Capsule Review: Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova
A solid kid-friendly action and puzzle game with a co-op focus and lots of Star Trek references.
A licensed game starring the cast of Star Trek: Prodigy and taking place halfway through the show’s first season. Play as lead characters Gwyn and Dal, progress through a series of mostly-linear levels, explore for collectibles and secrets, and overcome two primary types of gameplay set piece: combat and puzzles.
Combat has you dealing with waves of attacking robots with several different abilities (projectile or melee attacks, healing nearby robots, exploding on death, and more). It’s simple and approachable as action games go but adds depth by giving Gwyn better melee options and Dal better ranged options. You can experiment and mix-and-match your approach to the particular set of robots attacking at that time, but you can also do okay being less efficient and just picking your favorite (I mostly just stick with Dal’s dual hand phasers). There are also a few climactic boss fights which tend to be more involved and require particular strategies to make them vulnerable or avoid their unique attacks.
Puzzles generally involve picking up and relocating energy sources and reflectors in order to route energy where it’s needed to do things like open doors, disable laser barriers, activate lifts, and so on. Some puzzles are very simple but most require Gwyn and Dal to work together and use their unique abilities through several steps. None of them have time pressure and I don’t think you can make any of them unsolvable. As an adult who’s played a number of puzzle games, I found the puzzles satisfyingly chill and they never stumped me. They may be more challenging for younger players.
Along the way, there’s flavor from a fairly simple story and a lot of character dialog, plus some unlockable decorations for Dal’s quarters that make references to most Star Trek series. The other crew members help out in a couple ways: Jankom and Rok sell upgrades, while each of Jankom, Rok, Zero, and Murf have an ability to help in combat (though this is implemented in a somewhat frustrating way that interrupts you whenever it becomes ready and you can’t choose not to use it). They’re also part of how the game encourages you to replay levels, since each crewmate can also open certain kinds of barriers and many levels have secrets behind barriers for which you won’t have the right crewmate the first time you pass through. Levels also have a few different optional objectives (complete in a certain amount of time, die fewer than three times, and find a certain amount of resources) that are a bit difficult to get all of the first time through. (I like to explore levels thoroughly so I generally had to come back for the speedrun objective.) Though, given this replay encouragement, it’s a little frustrating that you can’t skip tutorials and dialog scenes on repeat plays.
You can play through the game solo, switching between Gwyn and Dal with a single button press to use their respective abilities for combat and puzzles–this is what I did and it worked fine. But I expect the game would be more enjoyable playing co-op and working together to overcome challenges. It’s a solid choice for playing with someone young or inexperienced with games - and probably the best choice today if you’re specifically looking for a Star Trek game.
Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova is a solid execution on the co-op action-and-puzzle structure. As an adult Trek fan and an experienced player of action and puzzle games, I found it to be a great way to relax. Younger players might find it a more engaging experience, and I imagine that if someone introduced their child to Trek through Prodigy, they could have a great time playing this game together.
I Stopped Playing When: I fully completed the game including all achievements and optional objectives (which took me 16.3 hours according to Steam).
Three Stars: Good. I liked the game enough to finish it (or just play it a bunch, for games that don't end). I recommend it to most genre fans.