+ 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 claims to takes place between BG1 and BG2. Sadly it is poorly written and buggy as hell. The devs don't care about Baldur's Gate, they don't care about a good RPG. They are completely out of touch, what Baldur's Gate is all about ... they only care about forcing their superior political opinions on gamers, by compromising a legendary game, an established name. That happens sometimes subtle, sometimes blunt. Why didn't they just develop a completely new title from scratch and used that one to spread their propaganda? No, they needed to abuse Baldur's Gate, of all games. A user named "Totenglocke" summarized it and I copy it in here, because I couldn't say it better: ************** They shoehorned in several SJW elements (a forced trans character, a gay character, a feminist who berates a male character for asking about the well being of a female character, a character who just randomly exclaims that you're racist, and they made a character say something snarky about gamergate) in addition to completely changing two female characters personalities because they found them to be "problematic" in the original game, thus breaking continuity as well. Furthermore, the main (only?) writer for the game, Amber Scott, gave an interview to Kotaku where they talked about how the original Baldur's Gate was "really sexist" despite not being able to come up with any examples and she said that they were "correcting" the plot and that anyone who didn't like it can go to hell. She then later posted on a forum (I'm not sure which, I've only seen a screenshot) that she's proud to be a SJW and hopes to put more SJW content in future games. ************** If someone wants to hold to SJW- or whatever-beliefs, I don't care. But to stain the legacy of Baldur's Gate is just insidious and is a mockery of any fan of the series. Zero stars for this abomination of a Baldur's-Gate-game.
