Posted on: January 11, 2024

Ollined

Games: 90 Reviews: 8

Tight Turn-Based Tactics

This game features some of the tightest turn-based strategy gameplay of any game. The game plays more like chess or a puzzle game with no randomness as opposed to something like xcom. The situation of the entire map is clearly presented each turn and it is up to the player to find the best solution to each problem. There seems to nearly always be a good solution available. The maps are small with mechs being able to cross the entire map in a few turns and it is often possible to attack any of the tiles in a turn. The gameplay is kept fresh with optional goals on each mission, varying terrain conditions on each of the islands, the ability to equip drastically different weapons on the mechs and varied mech squads with the developers adding even more with free updates. The advance content additionally provides some fun customizability and variation for each run. Beating the the game once is only the beginning. For me the game provided at least 50 hours of satisfying gameplay. The graphics feature well-drawn and animated pixel art. The soundtrack features some absolute bangers by Ben Prunty. The island finished -theme for example perfectly captures the triumphant feeling. The visual and sound effects are somewhat minimal but fitting and sell the impact of attacks well. Both the island CEO:s and the mech pilots are given some personality with portraits and dialog boxes. Unlike FTL, the story and game scope don't reach galactic levels but beating the game for the first time feels appropriately epic. There is not much variation in the story department from run to run. The achievements do exactly what I want from them: encourage experimentation with different strategies, challenge one to arrange different conditions in combat and provide some extra-hard conditions for success. The tight and satisfying turn-based puzzle-like gameplay is the the best aspect of the game. The story is somewhat lackluster, but does not detract from the overall experience.

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Posted on: March 4, 2018

gabrutal

Verified owner

Games: 195 Reviews: 2

Falls far far far behind FTL

As a great fan of FTL I decided to pre-order this game. Now I wish I had adhered to the motto of the PC Gaming Master Race "We do not pre-order". Game and Gameplay: Dull and uninteresting. It's a cliche fight of mechs against bugs. Music: No awesome music repertoire that we have been pampered by FTL. Story: Bad. Even the background is poorly explained. You are dropped into a game with islands and a corporation on each island. How did humanity get there? Why? I like a cyberpunk vibe but in this particular game I feel like things should be better explained and story-told. Things I liked: Time travel Terminator-esque feeling. I like how the time travel theme fits into us restarting a game. (the main menu background, mech + ruined landscape) Vibe from an old and underrated manga series called Blue Gender. Humanity trying to fight back an "alien" bug invasion. But it was so much deeper than that. The reason I don't give this game 1 star is that the developer is known to "follow up" their game after release and not just "fire and forget". That is the only hope for this game. I don't understand how so many people seem to like this game so much.

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Posted on: March 10, 2018

phillbato

Verified owner

Games: 258 Reviews: 2

Short and Sweet

The game is pretty short (I cleared it in about 3 hours), but the content that is there is pretty solid and engaging, and you can unlock new mechs to use the next time around to keep things interesting. Got a pretty good soundtrack to it too.

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Posted on: April 24, 2018

ultrasuperior

Games: 67 Reviews: 3

Great TBS game

A real headscratcher.

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Posted on: March 2, 2018

fahbs

Games: 354 Reviews: 90

Can't decide between 2 genres

I was a big fan of FTL so of course I checked this out. Sadly, it's not that enjoyable. It's your mechs vs monsters. You have to stop the monsters from destroying buildings. It will tell you what spaces the monsters will attack next turn, most of your attacks push the monsters back which can disrupt their attacks. Survive all the turns. The main thing is that it falls into this unsatisfying limbo between a tactical battle game like Advance Wars, and a pure block pushing puzzle game. It's not AW because it's more about figuring out where to push pieces on the board (try to get monsters to attack each other, push them into the ocean for instant kills, etc). But it's also not a pure puzzle game because there are so many factors you can't plan for. While you're told where monsters are going to shoot, you don't know where they're going to move. Also monsters take a turn they instant they spawn from the ground, so you don't know where they're going to move OR even what type they are and their capabilities. You can't possibly be in a position to cover all possibilities, and often you don't know until it's too late. A puzzle game should have that satisfying "ah ha!" moment when you figure out a perfect solution, but too often you won't be in a position to do anything about an attack because there's not enough information to plan around. You WILL lose buildings. Which is a problem because it's so punishing long term. Destroyed buildings take away power. Run out of power and it's game over for the whole run. You can spend resources to recovery power, but unlike repairing in FTL the cost is ridiculous. Just one bad battle can screw you over. Imagine spending 2 whole sectors worth of scrap to repair one bad battle. That's how punishing ItB is. There are different difficulties. Easy is way too easy. Normal is too frustrating. I beat easy quickly and had no desire to continue. There's just not much else to the game. The puzzle and tactical fan in me was disappointed.

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