game mechanics are consistent with book 1, but you can see that there are fewer notifications in this story. Still, the mechanics are there, they’re just different than a traditional RPG. There are no character classes or levels. Instead power is increased by improving the class of your equipment and ships making them more powerful. Then upon player death, they lose a class of effectiveness. There are occupations, which are just classes without the levels, that will players get to specialize through some quest chains. There is also lots of stuff with reputation which affects what quests are available and even if a player becomes hunted. Quests and rewards are the most common kind of notification with general player talk about them being in an MMO coming in 2nd.
Overall, this is an entertaining story. It took me a little bit to recall all the characters and plot from book 1. It is also more slice of life space opera, but it is entertaining and has some really good space battles.
Score: 7.2 out of 10