Chains of Freedom

Good game combat tactic and exploration.

Game starts great. Interesting story, basic but "cool" characters. This is 100% linear xcom - you do not choose missions, just go through them 1 by 1. Gameplay is like Mutant Year Zero - you go through map in real time, and when you meet enemy, xcom-like turn-based combat starts (you can also split team or try to sneak but it is very basic, hard and can only help you get better positions pre-fight, rather than avoiding fight completely). There is no EXP. You "level-up" through weapons and bio-crystals you find. Bio-crystals increase your AP, HP, Accuracy or Dodge and majority of them have extra passive buffs/debuffs or active skills. Some are totally op, like allowing you to attack twice with 1 attack, but most is completely useless. Sometimes you find alien artifacts on map which allow you to unlock 2-3 slots for more biocrystals (you can "spend" unlocks and choose which character should have his slot unlocked and how many). Warning: some characters leave your team later, so be wise who gets slots unlocks to not waste them. You cannot sell unnecessary weapons. Ammo is very limited and many times I had to stop using new cool weapon and go back to basic pistol because I did not have enough ammo. You can craft ammo and medkits but resources are very scarce and there is barely enough to craft few rounds for next fight and you are constantly low on scrap which is necessary for most of crafting projects. Unfortunately after few first hours game gets very repetitive. I pushed myself to finish it just to see how story unfolds but it was road through hell. There were leveles where there was one fight after another without any story or interesting pick-ups in between. You fight same enemy types with same weapons and same characters, only thing changing are arenas. If you loved Mutant Year Zero or XCOM - try it. But in my opinion this is one-time-only adventure. I am too tired to ever go back to this game again. And story was not that interesting in the end :(

Interesting atmosphere and gameplay!

Pretty good tactical game. There's a good variety of weapons and items. Make sure to use your gems well.

I was really enjoying this game until the difficulty spike in the 2nd part. This made the game frustrating to me, and I'm almost ended up uninstalling it way before finishing (I did complete the game eventually). Some high level enemies seem to never miss, and the whole set up of the encounter seem to favor the "monsters' late in the game. So, depending on your tolerance for these questionable design choices it could be 2 star game or a 4 since there is plenty to like as well. The turn-based combat if diffculty is not taken into account is truly excellent. crafting options are easy to follow. Sound effects are superb as well. The story is OK, not bad. Dialogue is a hit or miss. This is an indie game, so no full motion video, and the characters will meh as they are not really introduced. Definitely not memorable. In terms of cmobat, one significant oversight, "human" opponents seem to run itno environmental hazards when getting from point A to B. This is good / bad exploit (again, in this game enemies overwhlem player with sheer numbers) .