Into the Breach

I'm struggling between 4 and 3 Stars. But as I write the review I decided to go with 3. My main problem with the game is that your run rarely changes from the first island to the final encounter. Your mechs don't have enough chances to upgrade and try new things, and even if you do it throws the balance of the team off. I know everybody is comparing it to FTL, even though it is a different kind of game, but the rising sense of tension just isn't present in this game like it is in that classic game. Most of the tension in this game is in the micro strategy between moves and deciding how to counter the Kaiju like Vek. It's engaging, fun, and really well designed.. but ultimately it's just battle chess with a nice fresh coat of paint. There just isn't much of a game in this package, and I found myself going back to other games after 2 completions. Also, it's not very fun to watch on stream the way FTL was and is. As I mentioned before FTL has a great rising action that keeps you going for the entire run. Into the Breach is more something to waste your time and walk away from when you have something better to do. I will give subset the benefit of the doubt. FTL had an expansion that made it the game it is today, and maybe this game will be more engaging with an update pack that adds new depth, but right now I think it's a little overpriced and they are riding the coattails of a much better game. I think 9.99 is more than fair for this guy and 15 is pushing it. I see myself getting about 70 hours out of the game which is pretty good. But with FTL I'm on 500+ and counting. I saw wait for a price drop, or the expansion and in the meantime go play chess. I think after 2-3 years Subset really under-preformed.

ITB has quickly become one of my favourite things to do if I have a few spare minutes, or an hour. It's been (rightly) described as an "infinite chess puzzle generator", with each turn creating an interesting situation for you to think through. Due to the asymmetric nature of the game, the enemies have the strength in numbers, but you have the ability to perfectly plan where your attacks and theirs will land. There's nothing more satisfying than being faced with a seemingly unwinnable (or drastically dire) situation, and after 10 minutes of deep consideration, executing a perfect plan that leaves your mechs and buildings unscathed. (Most turns will take just a minute, but players keen to squeeze the most out of each turn will find an occasional long pause for thought.) The upgrade system is not as interesting as FTL, since all the mech squads are already outfitted with their "main" combo weapons, and any new weapons you find are likely to have no synergy with the squad. So generally over the course of a game, you will just be pumping up your stats, and executing the same strategies throughout. I didn't find this an issue, since there is so much variety in the missions, and there are 10 squads to play through (so you'll have at least 10 totally unique runs through the game). The best thing is, it starts up super quick and you can save mid-battle, so if you only have a few free minutes, you can load it up, take one or two turns, then quit.

I would like to say that I love the game. I've played quite a bit of it, and at times I do enjoy the challenge behind the tactical situations that come up. Unfortunately, there's one minor problem that keeps me from giving it above a mediocre rating - frequently, the setup of a level and what spawns where will prevent you from getting a clean sweep each turn. There will, inevitably, be times that the only mech capable of reaching a particularly Vek threat is webbed. You will have cities diagonal from each other with an enemy preparing to attack one or the other and no way to kill it without pushing it into one of those cities, doing damage yourself. Sometimes it will simply be impossible to finish enough enemies off and block enough emerging ones to avoid four widely scattered Vek, making you choose which one to ignore because your three mechs can't hit them all. This isn't just perfectionist whining. Letting a city take a hit is a major issue, because that cuts into your power reserves. You won't be able to reinforce those very often, so it is essential to avoid any damage to the grid at all in a majority of levels... and sometimes, it won't work out that way. Like in FTL, victory may not be in the cards because you didn't find enough fancy loot. But unlike FTL, where you shrug and start another game, this feels like every time you lose it's because you screwed something up. If you had deployed the artillery one square to the left you could have pushed these two Vek aside! Never mind that, if you had, they could and probably would have threatened something that it was no longer in range to defend on the right. It's a decent game, but it will never be one of my favorites. I spend far too much time kicking myself for tactical blunders when, honestly, there was no way I could have known what was spawning or anticipated which of these five cities this flying enemy would decide to threaten, and I can't cover every contingency every time.

Into the Breach is by far the most gut-punching turn-based game you'll ever find. Every move you make will infuriate you because the enemy A.I. will see something that you didn't OR you'll make that one move that will make you facepalm at your own mistake because you didn't see something until it was too late. Each island offers its own unique set of challenges, not one island will ever be the same. Some might be eaiser than others. While others can be extremely difficult and will again punish you for thinking it's a walk in the park. This game isn't designed to be forgiving whatsoever. If you make the wrong moves and get a "game over" screen then that's all on you and not the developers. Because the developers want to test your observation and tactical skills. And if you can't handle the limits thrown at you in this game. You best move on. Overall, it's a solid experience that's worth your time. IF you can handle the challenges that this game has to offer.

Excellent game. This is a turn based strategy game, on an 8x8 "board", with mechs and bugs called Veks. It's roguelite, from the perspective that if you lose all your grid, which the health bar for the power grid, the game over screen appears. From there you can send one of your three pilots back to start another timeline. So when you first start playing, there is a lot of dying and starting over. Ultimately though, I'm not finding the "normal" difficulty very difficult. I am currently at 7 wins out of 14 games. I had one win in the first 8 games, and then 6 wins in a row. So it seems that once you get the hang of this game, it's completely winnable. It will probably kick your ass the first few games though, until you learn the strategy behind it. For reference, in my current FTL profile, I've got 20 wins in 83 games, so for me statistically normal in FTL is harder than normal in Into the Breach. It could mainly be the difference between turn based and pausable real-time though. In real time it's possible to get frazzled and have everything go to hell really quickly, whereas with turn based each move can be pondered. Though playing Into the Breach fairly fast makes it more fun IMO. I've never played "easy" difficulty. That just sounds like a cakewalk considering normal is winnable. I will probably fill up all the achievements and then switch to hard mode. Though I find normal fun and kinda relaxing, so I may stick with that for a while. As far as balance... In my opinion the balance is great. If you get overwhelmed it's your own fault. Generally on the first round of a battle there are 3 enemy veks against your 3 mechs. If you deal with them, you go to round 2 and about that many come out again. But if you do a bad job in round one, it's possible to get completely overwhelmed in future turns. That's not the game's fault. If you play well, this game is completely winnable. Just like in FTL, there are "high risk, high reward" battles where you are outnumbered from the beginning. But you can skip them. Overall, a great game, and a great followup to FTL.