Stories From Sol: The Gun-Dog Review - After The War Is Over The Adventure Begins

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Genre – Sci-fi, Mecha Play Time – 7 hours Developer – Space Colony Studios Steam VNDB

Into The Depths Of Space

Drawing from 80s sci-fi stories and anime aesthetics creates a powerful first impression and opens up a wide array of genre ideas to play off. This foundational choice of direction defines much of Stories From Sol’s narrative and mechanic features for both good and ill. It fully embraces the pulpy spaceship fantasy of the era with a suitably dramatic roller-coaster which sees its cast face all kinds of shipwide calamities. Each one of the crew has their own distinct and conflicting personalities and these lead to a variety of entertaining tensions and clashes from minor headbutting to those endangering everyone. Focusing on a PC-9800 artistic style results in an imaginative exaggeration of the period that plays into the best elements of the period in everything from mecha design to classy chiptune tracks. However, in embracing the period it has inadvertently brought onboard some of the issues of game design from the period in is adventure game parts. They suffer from the obtuse nature of the genre and this impacts what is otherwise a well paced experience. Then there are the problems with the writing in terms of consistency and resolution which rear their heads in the later sections of the story. Is the strong design direction enough to overcome these weaknesses? Let’s jump into our mech and find out.

Captain I Think We Have A Problem – Narrative and Themes

From the moment the player steps into the Gun-Dog, the game does everything it can to sell the ship as a lived in place worth caring about while still being just another run-of-the-mill military vessel. Each location has a specific member of the crew associated with it and they can be visited at any point for short conversations about the current situation or just some small talk. In doing this the game provides each space an identity and functionality through how its cast interact with it from the Chief's tinkering in engineering to Vanessa’s constant power plays on the bridge. The ship gains a collective character despite its regular lines and metal panels and it is a pleasant place just to exist within and invests the player in its safety to mirror the protagonist’s role as head of ship’s security. Later in the title when you visit another ship of the same class this familiarity is cleverly turned on its head as the spaces once filled with personality assume their natural cold metic nature to make it clear this is not home. This build up of the ship is important since once events start to be put in motion the player will be strapped into a roller-coaster ride which will not stop until the credits roll. There is a good variety of types to the drama and action from high octane fights in mechs to tense sleuthing with enemies breathing down your neck. It never rests on any one of these for too long as each are given the exact amount of time needed for it to feel complete before being replaced by the next narrative beat. The results is a pulpy feeling story which plays into all the right notes from the period it is drawing its inspiration and it understands what made the peroid appealing while avoiding all of the elements that have not aged so well. In many ways its is a rose tinted glasses version of a story from the time, but it does not ever come across as self-indulgent and instead as an honouring of an older kind of sci-fi.

New sitations are constantly pushing the player forwards

It is disappointing then when this roller-coaster comes to a juddering halt as the game enters its finale. The factors which make this conclusion feel weak stem from the way it neither offers proper resolution nor sets up anything concrete for the future. By far the biggest sin the game commits in is the way it tosses aside the crew of the Gun-Dog who are given a moment or two of screen time before being unceremoniously shoved into a metaphorical bin. They were the heart of the experience up until this point so not having a proper send off makes for a hollow note to end on. Then there is the way it hurriedly resolves the main conflict while not actually providing any solid answers about what is going on. Coupled with the fate of a number of characters being uncertain by the end and the result is an unpleasant taste in the mouth of a player hoping for some kind of resolution. It does not even function as a cliffhanger since it is too vague to feel dramatic while also lacking any sense of where this will lead or what it means for the future of the cast. Overall, it feels like the ending was rushed out of the door either because of budget or time constraints and big chunks of it were cut so what is left has holes in it which sour the experience.

Having a clear vision helps sell the experience in a way few other things can

A more minor criticism is game’s inconsistent presentation and understanding of how space works and in particular how deadly it is for humans. For example, at one point they enter a ship which has had its atmosphere removed and yet all this does is cause the crew to asphyxiate with no mention of how the change in pressure and temperature might influence the bodies. In and of itself this is not an issue, since this work is clearly not aiming to be grounded sci-fi, but rather how it is inconsistent with its established rules. One moment you will have characters wearing spacesuits and another you will have characters jumping through the vacuum of space in their normal clothes. This is a bit of nit pick, but the game is filled with these kinds of inconsistencies and they build up to be distracting from the core experience.

A Motley Crew – Characters

Any story focused around a ship needs a crew with good spread of interesting personalities and Stories From Sol truly delivers on this for the Gun-Dog. The breadth of characters on offer serve a series of important functions in such an isolated setting where they occupy the majority of what the game’s narrative has to work with. On their most basic level they provide a sense of the wider universe which the game does not otherwise address since their different viewpoints speak to where they came from. The brusque Chief clearly comes from a vastly different background to the bubbly Cassandra and they both contrast with the laser focused Dylan. While no specifics are ever given to their lives before being assigned to the Gun-Dog, outside of a crumbs here and there, the player can easily draw conclusions about what the world beyond is like. Their strong identities make them easy to remember and recall quickly which is important given how quickly the game moves in its later parts. As events spiral to their conclusion it is good to have a simple frame of reference so the player immediately knows how each event is going to impact the characters. Crucially their personalities constantly clash against one another in dramatic and entertaining ways reinforcing the idea of them as individuals with their own aims and values. Their interpersonal interactions form the backbone of a lot of what makes the game’s moment to moment so engaging as they bounce off each other in fun and sometimes dangerous ways. The Gun-Dog’s crew have just the right amount of depth while also being memorable to make them the most enjoyable part of the entire game.

Every character has their own lovable personality even those who can be antagonistic

Retro Is The New Future – Visual, Audio and Technical

Style appears to have been at the top of Space Colony Studios’ list of priorities and it oozes from every inch of the game’s presentation. Its artistic vision is one which emulates the limitations of classical hardware through the flexibility of modern technology to create a larger than life vision of this era of games. What this means in practice is intricate pixel art images which lean into the PC-9800 sci-fi aesthetics to form a space where their angled nature can feel right at home. There are lots of nice touches that help sell the spaceship and characters with the most prominent being the motion on constant display. Each portrait has their own selection of emotive movements matching the character's personality while backgrounds and CGs have dynamic elements that change to reflect what is going on in the story. Character portraits even have three different versions which change their colour and the complexity of their designs to more directly resemble their inspiration. The soundtrack follows a similar philosophy with its chiptune music embodying an upbeat and energetic tone. While it is not without its darker and serious tracks, the general feel of the music is one focused on the idea of a big space adventure and how cool all of this is as it looks longingly at the giant mechs and fantastical ships. All-together this style creates a consistency to the experience and further pushes the core feelings present in the narrative.

From the moment you start the game it makes its artistic choices clear

As for the gameplay which lives alongside the narrative, it is a solidly built adventure game with little beyond what you would expect from the genre. It offers the player the option of one of several commands, such as look and use, to interact with the environment and progress. The visual novel narrative is the focus here and the adventure game parts are a means of pacing the player while giving them something to do with their hands in between key plot moments. However, it does suffer from one of the common pitfalls of the genre, unclear progression. What this means is the course of actions required to progress operates on a logic which is not immediately apparent and this leads to confusion and a stalling of the experience. Stories From Sol does not have the esoteric solutions present in many of its peers, but it does have moments where the player is required to perform actions on things seemly unrelated to the matter at hand. None of these are going to stall a player’s progress for any extended period of time and yet their repeated presence does lead to some frustration.

Conclusion

When a game knows exactly what it wants to be and directs everything into it, the result is a vivid and memorable title as it is with Stories From Sol. Focusing solely on selling this 80s style spaceship fantasy gives it the ability to craft a roller-coaster ride of drama and emotions with a strong sense of direction. Its characters are large and contrasting, allowing for all sorts of interesting interactions and conflicts to naturally arise. The retro mix of pixel art and chiptune emulate period styles while using the advances in technology helps create striking locations and emotive characters. While the ending does feel rushed and there are issues with its adventure game parts, none of these overshadow the game’s wholehearted commitment to its vision.

Verdict –

Vivid 80s style and a strong vision craft an unforgettable sci-fi story with lovable characters and suitably pulpy drama. However, the lacklustre ending and the pitfalls it inherits from adventure games do bring down the title’s overall quality.

Pros -

+ Knows exactly what kind of experience it is and firmly sticks to the best elements of 80’s sci-fi while avoiding the parts which have not aged well.

+ A roller-coaster of a story which sells the spaceship fantasy in a suitably dramatic manner.

+ Its characters are an endearing spread of personalities who constantly rub against each other in this boiling pot of a ship.

+ Having a strong retro aesthetic and musical direction makes each moment a feast for the senses.