I got to playtest Planet FIST just recently, and I came away quite impressed! Planet FIST is a hack of FIST: ULTRA edition that takes place in a combat-heavy Planetside 2 inspired sci-fi setting of endless warfare. Players act as endlessly respawning nanobot-infused soldiers for one of three monolithic factions with different theming and bonuses they can apply to their characters on creation. Character building was fun and more collaborative than the base game, with players creating a squad with unique roles and bonds as well as military ranks. This system quickly made for entertaining relationships between characters, like my ultra-beefy damage sponge HARDWARE not being anywhere near as effective as he (or his enemies!) thought he was, and needing to be constantly (and begrudgingly!) revived and healed by the team’s medic.
When it comes to the gameplay, Planet FIST shows its strengths quickly. Unlike base FIST, this game makes use of maps and measurement to determine things like movement and weapon range. This leads to interesting tactical decision making that feels very grounded, as players are charged with positional objectives straight out of an FPS like capturing a Sync Plate to take over a facility and cut its respawn points off from enemies. Player characters usually die faster than they would in base game FIST, so clever thinking and resource management are essential in making sure you’ll get your job done without being sent back to your team’s APC for reassembly. But, should that happen, reassembling is comfortably videogamey as it lets you freely swap between five available character classes and several pieces of unlockable class equipment you earn by advancing. This means there’s always a good opportunity to take a breather and re-evaluate your strategy. With all these details in mind, I strongly recommend Planet FIST as an entertaining self-contained strategy game that’ll feel familiar to FIST fans, but distinct enough to tell new and interesting stories.