Daniel (@dungeondive) blasts off into Xia: Legends of a Drift System from Far Off Games — a thematic space-opera sandbox he likens to Cowboy Bebop and Firefly, and to the late-'70s/'80s space anime he loves. Unlike the 4X space games it superficially resembles, Xia is an adventure game: you pilot a ship through a hex sector, exploring dead worlds, nebulae and asteroid fields, chasing fame to become the best star pilot in the system.
This is a deliberately pre-game Part One, because the setup itself thrills him: bright, toy-like, almost-'80s table presence, with lovely (pre-painted, in-box, no Kickstarter-exclusive) minis and metal coins. He stresses the game needs its Embers of a Forsaken Star expansion — essential for the solo experience he favours — and gently dings the fact that base, expansion and solo rules live across three booklets. The real joy is ship selection: three tiers, each with a gameplay-irrelevant but delightful backstory (he reads the drunk-late-night-purchase flavour) plus tiered powers. He picks the Ghost Stalker at random and sets out as Captain Daniel, noting Xia’s Talisman-like trick of generating narrative purely from the player connecting the dots.
The game is currently out of print and pricey; he hopes a reprint bundles everything together.
Do you prize a game’s table presence and ship-backstory flavour as much as its mechanics — and would you, like Daniel, call Xia’s expansion essential?