@drstrange146January 29, 2025
While I like to believe I’d still be a gamer and a Trekkie today thanks to the breadth of great experiences offered by both interests, there’s no denying the countless hours I poured into this game in my most formative years. This is more than just the greatest Star Trek game—which it is—it is a rare and fantastic entry in the history of the golden age of television and a trail blazer in game storytelling. It’s also better than all the next gen films.
A Final Unity is a mini season of Next Gen with a handful of stand alone episodes that continue to grow to a season long arc. This was unique at the time, especially since the TV show it adapted didn’t even do it! This is a narrative adventure with full and fantastic voice acting that gives extreme freedom to the player to live in this world. You assemble the away team and choose how to solve each problem with tact, science, and diplomacy. It is a rare game that encourages lateral thinking and collaborating between playable characters to determine the best solution.
It’s also a very strong roleplaying game with unnecessarily deep lore building to the federation and the Enterprise. The ship’s computer has encyclopedic amounts of information to dig through with no impact on the game, creating the illusion of infinite information out there. The map of the quadrant has a vast array of star systems the player never visits, but are theoretically out there to explore after a month at warp speed.
My only complaint about this adventure is the combat difficulty in space, especially on modern machines that seem to run the encounters too fast. Roddenberry would be happy to know that, unlike every other trek game, combat is almost always completely avoidable. You can also delegate all tactical decisions to Worf, the tactical officer, in one of many examples of the game encouraging roleplaying as a leader.
I really hope this game can be preserved for future generations. I suddenly have the urge to check my orders from Starfleet.