Astronoughts

Backstory: A research team of Astronauts is sent to scout out a hostile, alien planet, on a mission to explore their surroundings and establish an outpost for future exploration and settlement. Unfortunately, a solar storm causes a malfunction on entry, which forces the team to separately abandon ship. Due to the atmospheric interference their escape pods crash-landed. With their teammates scattered across an uncharted region of the planet and far away from each other, the player must find their way to their lost friends.

Astronoughts' fairly simple gameplay leans more towards platformer-style enemy avoidance and rewards collection than role-playing hack-and-slash action, but its art style is far more beautiful and its level puzzles more engaging than your typical “Mario” imitator platformer. The use of an isometric perspective gives the player the sense of exploring a real landscape (reminding older players of such classics as Fallout 2 and Baldur's Gate), and this game moves beyond the restrictions of a single view to allow the player to deeply experience Zero One's travails in the world of Astronoughts.