Just saw this topic. Since there's a request for further detail, here's my experience.
I've played through Planet Stonghold a couple times. It's a decent game, but I found it frustratingly buggy. If you are not bothered by occasionally not having key characters available for battle, occasionally skipping parts of sidequests, and occasionally skipping between parts of the plot, and can prepare for such occasions by saving often and in multiple slots, then go for it. As Loof says above, playing a rpg made in ren'py is refreshingly different from playing a rpg made in rpgmaker.
The main story in this game is simple and predictable: you start out as a new recruit and end up saving the world. Part way through the game, you make a major choice of whether to support your king or betray him. I was disappointed in how similar the two choices turned out, but maybe there's a message there. Far more story depth is added by the optional subplots that you can choose to pursue with nine of the other characters. Depending on what you say and do, your can improve or worsen your relationship with each character. If your relationship is good enough, you trigger a sidequest. Six of these sidequests lead to different romantic endings, depending on whether you are a man or a woman and who you kiss first. (Heh, heh. Fun, but not for very young kids IMO.)
One of the choices you may get is "sleep with her".
It takes me about 15-18 hours to play through once, completing all the side quests. The 50 hours quoted above probably includes going back to get all the different endings.
Most of your time in this game will be spent in battle, shooting robots, people, and other intelligent creatures with different types of guns. Be prepared for some rather alarming sound effects. Female battlers scream when they get hit. Players who enjoy numbers - managing their characters' stats and strategizing for battle - will see a lot of depth in the battle aspect of the game.
At the beginning of the game, you choose your character's class, which can be a soldier, guardian, scout, or psionic. Each class starts out with different strengths and weaknesses. When you level up, your maximum HP and PP (psionic points, which are like SP or MP in Aldorlea games) increase, and in normal difficulty mode, you get 4 skill points to spend in any of 24 sifferent categories. If you improve "light weapons" you can equip better pistols. If you improve "accuracy" you have a better chance of hitting your target. If you improve "repair" or "science", you have better chances at fixing broken equipment or hacking computers, respectively. There are seven other playable characters, and you manage their skill points as well. There are many good ways of distributing skill points, which lead to different battle strategies. Very interesting!
In battle, all information is available to you. Not only do you see your HP, PP, weapons, and armor, you also see this information for your enemies. It's up to you to decide what to do with all the information. You could choose to use a piercing gun to shoot an enemy whose armor is weak to that type of damage. Or you could use psionic powers to weaken the enemy's armor to other types of damage. Or, if the enemy has a "repair" skill, you could make sure it stays busy repairing a weaker enemy. Or you could try something else... Each of your battlers has an "aggro" property, which works like the threat system in the Deadly Sin games. The more damage you deal to the enemies, the more likely they are to target you. The way the battles played out was laggy on my old computer. Even though I would kind of like to see all six endings, and I do like numbers and battle strategizing, the amount of time I'd have to spend waiting though the same long battles is a bit off-putting.
As advertised above, it is possible to avoid some battles using your other skills, like "sneak", "explosives", "science", and "charisma". These situations add interest to the plot, and give opportunities to change your relationship with with various characters. However, it is not possible to avoid all battles. You can try to be more ethical than not, but in the end, this is a fighting game, and you need to level up in order to face the final boss.
! The developer makes visual novels, life sim and RPG.
