Mars. A fresh start for the future. A chance at new life, a way to right the wrongs. But not all is as it seems.

Per Aspera is an interesting take on the city builder, base building genre of games. You’re tasked with making Mars inhabitable. However, is Per Aspera the salvation humanity is seeking, or does it fail to do what it set out to do.

Firstly, the game overall is incredibly smooth. It runs impeccably well. This becomes incredibly important once the game starts to pick up a bit, and you find yourself flying all around Mars, building rapidly, moving combat drones, whilst also attempting to keep up with the spaceport projects and upgrade projects. The game never really slows down, and the smoothness of the gameplay really lends itself to being a great experience overall.

On the point of gameplay, there is a lot of nuance here. Base-builders/City-builders tend to suffer from hitting a wall of repetition quite early on. Per Aspera never really feels stagnant. There is always something new to discover, some new building, upgrade or project to take part in. The base building aspect itself doesn’t appear to be the main focus, and that actually lends itself to being far more interesting than a typical game of this style.

The sound design is where this game truly shines in my eyes. The music is atmospheric, light and spacey. It never really feels like it’s too much, and keeps things paced. When you find yourself with a moment to breath as your buildings are being built, or you’re waiting for some resources, the music just captures the pure awe of the impressiveness of the game. It’s super easy to get distracted by just how nice the background sound, and the ambient sounds of the game are. Easily the best part of the game is just listening to it. Truly impressive.

There is a pretty diverse upgrade tree, which in turn allows you to upgrade your buildings, roads, and resource acquisition. The usual sort of upgrades. But the order in which you upgrade all these can really affect the way the game plays out. If you’re hyper focused on getting Mars’ to inhabitable, you might find yourself struggling to expand your base due to an inefficient resource acquisition. Conversely, if you’re too focused on resources, you may not be ready for when the game takes a turn.

Oh boy, does the game take a turn. I was really enjoying the game, vibing to the music, feeling good about building my base, feeling like I was progressing. The storyline in the main campaign was interesting, but not too distracting. Giving background lore, and something to listen to. Then you unlock defence drones, and suddenly your base is under attack. And all the enjoyment I was having, was suddenly sucked out of me.

I could’ve easily played the game for 20-30 hours just doing the base building, experiencing the story, making Mars a new home for civilisation. However I found myself completely without desire to continue playing once the combat element was brought in. The game as a whole, just leaves you to work out how most of it works, and for the most part, things are pretty straight forward. The more you play, the better you get at being efficient with building and what upgrades are more effective to take early. However, for me, the combat element was completely unnecessary to add in.

From a game lore perspective, there is merit, and I understand why it exists. But the game never explicitly teaches you anything. Meaning when I first was attacked, I had not placed my defence drones anywhere near being helpful. Then the second attack came, and I was slightly more prepared, but still not enough to protect myself. By the time the third attack rolled around, and I had lost most of my base, I was really struggling to continue.

I understand that the idea of the Mars mission of the game is that it’s to be difficult. But, there are significantly better ways to do that, than the really bare bones, unenjoyable combat that was brought into the game. It’s nothing but a distraction, and one that is ruinous for me.

The game has potential, and being able to opt out of the combat aspect of the game would really go a long way. The actual base-building and Mars colonisation is incredibly enjoyable. The game sounds immaculate, it runs fantastically. There are so many positives in the game that made me want to continue playing. But the combat aspect was so suddenly thrust into my face, and then in turn, so quickly ruined the last few hours I’d spent. I tried to continue to enjoy the game, but this really jarring experience just sucked the life out of my enjoyment.

Per Aspera is a good game. My gripes with it are based purely on a personal level. I would have much preferred a pure base building experience, with a similar storyline. The game is fun, there is no denying it. And a lot of people are going to enjoy the combat aspect. It just wasn’t for me.