Into the Breach

I think the concept of this game is VERY cool, and I think it has it's charm to it, but I feel like the game could have been better if these changes were made: 1. Very very large game board (huge play area) instead of the very small play area. The play area is too small. 2. The ability to use more than 3 mechs at the same time. The current year is 2020, and the game was made in 2018. Why limit me to 3 mechs? 3.The ability to simply not care about the buildings all over the map. Unfortunately this game is babysitting simulator because you lose a building, and then you lose people and your power grid goes down and the game decides you lose. 4. Better system of showing the player what will happen before they do it. The game has a very unusual and counterintuitive system of allowing you to undo turns or undo entire battles, but places some really annoying and frustrating limits on when the player can do this, or how many times they can do it. Honestly, I would have preferred to be able to undo any and all turns 100% of the time whenever I feel like it. 5. An easy mode that is actually easy. Currently easy mode is still EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. I play games for enjoyment, and I honestly can't believe that the game doesn't allow me to just enjoy. a fun challenge is one thing but punishing every single move I make to the point where I regret every single thing I do is just really not my idea of fun.

Got it for free on Epic games. Game is insanely hard but addictive. Requires big brain power to beat (especially on hard)

its a very very very hard game. very difficult. dont play

+ game mechanic is solid + graphics & animation are fitting + different pilots with special skills + a couple of mechs and lot of weapons, allowing for different playstyles - the 4 same islands over and over again - boring music - shallow atmosphere - ending is anti-climatic ===OVERVIEW & GAMEPLAY=== The world is overrun by Vek (monstrous insect-like aliens). The player controls three mechs and tries to protect the islands against the Vek-invasion. Battles are turn based, but you can see what each enemy is going to do on his next turn. You use the abilities of your 3 mechs to manipulate the enemy action: You move them one tile, so they won't hit one of the civilian buildings but rather empty ground or even better: other Veks... or you freeze them so they can't attack or you freeze a building so it takes no damage... or you just kill those Veks, either by raw power or by throwing them into water, lava, etc. The Veks target not only mechs, but also buildings. If they damage a building, you lose energy (power grid). 0 energy means game over. New Veks emerge every round for four rounds, and if there are too many of them, you can't keep them in check with just three mechs. So you try to kill two with one blast, or you block their emerging with your mechs or even with other Veks. There are additional objectives like kill 7 Veks or or block them from emerging 3 times, or don't kill that one special Vek, or protect NPCs, or get less than 4 damage, etc. By completing these objectives you get energy or reputation, which you can spent on buying temporary upgrades for your mechs. When you beat the game, which is quite doable on normal difficulty, you can start a new timeline. That just means you begin the game again from the start. Mechs, upgrades, weapons are lost but you can choose one pilot (who is probably max level at this point) and bring him to the next timeline. ===MECH & PILOTS=== You start with three basic mechs. You get coins by unlocking achievements while playing. You will get some achievements just by playing (by accident) others demand a conditioned playstyle. With coins you can permanently unlock new mech squads, which basically have just another design, but at least they start with different weapons than the starter mechs. After 1-2 weeks I unlocked every squad expect one. The weapon-variety allows for different approaches in the battles, which is quite nice. Mechs can work without a crew, but with pilots you get special bonuses like more reactor power, more movement, more hp. There are generic generated pilots, and then there are unique pilots, who have one special skill like flying or firing twice if you don't move. Every game starts with two generic and one unique pilot. During the game you can find/rescue other unique pilots, who are then unlocked permanently. The devs tried to give these pilots different personalities but don't expect too much here. ===ATMOSPHERE=== The atmosphere in games is very important to me. I'm not only in for pure gameplay, I also want to get at least a bit immersed. Faster Than Light did a good job with that but Into The Breach comes short. Similar to FTL, the game is intended to be played over and over again. For that to work there must be enough variety so it doesn't get boring. Unfortunately it does get boring. I don't know why exactly it worked in FTL, but it sure doesn't work here. While the game offers enough different weapons and pilots, four islands (+ the last volcano level) are just not enough. The "world" is just a tiny section of an ocean with the four same islands: normal vegetation, desert island, ice island, industrial island. Yes, they are partly randomly generated, but somehow it's still always the same. You will hardly be surprised by anything new after your third playthrough. So after bringing your last pilot to the next timeline, choosing new mechs, you press "start" and you see... the same four boring islands again. You can choose the order of the islands but honestly, that's not enough for me. I caught myself not thinking about which island I want to do next, but rather which island would be the least boring. While the music in FTL was excellent, it's very generic and boring in ITB. But at least you can turn off the music while keeping the sound effects, which allows for playing with other background-music. ===CONCLUSION=== Into The Breach = Chess + Mechs + Post-Apocalpse + Advance Wars - Atmosphere OK-game for fans of turn-based-combat and puzzle-games. Strong on the tactical gameplay aspect, weak on the atmosphere and music. Might get boring fast. I recommend waiting for a sale.

This game gets it. I just played Xcom 2 and was extremely frustrated by the unfair randomness and artificial permadeath. Into the breach does RNG and permadeath perfectly, just as in FTL. The concept is great, the game is amazing to play especially on a gamepad (little details) and it keeps you on the edge of your seat. BUT one star missing because, on a high DPI screen laptop, the game completly drains the GPU as there is no adjustable resolution?! I have to run the game in 640x480 using windows compatibility settings or my laptop turns into a scorching hell. I hope I'm wrong but I've looked for a fix and didn't find any. Also would be nice to have maybe one more island, but it's nitpicking at this point.