Per Aspera Review (PC)

excellent
key review info
  • Game: Per Aspera
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: No
  • Reviewed on:
Per Aspera artwork

What’s more important when it comes to sustaining life on Mars? Does it need increased temperatures or increased atmospheric pressure? Do I research the path to one or the other? Or do I focus on the well-being of my colonists and on attracting as many of them as I can support by getting more water and food? And what should I do about power? These are just a few of the planning choices that Per Aspera throws up.

The title is a variation on the city builder and management genres, created by Tlon Industries and published by Raw Fury. Playing as a very capable Artificial Intelligence, gamers will have to find the best way to develop an industrial infrastructure on Mars and find ways to terraform the Red Planet.

The start of the game is relatively slow but it does a good job of explaining the main concepts for those who have no played a similar title before. The A.I. awakens and needs to mine materials, build factories, and supply them with electricity to develop a limited industrial base. Regular communication moments and self-reflections give a sense of how the computer you are playing as thinks of the task he is executing. There are speed controls to push the gamer ahead faster, much needed for veterans of development sims, and eventually, humans arrive on Mars, and the complexity of the building and the management increases.

Per Aspera
Per Aspera
Per Aspera
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Per Aspera has a good narrative, helped along by solid voice work and well-written dialogue. The A.I.’s internal monologue is especially good, filled with themes that will be familiar to fans of both classic and modern science fiction. The story does not ever dominate the actual gameplay but it introduces a solid hook to keep gamers engaged. At first, there’s a somewhat melancholy element to the game, especially when the A.I. explores her own existence, that really struck a chord. Then there are some twists and turns, later in the campaign, that surprised me and changed the way I approached the game.

Mechanically, Per Aspera is at once familiar and innovative. Gamers will place buildings, create maintenance zones, deal with raw resources, and complex end-products. They will choose research options, from an initial three sections hub, while also dealing with bigger orbital projects. Mars needs a lot of work before it can become a new home for mankind.

The growth in complexity is gradual. Buildings and supply chains are not hard to manage but achieving close to perfect efficiency is, as it should be, relatively hard. There never seem to be enough resources and enough factories to accomplish everything. Events push up even more problems, with extensive base damage that needs to be repaired and a push to expand to new areas of the planet to get the story to move forward. A mater as simple as the introduction of new resources creates new choices and can lead to an entirely new approach to old problems.

The game does not punish bad choices too much but it certainly rewards careful development. After a few hours, I had a huge urge to redesign my initial base. Power sources could be better distributed, workers needed to be more efficient, some factories were in the entirely wrong place. But I was too busy pushing forward to discover new things and terraform, which is a good tension for a building and management experience to have.

Per Aspera has a presentation that fits very well with both the overall theme and the main mechanics. The orbital view of Mars is beautiful and the quality of the graphics holds up when zooming on the Terran buildings and bustling colonies that develop. The voice acting, which features Troy Baker, Phil LaMarr, and more, manages to bring the characters and the story to life. Even the music, somewhat subdued and atmospheric, fits well with the sometimes melancholic tone of Per Aspera.

Per Aspera
Per Aspera
Per Aspera
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The Good

  • Solid management and building mechanics
  • Atmospheric story
  • Beautiful presentation

The Bad

  • One weird tone shift
  • More information on some options would be welcome
  • Research times are a little too long

Conclusion

Per Aspera is a very good science fiction driven management and building game. The story will keep fans of the genre engaged and mixes well with the core mechanics. Once that’s no longer interesting a Sandbox mode introduces the freedom to build-up Mars however one wants.

The twin challenges of expanding and re-building for greater efficiency are carefully balanced and truly engrossing. Just make sure to take tour time and explore as much as possible before moving through the checkpoints of the campaign. And spend as much time as possible running at the slowest speed, watching how mars can be changed from inhospitable wasteland to a new cradle of humanity. Just don’t forget to ponder whether it’s actually worth it, just as the protagonist A.I. does.

story 9
gameplay 9
concept 10
graphics 9
audio 8
multiplayer 0
final rating 9
Editor's review
excellent
 

Per Aspera screenshots (31 Images)

Per Aspera artwork
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