Into the Breach

Feels like a great game for those who love replaying the same game hundreds of times, learning about the deeper mechanics, trying out different setups, unlocking achievements etc. For anyone who does not enjoy achievement hunting, there are bad news: ingame progression is tied to it. Every achievement you unlock (e.g. knock 5 enemy units into the water in one skirmish) gives you one coin to unlock new squads with. There are 20 squads or so, with different mechs, weapons etc. They cost 2 to 4 coins each to unlock. As most of this currency is locked behind very niche interactions, like burning so or so many enemy units with this or that specific squad, the game not only forces you to play it in a specific way, but also with specific squads. If you are not interested in achievement hunting, you may find this mechanic very limiting. The game itself feels like it plays second fiddle to the coin grinding and unlocking new squads. I'm sure people who enjoy unlocking stuff will like this but for those who are not as excited about playing a building defender game again and again, it won't be as appreciated. I don't know how much time they put on the various squads, mechs etc but it felt like if they had been satisfied with 10 mechs instead of 27 and instead added a story, more diversity in the scenarios etc, they would have succeeded with making an actually good game for those who just want to play a good tactics game through once or twice. You could play this through in a few hours first time you pick it up. If at least the game had some sense of progression, e.g. that you to replay parts of it, gradually becoming more powerful, i guess it would be ok, but characters reach max level quickly and when you die you restart without any of the stuff you have collected and can only choose one character to restart with. There is no real progression except for achievements and the number of unlocked squads.

I'm indifferent about this one. Imagine FTL with smaller scale (in terms of atmosphere - galaxy vs random timeline), and with more than one ship - second one would be civilian (like buildings in this game), constantly targeted and defensless, with low HP (power grid) during entire sector. I was happy from the start with FTL, I was able to learn and play MekHQ+Megamek+ATB rules without much knowledge about Battletech (I'm talking about this in terms of patience, not in terms of accomplishment), but this one... In my previous examples, one bad decision or lost battle may be a problem, in ItB it will be a problem (although, I understand this will be + for many people). Everything here feels like pretext for tactical battles, I would like to see some background. I don't know, maybe entire Earth map with provinces (even Moon or Mars later) and randomly generated events (instead of islands), more mechanics for your dropship, properly sci-fi twisted time travelling mechanics (if you know this genre, then you know that this can be wild)... I know that my review is very subjective, but for me, something is off about this game. I can see that endgame gameplay with more upgrades and squads available should be much more fun, so, of course, I will give this game a chance (it is only 1 day after premiere, after all). PS I'm not sure about this mechanic which allows you to transfer one pilot between previous and new game. In my opinion, entire early game, first playthroughs and higher difficulties are unbalanced due to this option and design choices based on that idea.

If Advance Wars, Godzilla, and Pacific Rim had a baby, it would be Into The Breach. And what a lovely baby that is.

Good game and I'm giving it 5 stars because you get plenty for the price. It didn't really meet my initial expectations from the hype, though. It's a fun puzzle game, I really like that it's often more important to push or otherwise move enemies, instead of directly damaging them. But the overall content is a bit small. You're quicky through the game and even though it's kind of designed to be replayable, it didn't manage to motivate me enough to do so.

Great game. Just like FTL is not a simple game you will hate to think hard to beat it. Be prepared to re-start from the starting point until you get it.