The crashing can be fixed by replacing the DOS4GW version either with a bugfixed one, or even better with the DOS/32 open source runtime. Game runs much better then.
Always makes me wonder why they tried to hide James Doohan's missing finger as that could've added some interesting context into Scotty's backstory. The actors themselves often bring a lot of their own flare and ideas to the characters they bring to life in an ongoing TV series. :B
While we did get some good games from Activision in the Windows 9x era, Final Unity is still my favorite Star Trek game. The game designers were obviously fans, and they made this game as close to a special episode (dare I say "movie"?) as they possibly could. Many of the Activision games wore "Star Trek" as a skin, but this one was Star Trek through and through. One point about the weird walking dead scenarios. Paid help lines were a thing back in the day, and I suspect these odd situations were put in there to drive use of those help lines. I remember getting stuck right after I met the Chodak on a planet, and they suddenly beamed away and made a break for it. I was supposed to scan their ship or something to know where they were going. But I had to be quick about it (which I wasn't) so I ended up walking dead. My friend got stuck in the same place. He called the help line and they explained the situation. They did say he could try and guess the right destination (good luck!) but otherwise he needed to replay that scene and be a bit faster. It seemed to both of us that the entire thing was a setup to get you to call the help line. Like you mentioned in the video, nowhere else are you put in such a tight time crunch like that! So that's my theory for the weirdness you're seeing there.
I don't actually agree with that theory for the simple fact that the game feels as rough as it does. Moments like that are more likely unintentional oversights than intentional to drive people to the help line, and likely would've been addressed had the game had more budget/time to do so. BTW: That same mission you mentioned has a moment near the end where if you talk to Picard he will say something directly to Data EVEN IF Data isn't in your party! :P
There was actually a second way to solve that puzzle is you crossed over the neutral zone and went far enough in light years before the star went extinct, the light from the star would still be visable and the crew could do the calculations to the next destination. But that solution was practically as cryptic as the be quick with the tricorder one.
Hell yes! I love this game, right up there with the TOS adventure games. I miss the era of elaborate Star Trek adventures that covered every aspect of the show before they all became boring arcade shooters or conquer the galaxy strategy games which miss the point that Star Trek is about the characters first.
Totally. I've just touched on longing for a sequel in my own comment on the game (there was 'Generations' but that was more of a movie tie-in, never seemed like a "proper" sequel); but I've always felt the adventure game format suits Trek amazingly well. Was always disappointed they didn't do more and went the generic shooter or space combat sim route instead.
Bias disclaimer: TNG is the series I grew up with and remains my all-time favorite. Spectrum Holobyte should've scored a coup with their early 90s license deals (Star Trek & Top Gun) and, while successful enough, everyone who cared could tell they relied too much on the license appeal instead of making exceptional games. Not that the games are bad (albeit known for suffering from technical issues), but they'd appeal most to fans. Spectrum Holobyte/MicroProse made only 4 TNG games before they folded, all of which are either trash or treasure depending on how you approach them, but they're definitely unique in each of their own different ways. Unlike those by Interplay and Activision, none have been re-released digitally yet all are still easily found secondhand for remarkably low prices (thus worth being picked up by anyone interested). Especially with today's PCs and Windows versions, they suffer from technical issues requiring conscious workarounds (probably why they haven't been re-released).
Also: while impertinent to ADG since it only released for Windows, the space combat aspect from A Final Unity was refined so well for its sequel Generations that it's fun enough to engage on its own. That was 1997; it would take until 2002 for Bridge Commander to one-up how appealing command of a Galaxy-class in battle could be. It's probable most people have no idea since Generations was panned and is so difficult to get running in any NT version of Windows that few have ever tried it; playthrough videos on UA-cam give only a fraction of the taste.
I'd agree and yet disagree. Whilst I'm not familiar with their 'Top Gun' games, I've always found their Trek adventure games to be of exceptionally high quality. I'm a "upper casual" Trek fan (watched every ep of the original and TNG but it's not "my big thing in life"), and felt that particular with 'A Final Unity' they used the license really well. I've just said similar on my own post about the game, but I consider it one of the best TV-to-game adaptations of all time, and much more authentic than very generic shooters using the license.
Well I'm the nerd amongst nerds clearly since I've seen all Star Trek shows except Discovery S4+S5, not yet seen S2 of Prodigy and SNW, and my favorite shows are TOS, ENT and DS9. Hell I've even seen some fanshows like Star Trek Continues and a few episodes of the show with the Excalibur ( _Star Trek Avalon?_ ). I've played however briefly almost all Trek games if only to record them for my " _Intro & Gameplay_ " playlist. I can tell you; This game has promise, _A Final Unity_ shows a lot of promise the little I've goofed around with it. The first thing that happened when I played it was that Worf decimated the D'deridex Warbird xD The talk on the bridge was very compelling. Definetly a game I want to play through someday. The TOS Adventure Games are very nice too, it's always a good time with Kirk, McCoy and Spock. While it has certain moonlogic seemingly, or pixel perfection, it's still very fun. From space combat element to just typing random stuff into the computer to see what it tells me. Bridge Commander leaves something to be desired, as does Bridge Crew - yet both are fun to play. Like I'd like the pilot AI to be better because I don't want to fly the ship and shoot if I'm going to be the Commander/Captain. I want to order others to do it. Bridge Crew allows this to be so or I can be the pilot while my friend captain's. But unfortunately Bridge Crew doesn't allow rolling or looping. Legacy is disappointing for what a great potential it had. Not even the Universe mod saves it honestly. Ships can be so frustratingly weak if they aren't the most top of the line stuff and playing in any difficulty higher than normal isn't worth it because of all the benefits the AI gets. And this is before I start mentioning the various console games. Ever played Star Trek TNG on NES? That game is really rather compelling! It's good, but the space combat is not that enjoyable, a lot of flying in circles screeching phasers at enemies and missing. But that game reaches for the stars for sure. Controls could been better. It gets a bit much. I could go on but the point is that I like them.
The two cds wasn't a European thing it was released on 1 cd over here. The 2 cds was something you had to send off for from the publisher. Why that was a thing? Well the compression they used caused issues for certain cdroms of the time. I had one of those issues and contacted support and they sent out two cds and new 1.01 version of the game. What they did was just remove the compression and spread the game across 2cds. A side from the one time in the game it asked for you to swap cds the version is identical to the 1 cd version
I was going to post the same. I'm in the U.K. and both of my copies (I managed to damage my first and later replaced it!) were both single CD versions. I recall a paper insert in the box saying about the compression problems / 2-CD version thing.
A game I've been meaning to play since I downloaded it from Zombs just haven't bothered installing yet. ( _Edited: I now have_ ) One of many interesting Trek games I really need to get through.. ( _Trivia: I am a huge Trekkie. While I don't care much for the modern Trek, Lower Decks was awesome once you get through the start, Prodigy was great. My favorite is Enterprise and TOS hands down, and let's not forget DS9. The Undiscovered Country is an amazing movie._ ) 18:36 - Stop stooop stoooop, I can't take this! This just makes me wanna play it even more! Sure it sounds like a hassle but I gotta say... I kinda love this. This tickles my nerdbrain so much. It's a bit sad that the Collector's Edition didn't have anything more interesting :shrug:
That's not a poster. It's a print. it's meant to be framed. That's why it has such large margins and why it's so thick. Which is how you differentiate a print from a poster. A Final Unity is one of my favorites. Definitely my favorite TNG game as there are sadly relatively few of them. It's far from my absolute favorite Trek game, though. 25th Anniversary and Klingon Academy vie for that position. But I still love it nonetheless, despite it's jank. Or perhaps because of it's jank.
I'm not sure what my favourite Star Trek game is, and I have indeed played QUITE a few... If I'm being real, I probably logged most of my hours in Bridge Commander and the first Elite Force. :B
@@Pixelmusement The first Elite Force is just a solid game anyway that has aged well. You don't need to be into ST in order to enjoy it. EF II on the other hand ... not so much.
Elite Force as a "game" is fun for sure, but the story is basically B-tier fan fiction. Elite Force II is effectively more of the same but with the difficulty jacked up. :P
same, but for me, I didn't find out that these stuff existed till long after I grew up. Only star wars games were big enough for me to hear about. Tie Fighter and Dark Forces, so good! I played games like myst, so I am surprised I didn't hear at all about any star trek games, until bridge commander came out. Otherwise they were mostly like Star Craft. Create a unit(ship) mine dilithium and explore space, capturing enemy base locations. So Star Craft with a star trek skin. this still looks fun today
I played this a few years ago and thought it was pretty interesting. I would've loved it if I knew about it when it came out. It's definitely a game for when you've got a long weekend with nothing else to do, though. It's so slow paced, sometimes you're just watching someone walk slowly across the screen, but sometimes that's just what I'm in the mood for.
I adored 'A Final Unity' (still do), and consider it one of the best TV-to-game adaptations of all time. I'm a "upper casual" end TNG fan, saw each ep when shown but it's not one of my main things in life... but it's the game I feel has best captured the essence of a TV show that I've ever played. Adventure games are my favourite game type by default so that of course is a bonus, as shoot 'em up adaptations etc. have never really done it for me. I love the worlds that it builds, the lovely artwork for the planets, the sheer amount of original cast dialogue, and just how immersive it is. There is the odd buggy part - the space combat in particular - but I was there for the adventure side so didn't care much for those anyway. I played in the days when the 'net was just coming in, there were no walkthroughs for it yet, and I beat it without any assistance (only got stuck on one particular part, and that was to do with me misunderstanding something I had to look up IIRC). Oh, and I gotta say I really enjoyed the music puzzle section, it was only of my favourite parts of the game. I played it before ST:25th Anniversary and it's follow up, they're good too but I feel AFU sets the mark. I always longed for a sequel but alas there never was one (well there was 'Generations', but that was more for movie tie-in reasons and never felt like a TRUE sequel), maybe due in part to 'mainstream' sales of adventure games dipping in the mid-late 1990s. But to me it'll always be a classic.
When you mentioned how big the explorable universe is in this game, I was really hopeful that it had some kind of randomized mission system like another Star Trek game I'd recently seen. This one might be worth playing regardless.
"Hold shift to speed up the game." I...I... I literary facepalmed when you said this. I played this game decades ago and got so frustrated by the walking speed that I stopped playing and never returned to it because I didn't figure out this feature :/
...is this a bad time to point out it's also in the manual? :P (The thing about pressing F1 to change your battle controls is NOT however, it's in the readme which corrects a bunch of mistakes in the manual.)
@@Pixelmusement Yeah I know, I should read manuals more thoroughly :/ I played Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness for the first time a few years ago and I got stuck because apparently you can also "right" click on an NPC for a different set of dialog choices... which was also mentioned in the manual :/
I really loved the art and style of the backgrounds in this game. Threw away the box many years ago (yeah I know really stupid) to save closet space but with these prices maby I'll buy it again cheap on ebay 😄
I went searching and couldn't find a single example of one with a six digit serial. I wonder if those say "Series II" on the front of the box? Or maybe some of them just have an extra 0 for some reason and are still part of the same 30,000.
The box on the MobyGames website has a six-digit serial. I was also able to find two other instances of six-digit serials after some EXTENSIVE searching, neither of which were on English-language sites. One of the six digit serials I found was in the low thousands, the other two were both high thousands. All three were "Series I" boxes. :P
@@Pixelmusement Six-digit box owner here (#000507, and it was indeed originally sold in Europe in 1996), and I can confirm that it indeed has "Series I" on the box. Also, it claims to be "of 10.000" on the blue backside. Edit: Oh, and the battery in the pin is removable for me; it's a Vinnic S1131E.
The pin might have been built differently in the EU due to different electronics standards. I looked up the S1131E and I think that's the same kind of battery as in my pin, but mine is badly corroded to the point where it's either stuck in there really well or soldered down. :P
@@Pixelmusement Mine had started "sweating", which I only noticed due to this video making me realize there was an old battery in there. So you probably saved my pin. :D
It's a shame that there are still so many 90s Trek games that aren't available. Rights issues suck. As for this one, I remember playing it back in the day and having almost the exact same reaction as you. Generally good, kinda janky, did not like the combat at all. I keep thinking about trying to replay it, but then I remember the combat.
Actually, once I was used to the combat it was super-easy. If you know how to play Bridge Commander with manual controls you just take those skills over to this game and apply them here! (Also, change the default controls with F1; having the roll keys where the yaw keys should be and vice versa is not fun...)
I love them game, the combat sections were clunky and the only bits I didn't like (but then I'm an adventure game fan and not so much for space sims). But they're fairly easy to bluff through and/or totally bypass; the games still well worth replaying, they're not a major factor IMO. :)
@@Pixelmusement I thought the control were pretty good actually. The numpad keys are laid out like the buttons on screen and you can control most of it right there.
If only I could be transported to the distant future, and lounge upon the bridge of the Enterprise, listening as Picard plucks the strings of his baliset.
Choose your away team might have been too much for the developers For this game where there are many player choices, the developers have to account for their voice line in that mission, further complicated by interactions between team members if any For those who played Valkyria Chronicles 4 you would be familiar with how many playables the player can choose from and everyone having to have their own lines for nearly everything. However non plot centric ones do not show up in the main plot to avoid holes as there is permadeath This game was overly ambitious and might have been better cutting features or spending more time in the oven
Yes to an extent, I get where you're coming from and mostly agree, and yet, I'm still so glad they actually went for it, aimed for pulling it off. It maybe isn't what they were originally aiming for with that game element, but it's not a game wrecker either, just stick with the suggested crew (unless it's just a sandbox run, then meh, do whatever to see what happens). The space combat bits were tedious and buggy, underdeveloped. Wouldn't have minded if they were cut but thankfully they're easy to get through or around.
@@PixelmusementAway teams should have been fixed like in 25th Anniversary/Judgement Rites to save on the effort writing character dialogue They had good intentions, but either ran out of time or ideas for each possibility of dialogue
Actually, I think Spike was referring to the massive black shell base being used to prop up such a tiny device by comparison; HUGE amount of unnecessary plastic really. :P
@@UltimatePerfection I'm pretty sure the entire reason the box was made so big was to look impressive and accommodate the "poster" they included, and thus by extension they had to make the plastic insert equally huge to brace the inside properly so the box wouldn't get crushed. Beyond that, as far as Collector's Editions go, this one's pretty weak by comparison. :P
@@Pixelmusement Agreed. Especially if the LCD pin gets corroded/discharged so easily in several years (and Trekkies like to wear stuff like that to cons and whatnot). Tamagotchis (even bootleg ones) at least have that plastic tab you need to pull out to make the initial connection between the battery and the rest of the circuit to prevent exactly this kind of situation.
I like the cut of your jib I wish I had this game in the 90's. I never seen this game before. Every year, I see a "new" old game that people say was every where, but it really wasn't. Maybe they did sell 500,000 copies around 1996. Maybe all the real Star Trek fans kept theirs and you knew a bunch of hipsters who pretended and didn't actually watch the show so they didn't know what to do and sold it. I can find it online now, for 10-100 but if its not on physical shelves, in the 90s, then it wasn't heavily made. Out of all my friends, none of them played a real star trek game, maybe monopoly star trek but not...like this. Which is weird because I loved games like Myst and star trek would have been up my alley, I basically was born to be a nerd. But star trek stuff wasn't at frys or radio shack, or any other computer store we went to. My step dad was a techy, so we went every week to one store or another. But I never heard of a real star trek game till I played Star Trek Bridge command. Because most games were just like Star Craft except with a star trek skin. Build a unit, each unit is worth different amounts, you can only have 250 total unit value. you have to mine dilithium(crystals and gas) and explore and build the right units to beat your computer(player?) bases. I have been going back to old games and they are both worse and harder than they used to be. Graphics can be over looked with a great story. it's like playing all the new pokemon games and then going back to pokemon red/blue and wondering why I cant surf. Old games older mechanics, less user friendly. Same thing with other games from back then. But that doesn't mean other people can't enjoy it, hats off to you good sir.
It seems like the publishers decided to redefine the idea of "collector's edition" by releasing so many copies of it. In the sense that a collector's gotta collect as many copies as possible.
...to be fair, one of those extremely few instances of Data being wrong in the show DID result in the Enterprise being destroyed over and over and over and over and over again... :P
@@Pixelmusement I know about transinium challenge but never played it myself, i think Final Unity must be lost in a dead spot for me, i was more interested in the later 90s and the really old games. So maybe i missed that one in the mid 90s.
"Over built and under developed" describes Next Generation to the letter. Like 1/4 all time classics, 1/4 pretty good, 1/4 entertaining trash, 1/4 "y'all weren't even trying were you?"
@@XanthinZarda Voyager at least lives on in Mass Effect which is sometimes fun and often very stupid and you eventually make an alliance with the Bor-- I mean Geth.
@@Pixelmusement dang :( I have some kicking around but they're all CR2032 I think? They were for my Dreamcast VMUs before I decided to battery mod them 😂 I can send one through the mail if it's the right size, but I suspect they might have a diameter that's a bit too big
DOSBox emulation supports hi-colour and true-colour just fine, the only trick is that this game ONLY uses it for the FMVs; all of the raw gameplay is in 256 colours regardless. If you are on real hardware though the game comes with VESA-enabling software to help add SVGA support when possible to cards which don't support VESA standards directly, since even 640x480 with 256 colours IS an SVGA mode.
Multiple solutions? Now I wonder how that strategy guide is laid out. How many does it show? How far-reaching can your solutions ripple out? Or does the repercussion of each solution just end with that away mission? If I look at a GameFAQ, I wonder how many solutions they'll mention. At the point in time when I played this, back when it was new, I didn't think many point 'n click adventure games had multiple solutions. I thought they were all slightly more restrictive choose-your-own-adventure books with lots and lots of wrong, deadly, answers. (If you couldn't tell, I grew up with Sierra games) I wish I could somehow get a copy of Star Trek: The Rebel Universe. That was my first Trek game. I never saw it played in EGA mode. I only knew about other color modes from pictures on the back of the box. I was just around 5-years old at the time I played it. I bet now I could understand how to play it, better. To beat that adventure game feels like an old ghost I'd like to put to rest. Did you ever play that one?
Well, to be fair, the "multiple solutions" often entails one "correct" solution, while all of the other solutions work but are not the most ideal, thus when you ask for a review of your performance from Starfleet you'll get chided a bit. Also, given that the captain of the Warbird you fight at the beginning of the game plays a crucial role in the end of the game, I'm not entirely certain if destroying said Warbird locks you out of the proper ending or not. As for Rebel Universe I have not played that one.
You will even be relieved of duty if you complete I think 2 missions with the lowest possible score and don't get to see the ending. All story relevant characters have a plan B, or even plan C. Sometimes really elaborate. Without spoiling too much: the occupants of the shuttle in the teaser will be found in an escape pod later, if you fail to save them. There are lots of those little differences. But the main story is linear and only has one ending. The characters however might react or even look different depending on prior choices. How you deal with the very first warbird will change the finale a bit. EDIT: If I remember correctly the two ensigns that are not part of the main cast can actually die. You'll also be reprimanded if that happens.
I think I'm the only person on the planet who actually liked the puzzle puzzle! I never cared so much for 'Generations', though it's not terrible either.
So what I'm hearing is that whoever did the CE numbering could not reach... a final unity. Also if this isn't the first TNG licensed game on PC, what is?
A poorly known game (due to it being relatively low-quality) called "The Transinium Challenge": www.mobygames.com/game/2807/star-trek-the-next-generation-the-transinium-challenge/
@@Pixelmusement Also, forgot to ask... any clue what's up with the "Series I" on the box you showed? Like, was there ever a Collector's Edition Series II?
@@EdmondDantes224 I don't believe so; I've sure never seen one and no such thing came up in my searches. Even the boxes with six-digit serial numbers show "Series I". That said, I think the six-digit serial numbers were for a European run of the Collector's Edition, though I haven't been able to confirm that. :P
Possibly? The space combat in 25th and Judgement Rites is way easier to wrap one's head around and doesn't come up as often in those games as it does here. :P
Do not understand this criticism at 26:45. Doing extreme damage when a ship is not shielded is NOT unbalanced. That is how the shields work on the show. A single photon can destroy a ship if it has no shields up.
And you're now going to say the show itself was balanced? I didn't say it was unrealistic, but given the nature of the game being a GAME, and given that you don't have any good feedback as to the condition of your shields during combat, and given that sustained fire onto a shield can make it go down extremely quickly, it's horribly unbalanced as a GAME. Even Bridge Commander realized taking unshielded damage needs to be mitigated in order to allow for proper handling of repair and power distribution mechanics for the purposes of fun gameplay. :P
I... don't remember saying that? I mean, I found it pretty bad the first time I ever played it because the battle engine was going way too fast and I couldn't figure out the game's weird way of doing things, but that was an opinion from the mid-90s when I was still a teenager trying it on our P120 system. :P
Picard straightens his uniform during idle animation 👍
I noticed that too. Alas, we don't get a Riker leg sweep. :P
That was a neat detail. The Picard manouver…
The crashing can be fixed by replacing the DOS4GW version either with a bugfixed one, or even better with the DOS/32 open source runtime. Game runs much better then.
the unboxing was very interesting. ADG's still going strong.
I love that Will Frakes' bad back in immortalized in his posture on the bridge lol.
Always makes me wonder why they tried to hide James Doohan's missing finger as that could've added some interesting context into Scotty's backstory. The actors themselves often bring a lot of their own flare and ideas to the characters they bring to life in an ongoing TV series. :B
While we did get some good games from Activision in the Windows 9x era, Final Unity is still my favorite Star Trek game. The game designers were obviously fans, and they made this game as close to a special episode (dare I say "movie"?) as they possibly could. Many of the Activision games wore "Star Trek" as a skin, but this one was Star Trek through and through.
One point about the weird walking dead scenarios. Paid help lines were a thing back in the day, and I suspect these odd situations were put in there to drive use of those help lines. I remember getting stuck right after I met the Chodak on a planet, and they suddenly beamed away and made a break for it. I was supposed to scan their ship or something to know where they were going. But I had to be quick about it (which I wasn't) so I ended up walking dead.
My friend got stuck in the same place. He called the help line and they explained the situation. They did say he could try and guess the right destination (good luck!) but otherwise he needed to replay that scene and be a bit faster. It seemed to both of us that the entire thing was a setup to get you to call the help line. Like you mentioned in the video, nowhere else are you put in such a tight time crunch like that!
So that's my theory for the weirdness you're seeing there.
I don't actually agree with that theory for the simple fact that the game feels as rough as it does. Moments like that are more likely unintentional oversights than intentional to drive people to the help line, and likely would've been addressed had the game had more budget/time to do so. BTW: That same mission you mentioned has a moment near the end where if you talk to Picard he will say something directly to Data EVEN IF Data isn't in your party! :P
There was actually a second way to solve that puzzle is you crossed over the neutral zone and went far enough in light years before the star went extinct, the light from the star would still be visable and the crew could do the calculations to the next destination. But that solution was practically as cryptic as the be quick with the tricorder one.
@@morpheusdreamer Incidentally, that's what I ultimately did. It wasn't really THAT cryptic, just annoying having to manually plot the course. :P
Hell yes! I love this game, right up there with the TOS adventure games. I miss the era of elaborate Star Trek adventures that covered every aspect of the show before they all became boring arcade shooters or conquer the galaxy strategy games which miss the point that Star Trek is about the characters first.
Totally. I've just touched on longing for a sequel in my own comment on the game (there was 'Generations' but that was more of a movie tie-in, never seemed like a "proper" sequel); but I've always felt the adventure game format suits Trek amazingly well. Was always disappointed they didn't do more and went the generic shooter or space combat sim route instead.
Bias disclaimer: TNG is the series I grew up with and remains my all-time favorite. Spectrum Holobyte should've scored a coup with their early 90s license deals (Star Trek & Top Gun) and, while successful enough, everyone who cared could tell they relied too much on the license appeal instead of making exceptional games. Not that the games are bad (albeit known for suffering from technical issues), but they'd appeal most to fans.
Spectrum Holobyte/MicroProse made only 4 TNG games before they folded, all of which are either trash or treasure depending on how you approach them, but they're definitely unique in each of their own different ways. Unlike those by Interplay and Activision, none have been re-released digitally yet all are still easily found secondhand for remarkably low prices (thus worth being picked up by anyone interested). Especially with today's PCs and Windows versions, they suffer from technical issues requiring conscious workarounds (probably why they haven't been re-released).
Also: while impertinent to ADG since it only released for Windows, the space combat aspect from A Final Unity was refined so well for its sequel Generations that it's fun enough to engage on its own. That was 1997; it would take until 2002 for Bridge Commander to one-up how appealing command of a Galaxy-class in battle could be. It's probable most people have no idea since Generations was panned and is so difficult to get running in any NT version of Windows that few have ever tried it; playthrough videos on UA-cam give only a fraction of the taste.
I'd agree and yet disagree. Whilst I'm not familiar with their 'Top Gun' games, I've always found their Trek adventure games to be of exceptionally high quality. I'm a "upper casual" Trek fan (watched every ep of the original and TNG but it's not "my big thing in life"), and felt that particular with 'A Final Unity' they used the license really well. I've just said similar on my own post about the game, but I consider it one of the best TV-to-game adaptations of all time, and much more authentic than very generic shooters using the license.
Well I'm the nerd amongst nerds clearly since I've seen all Star Trek shows except Discovery S4+S5, not yet seen S2 of Prodigy and SNW, and my favorite shows are TOS, ENT and DS9. Hell I've even seen some fanshows like Star Trek Continues and a few episodes of the show with the Excalibur ( _Star Trek Avalon?_ ). I've played however briefly almost all Trek games if only to record them for my " _Intro & Gameplay_ " playlist.
I can tell you;
This game has promise, _A Final Unity_ shows a lot of promise the little I've goofed around with it.
The first thing that happened when I played it was that Worf decimated the D'deridex Warbird xD
The talk on the bridge was very compelling. Definetly a game I want to play through someday.
The TOS Adventure Games are very nice too, it's always a good time with Kirk, McCoy and Spock.
While it has certain moonlogic seemingly, or pixel perfection, it's still very fun.
From space combat element to just typing random stuff into the computer to see what it tells me.
Bridge Commander leaves something to be desired, as does Bridge Crew - yet both are fun to play.
Like I'd like the pilot AI to be better because I don't want to fly the ship and shoot if I'm going to be the Commander/Captain. I want to order others to do it.
Bridge Crew allows this to be so or I can be the pilot while my friend captain's. But unfortunately Bridge Crew doesn't allow rolling or looping.
Legacy is disappointing for what a great potential it had. Not even the Universe mod saves it honestly.
Ships can be so frustratingly weak if they aren't the most top of the line stuff and playing in any difficulty higher than normal isn't worth it because of all the benefits the AI gets.
And this is before I start mentioning the various console games. Ever played Star Trek TNG on NES?
That game is really rather compelling! It's good, but the space combat is not that enjoyable, a lot of flying in circles screeching phasers at enemies and missing.
But that game reaches for the stars for sure. Controls could been better. It gets a bit much.
I could go on but the point is that I like them.
The two cds wasn't a European thing it was released on 1 cd over here. The 2 cds was something you had to send off for from the publisher. Why that was a thing? Well the compression they used caused issues for certain cdroms of the time. I had one of those issues and contacted support and they sent out two cds and new 1.01 version of the game. What they did was just remove the compression and spread the game across 2cds. A side from the one time in the game it asked for you to swap cds the version is identical to the 1 cd version
OK, that's good to know. My research simply said the European releases had two CDs; I didn't realize it was a bit more complicated than that! :B
I was going to post the same. I'm in the U.K. and both of my copies (I managed to damage my first and later replaced it!) were both single CD versions. I recall a paper insert in the box saying about the compression problems / 2-CD version thing.
A game I've been meaning to play since I downloaded it from Zombs just haven't bothered installing yet. ( _Edited: I now have_ )
One of many interesting Trek games I really need to get through..
( _Trivia: I am a huge Trekkie. While I don't care much for the modern Trek, Lower Decks was awesome once you get through the start, Prodigy was great. My favorite is Enterprise and TOS hands down, and let's not forget DS9. The Undiscovered Country is an amazing movie._ )
18:36 - Stop stooop stoooop, I can't take this! This just makes me wanna play it even more!
Sure it sounds like a hassle but I gotta say... I kinda love this. This tickles my nerdbrain so much.
It's a bit sad that the Collector's Edition didn't have anything more interesting :shrug:
That's not a poster. It's a print. it's meant to be framed. That's why it has such large margins and why it's so thick. Which is how you differentiate a print from a poster.
A Final Unity is one of my favorites. Definitely my favorite TNG game as there are sadly relatively few of them. It's far from my absolute favorite Trek game, though. 25th Anniversary and Klingon Academy vie for that position. But I still love it nonetheless, despite it's jank. Or perhaps because of it's jank.
The box literally calls it a "poster" so that's not MY fault! :P
As a Trekkie I'm glad you covered this! I absolutely love this game & it's my second favorite Star Trek game (right behind ST Voyager: Hazard Team)
I'm not sure what my favourite Star Trek game is, and I have indeed played QUITE a few... If I'm being real, I probably logged most of my hours in Bridge Commander and the first Elite Force. :B
@@Pixelmusement The first Elite Force is just a solid game anyway that has aged well. You don't need to be into ST in order to enjoy it. EF II on the other hand ... not so much.
Elite Force as a "game" is fun for sure, but the story is basically B-tier fan fiction. Elite Force II is effectively more of the same but with the difficulty jacked up. :P
I enjoyed both Elite Forces well enough. Also played DS9 The Fallen recently, which is neat but sometimes quite annoying.
If I knew about this as a kid, I would have played this a lot.
same, but for me, I didn't find out that these stuff existed till long after I grew up. Only star wars games were big enough for me to hear about. Tie Fighter and Dark Forces, so good! I played games like myst, so I am surprised I didn't hear at all about any star trek games, until bridge commander came out. Otherwise they were mostly like Star Craft. Create a unit(ship) mine dilithium and explore space, capturing enemy base locations. So Star Craft with a star trek skin.
this still looks fun today
I played this a few years ago and thought it was pretty interesting. I would've loved it if I knew about it when it came out.
It's definitely a game for when you've got a long weekend with nothing else to do, though. It's so slow paced, sometimes you're just watching someone walk slowly across the screen, but sometimes that's just what I'm in the mood for.
There is a turbo button to make them walk faster. Just hold SHIFT.
I adored 'A Final Unity' (still do), and consider it one of the best TV-to-game adaptations of all time. I'm a "upper casual" end TNG fan, saw each ep when shown but it's not one of my main things in life... but it's the game I feel has best captured the essence of a TV show that I've ever played. Adventure games are my favourite game type by default so that of course is a bonus, as shoot 'em up adaptations etc. have never really done it for me.
I love the worlds that it builds, the lovely artwork for the planets, the sheer amount of original cast dialogue, and just how immersive it is. There is the odd buggy part - the space combat in particular - but I was there for the adventure side so didn't care much for those anyway. I played in the days when the 'net was just coming in, there were no walkthroughs for it yet, and I beat it without any assistance (only got stuck on one particular part, and that was to do with me misunderstanding something I had to look up IIRC). Oh, and I gotta say I really enjoyed the music puzzle section, it was only of my favourite parts of the game.
I played it before ST:25th Anniversary and it's follow up, they're good too but I feel AFU sets the mark. I always longed for a sequel but alas there never was one (well there was 'Generations', but that was more for movie tie-in reasons and never felt like a TRUE sequel), maybe due in part to 'mainstream' sales of adventure games dipping in the mid-late 1990s. But to me it'll always be a classic.
When you mentioned how big the explorable universe is in this game, I was really hopeful that it had some kind of randomized mission system like another Star Trek game I'd recently seen. This one might be worth playing regardless.
"Hold shift to speed up the game."
I...I... I literary facepalmed when you said this. I played this game decades ago and got so frustrated by the walking speed that I stopped playing and never returned to it because I didn't figure out this feature :/
...is this a bad time to point out it's also in the manual? :P (The thing about pressing F1 to change your battle controls is NOT however, it's in the readme which corrects a bunch of mistakes in the manual.)
@@Pixelmusement Yeah I know, I should read manuals more thoroughly :/ I played Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness for the first time a few years ago and I got stuck because apparently you can also "right" click on an NPC for a different set of dialog choices... which was also mentioned in the manual :/
I really loved the art and style of the backgrounds in this game. Threw away the box many years ago (yeah I know really stupid) to save closet space but with these prices maby I'll buy it again cheap on ebay 😄
I went searching and couldn't find a single example of one with a six digit serial. I wonder if those say "Series II" on the front of the box? Or maybe some of them just have an extra 0 for some reason and are still part of the same 30,000.
The box on the MobyGames website has a six-digit serial. I was also able to find two other instances of six-digit serials after some EXTENSIVE searching, neither of which were on English-language sites. One of the six digit serials I found was in the low thousands, the other two were both high thousands. All three were "Series I" boxes. :P
@@Pixelmusement Six-digit box owner here (#000507, and it was indeed originally sold in Europe in 1996), and I can confirm that it indeed has "Series I" on the box. Also, it claims to be "of 10.000" on the blue backside.
Edit: Oh, and the battery in the pin is removable for me; it's a Vinnic S1131E.
The pin might have been built differently in the EU due to different electronics standards. I looked up the S1131E and I think that's the same kind of battery as in my pin, but mine is badly corroded to the point where it's either stuck in there really well or soldered down. :P
@@Pixelmusement Mine had started "sweating", which I only noticed due to this video making me realize there was an old battery in there. So you probably saved my pin. :D
It's a shame that there are still so many 90s Trek games that aren't available. Rights issues suck.
As for this one, I remember playing it back in the day and having almost the exact same reaction as you. Generally good, kinda janky, did not like the combat at all. I keep thinking about trying to replay it, but then I remember the combat.
Actually, once I was used to the combat it was super-easy. If you know how to play Bridge Commander with manual controls you just take those skills over to this game and apply them here! (Also, change the default controls with F1; having the roll keys where the yaw keys should be and vice versa is not fun...)
I love them game, the combat sections were clunky and the only bits I didn't like (but then I'm an adventure game fan and not so much for space sims). But they're fairly easy to bluff through and/or totally bypass; the games still well worth replaying, they're not a major factor IMO. :)
@@Pixelmusement I thought the control were pretty good actually. The numpad keys are laid out like the buttons on screen and you can control most of it right there.
If only I could be transported to the distant future, and lounge upon the bridge of the Enterprise, listening as Picard plucks the strings of his baliset.
11 Minutes ago and exactly what I need at 2 in the morning. Thank you.
Choose your away team might have been too much for the developers
For this game where there are many player choices, the developers have to account for their voice line in that mission, further complicated by interactions between team members if any
For those who played Valkyria Chronicles 4 you would be familiar with how many playables the player can choose from and everyone having to have their own lines for nearly everything. However non plot centric ones do not show up in the main plot to avoid holes as there is permadeath
This game was overly ambitious and might have been better cutting features or spending more time in the oven
It's all a bit too intertwined to easily cut features; This game needed more time in the oven to come out just right. :B
Yes to an extent, I get where you're coming from and mostly agree, and yet, I'm still so glad they actually went for it, aimed for pulling it off. It maybe isn't what they were originally aiming for with that game element, but it's not a game wrecker either, just stick with the suggested crew (unless it's just a sandbox run, then meh, do whatever to see what happens).
The space combat bits were tedious and buggy, underdeveloped. Wouldn't have minded if they were cut but thankfully they're easy to get through or around.
@@PixelmusementAway teams should have been fixed like in 25th Anniversary/Judgement Rites to save on the effort writing character dialogue
They had good intentions, but either ran out of time or ideas for each possibility of dialogue
That giant plastic thing for that tiny little lcd... lol
Considering the time it was released in, it's probably needed to house all the electronics needed to drive that thing.
Actually, I think Spike was referring to the massive black shell base being used to prop up such a tiny device by comparison; HUGE amount of unnecessary plastic really. :P
@@Pixelmusement Oh. Yeah, that was pointless and I don't have any good explanation why they'd do that.
@@UltimatePerfection I'm pretty sure the entire reason the box was made so big was to look impressive and accommodate the "poster" they included, and thus by extension they had to make the plastic insert equally huge to brace the inside properly so the box wouldn't get crushed. Beyond that, as far as Collector's Editions go, this one's pretty weak by comparison. :P
@@Pixelmusement Agreed. Especially if the LCD pin gets corroded/discharged so easily in several years (and Trekkies like to wear stuff like that to cons and whatnot). Tamagotchis (even bootleg ones) at least have that plastic tab you need to pull out to make the initial connection between the battery and the rest of the circuit to prevent exactly this kind of situation.
The Chodak return in the Star Trek Generations game.
I like the cut of your jib
I wish I had this game in the 90's. I never seen this game before. Every year, I see a "new" old game that people say was every where, but it really wasn't. Maybe they did sell 500,000 copies around 1996. Maybe all the real Star Trek fans kept theirs and you knew a bunch of hipsters who pretended and didn't actually watch the show so they didn't know what to do and sold it.
I can find it online now, for 10-100 but if its not on physical shelves, in the 90s, then it wasn't heavily made. Out of all my friends, none of them played a real star trek game, maybe monopoly star trek but not...like this. Which is weird because I loved games like Myst and star trek would have been up my alley, I basically was born to be a nerd.
But star trek stuff wasn't at frys or radio shack, or any other computer store we went to. My step dad was a techy, so we went every week to one store or another. But I never heard of a real star trek game till I played Star Trek Bridge command. Because most games were just like Star Craft except with a star trek skin. Build a unit, each unit is worth different amounts, you can only have 250 total unit value. you have to mine dilithium(crystals and gas) and explore and build the right units to beat your computer(player?) bases.
I have been going back to old games and they are both worse and harder than they used to be. Graphics can be over looked with a great story.
it's like playing all the new pokemon games and then going back to pokemon red/blue and wondering why I cant surf. Old games older mechanics, less user friendly. Same thing with other games from back then. But that doesn't mean other people can't enjoy it, hats off to you good sir.
7:25 is THAT what's going on with those carts. I wondered
It seems like the publishers decided to redefine the idea of "collector's edition" by releasing so many copies of it. In the sense that a collector's gotta collect as many copies as possible.
Childhood memories 😊
The game totally trolls you if you are a fan of Data.
...to be fair, one of those extremely few instances of Data being wrong in the show DID result in the Enterprise being destroyed over and over and over and over and over again... :P
@@Pixelmusement oh I do remember that episode! Should have listened to Riker instead. ;-)
And i taught i knew every Star Trek Game ever existed, i really didnt know that one.
Wait... does that mean you knew about The Transinium Challenge but not A Final Unity? Wouldn't that be the INVERSE of living under a rock? :o
@@Pixelmusement I know about transinium challenge but never played it myself, i think Final Unity must be lost in a dead spot for me, i was more interested in the later 90s and the really old games. So maybe i missed that one in the mid 90s.
"Over built and under developed" describes Next Generation to the letter. Like 1/4 all time classics, 1/4 pretty good, 1/4 entertaining trash, 1/4 "y'all weren't even trying were you?"
At least Deep Space 9 upped the ante until Rick Berman and the other meddling executives crashed Voyager.
@@XanthinZarda Voyager at least lives on in Mass Effect which is sometimes fun and often very stupid and you eventually make an alliance with the Bor-- I mean Geth.
Beverlyyyyyyyy
9:33 is it battery-able or did the one it came with leak all through it? If fixable, what size battery does it take?
The battery is very corroded and not easily removable... No markings so I can't even tell what kind it is. :|
@@Pixelmusement dang :( I have some kicking around but they're all CR2032 I think? They were for my Dreamcast VMUs before I decided to battery mod them 😂 I can send one through the mail if it's the right size, but I suspect they might have a diameter that's a bit too big
I've since found been informed what kind of battery it is but I still have no means of safely getting out the one that's in there. :/
"2 Saturdays from now" funny since I'm watching this video on a Friday night (As in where I am the video was first uploaded on a Friday night)
Yup. I technically made this one live at 8:00 PM Friday night my time... which was exactly midnight GMT! ;)
How can you get Vesa 65k? Do you need real hardware to get the full 65k color set?
DOSBox emulation supports hi-colour and true-colour just fine, the only trick is that this game ONLY uses it for the FMVs; all of the raw gameplay is in 256 colours regardless. If you are on real hardware though the game comes with VESA-enabling software to help add SVGA support when possible to cards which don't support VESA standards directly, since even 640x480 with 256 colours IS an SVGA mode.
Multiple solutions? Now I wonder how that strategy guide is laid out. How many does it show? How far-reaching can your solutions ripple out? Or does the repercussion of each solution just end with that away mission? If I look at a GameFAQ, I wonder how many solutions they'll mention. At the point in time when I played this, back when it was new, I didn't think many point 'n click adventure games had multiple solutions. I thought they were all slightly more restrictive choose-your-own-adventure books with lots and lots of wrong, deadly, answers. (If you couldn't tell, I grew up with Sierra games)
I wish I could somehow get a copy of Star Trek: The Rebel Universe. That was my first Trek game. I never saw it played in EGA mode. I only knew about other color modes from pictures on the back of the box. I was just around 5-years old at the time I played it. I bet now I could understand how to play it, better. To beat that adventure game feels like an old ghost I'd like to put to rest. Did you ever play that one?
Well, to be fair, the "multiple solutions" often entails one "correct" solution, while all of the other solutions work but are not the most ideal, thus when you ask for a review of your performance from Starfleet you'll get chided a bit. Also, given that the captain of the Warbird you fight at the beginning of the game plays a crucial role in the end of the game, I'm not entirely certain if destroying said Warbird locks you out of the proper ending or not. As for Rebel Universe I have not played that one.
You will even be relieved of duty if you complete I think 2 missions with the lowest possible score and don't get to see the ending.
All story relevant characters have a plan B, or even plan C. Sometimes really elaborate.
Without spoiling too much: the occupants of the shuttle in the teaser will be found in an escape pod later, if you fail to save them.
There are lots of those little differences. But the main story is linear and only has one ending. The characters however might react or even look different depending on prior choices.
How you deal with the very first warbird will change the finale a bit.
EDIT: If I remember correctly the two ensigns that are not part of the main cast can actually die. You'll also be reprimanded if that happens.
wtf i was literally just playing this game lol. That damn music puzzle aaagh. I'm now playing its sequel Generations which is a lot better.
I thought that was a movie :P
I think I'm the only person on the planet who actually liked the puzzle puzzle! I never cared so much for 'Generations', though it's not terrible either.
So what I'm hearing is that whoever did the CE numbering could not reach... a final unity.
Also if this isn't the first TNG licensed game on PC, what is?
A poorly known game (due to it being relatively low-quality) called "The Transinium Challenge": www.mobygames.com/game/2807/star-trek-the-next-generation-the-transinium-challenge/
@@Pixelmusement Also, forgot to ask... any clue what's up with the "Series I" on the box you showed? Like, was there ever a Collector's Edition Series II?
@@EdmondDantes224 I don't believe so; I've sure never seen one and no such thing came up in my searches. Even the boxes with six-digit serial numbers show "Series I". That said, I think the six-digit serial numbers were for a European run of the Collector's Edition, though I haven't been able to confirm that. :P
I think it was "The Transinium Challenge," which was written by Jim Gasperini of "Hidden Agenda" fame.
Good game. Didn't like the ending though.
It looks like this might be ‘more accessible’ than the TOS 25th anniversary; I found the early puzzles annoying half the time so I stopped playing.
Possibly? The space combat in 25th and Judgement Rites is way easier to wrap one's head around and doesn't come up as often in those games as it does here. :P
I would have loved and heated this game as a kid.
dooooo dodooooo dododododooooo
Captain Jellicoe > Picard. No doubt Jellicoe would have also told his XO to refrain from leaning on expensive starship consoles
Do not understand this criticism at 26:45. Doing extreme damage when a ship is not shielded is NOT unbalanced. That is how the shields work on the show. A single photon can destroy a ship if it has no shields up.
And you're now going to say the show itself was balanced? I didn't say it was unrealistic, but given the nature of the game being a GAME, and given that you don't have any good feedback as to the condition of your shields during combat, and given that sustained fire onto a shield can make it go down extremely quickly, it's horribly unbalanced as a GAME. Even Bridge Commander realized taking unshielded damage needs to be mitigated in order to allow for proper handling of repair and power distribution mechanics for the purposes of fun gameplay. :P
Wow. And after you personally told me you hated this game. Very embarrassing. How will you ever live this one down????
I... don't remember saying that? I mean, I found it pretty bad the first time I ever played it because the battle engine was going way too fast and I couldn't figure out the game's weird way of doing things, but that was an opinion from the mid-90s when I was still a teenager trying it on our P120 system. :P
@@Pixelmusement Yeah. I think it was clearly conveyed in the video too! :D
Sorry. I was just makin a lil joke is all.
Hey, I've said some really stupid things in the past so it wasn't impossible! :P
I think its not meant to be a poster, you put that card into a picture frame. That's twhy it has unprinted borders.
Except the box literally calls it a "poster" so... I dunno what they were trying to get at here. :P