Telepath Tactics

This game is an ugly ugly diamond. A majority of the tactics revolve around positioning your units and manipulating the enemies location. And this is done very well, and is better than most. The animations and sprites also work. Some sprites look a bit out of place, but for the most part they are good. Now onto the bad things. All of these boil down to a common theme. This game has no polish. At All. None. There are a staggering amount very obvious but minor problems with this game, and they all pile up into one big huge ugly mess. Its not pretty, Trust me. Horrible GUI: Way to small, doesn't even take up 5% of screen space. But there's enough information and things to easily fill up 30-40% of the screen here. Disgusting Fonts: The font is disgustingly small. The backdrop the font is too vivid and has too much contrast. Basically, it is very hard to read. Statpages: Somehow they made the font even smaller. No tooltips on what stats do. Bad Hotkeys: Most are "Shift + X" when "X" has no hotkey. Why? Garbage Cutscenes: These are a square and some JPG's that takes up a mere 30% of the screen. Also you get to read that nasty font some more. Lazy PvP: At first glance this looked cool, but there is not a way to customize your team. There aren't even preset teams to choose from. Basically you just get whatever units the game gives you. That made me pretty sad. I really wish I could give this game a better score, it doesn't deserve a mere two stars. But I can not justify anything more than that with so many flaws.

Another reviewer compared this game to an "ugly, ugly diamond". I tend to agree. I love the concept, the tactical aspects, and the overall theme. While FF Tactics is the most common comparison, I actually think this game has far more in common with the Shining Force games, in terms of strategy and story. Tactically, the game emphasises positioning and facing of characters. All attacks do backstab damage from behind (*all*, including spells and area attacks). So it becomes critical early on to learn how to use push and pull abilities to position enemies and allies. Other than a few duplicate classes, each unit has distinct strengths and vulnerabilities which make it interesting enough to use and strong enough to be worth using. Unfortunately, the game is both incomplete and extremely buggy. Despite over 50 hours in the game, I've given up on playing it due to a bug that causes the game to slow incrementally during play until it progresses at a snail's pace of a few frames per second. You may notice that the most positive reviews here don't pass the game's earlier stages, which are shorter and don't demonstrate the problem. In addition, the UI is a disaster. Everything from font choice to background makes the UI a pain to use. Buttons can go beyond the boxes they're meant to fit in to hover over the battlefield. Dropping an item can cause other items to unequip. Sometimes items swap between characters for no apparent reason. I've spent some serious time with a decompiler trying to figure out why the game behaves so poorly over time, but it's an art I haven't mastered. For now, all I can suggest is to wait and see if the developer ever finishes this new engine that he claimed to be working on several years ago but has yet to deliver.

I've played the game when it came out and it's been a very enjoying experience. I almost finished it so I'll write my review here. First off, the game has been covered in bugs at the release. After 26 patches the game has been more stable. Unfortunately in my playthrough I still discover bugs when it comes to inventories of one character being replaced by another's inventory. This is highly frustrating as there are shops in the game but not always reachable. Editing your save files is not the way you want to play. Bugs aside, what do we have? Story: 2/5 The story is more or less neglectible. The writing isn't the greatest but you at least know who the bad guy is and your objective. Sound: 3/5 The music is alright, though it could've used more tracks. You will sometimes play one battle for hours. At least in my case. Having the same song on repeating isn't that pleasant. However it's not bad. Gameplay: 4/5 This is where the game shines. The game is a lot of fun. Basically you own a group of units and by tactically placing them you will be able to beat the opponents. Think about Vandal Hearts or Final Fantasy tactics. A turn based tactical rpg. The battles are pretty tricky and you can easily lose track of time. This part of the game is pretty solid. Unfortunately I dislike the item degrading in the game. You are spending most of your money buying a couple of the same weapons so you do not run out of them. Once the weapon breaks it's gone. Another aspect I found a bit disappointing is the fact you do not walk around yourself, though I do recall one moment. Most of the time you can not interact with other characters and are being sent from one battle to the next. To sum it up: The challenging and solid battle system is what keeps the game shining for me, even if the game is somewhat flawed.

There are two things to get out of the way before I begin this review in earnest. The first is the bugs. This game was riddled with annoying and even occasionally game breaking bugs upon release, which deterred a lot of initial players. Thankfully, the developer has dedicated a ton of effort post-release to fixing all the most severe bugs, so now all you'll get are occasional silly things (in between play sessions one of my units decided she didn't need the healing item I gave her and put it back in the convoy, for instance) and if you do encounter anything you can post it over at the official forums where the developer is still actively working out the kinks. The second thing that put a lot of people off of this game is its presentation, which I admit is definitely not its strong suit. The game looks very amateur; its art style is flat and its GUI looks like it was ripped from its rightful home in the mid 90s. To be fair, the sprites are smoothly animated and have a lot of charm, and the soundtrack is quite good. But graphical style and fidelity are not the main draws of this game. The gameplay is. And holy crap that gameplay. This is easily one of the most flexible, open-ended and downright fun tactical RPGs I have ever played (and I've played most of them). It's the kind of game that gets you thinking the exact kind of thoughts you want to be thinking in a game like this. Thoughts that start with "Oh! I could..." "How about..." "What if..." "Or maybe..." Enemy standing next to a body of water? How about I push him in and make him waste his turn and energy swimming back out. Enemies swarming over a bridge? What if I put up a bunch of barricades and pelt them from afar with arrows and magic? Or maybe just destroy the bridge and laugh as they mill around aimlessly on the other side. Enemy standing on a cliff? How about I telekinetically pull them off, stunning them and making them take fall damage. This game gives you a ton of units with a bunch of different abilities that open up so many options. One of your main characters can place traps to bait enemies into. Your engineer can build bridges, barricades and even bombs. Your archers can fire multi-arrow trick shots to spread damage around. Your golem can toss objects or units across the map. And that's not counting all the neat utility items like the grappling hook, which lets you wrangle up distant enemies or objects and pull them closer, or the steamthopter that gives a unit temporary flight. Plus, essentially every object on the map is moveable and/or destructible. You can cut down trees or shove tables and chairs in your opponent's way. There's quite a variety of maps in the main campaign that allow you to fool around with this huge bag of tricks, and even playing quickly you'll still get at least thirty hours out of a single run. It's also probably the most fun multiplayer tactics game I've experienced, too, with free-for-all or team hotseat skirmishes. The game comes bundled with a map editor and all the game data is stored in easy to understand xml files, so it's easy to make new multiplayer maps or even new campaigns. As far as story and characters go, they're actually not bad. You follow escaped slaves Emma and Sabrina Strider as they attempt to find and liberate their father from the telepathic ghost-like apparitions that enslave humans and force them to work in the mines. You collect a pretty standard rag-tag band of circumstance and fight your way to the mines in a pretty straightforward fashion, but the dialogue writing is generally pretty snappy and the characters are well-developed. The more socially conscious players will be glad to know that the game features an excellent female protagonist, a group of predominantly female characters (and in roles normally reserved for men, like the boisterous bruiser and the sly cheat) and a surprisingly good lesbian romance. Those who don't care will still be treated to some nice character arcs and lighthearted banter. It's a pretty distinct fantasy world with psionic powers, matriarchal lizard warriors, flying gargoyle creatures and animate golems. Apparently it ties into the world of developer Sinister Design's previous games, but I haven't played any of those and I never felt lost or confused. Overall, highly recommended little indie gem. If you enjoy fun, open-ended tactical games, definitely give this one a shot.