The game itself is not bad, but it's a straight-downwards Dungeon crawler with an admittedly fairly good graphics interface... but that's about it. It's unfortunately nothing special, and nothing resembling ADOM's complexity. In fact, I'd say it's simpler than most modern roguelikes.... it's a throwback to NETHACK or Slash'Em in many ways, with some QoL improvements If I had to summarize it, it kind of feels like an Alpha... a tech demo to demonstrate some new gameplay concepts, but keeping it to a basic design of a few levels. Like I said, not bad, per se, just mediocre. And I do like the interface QoL improvments. But there are better options. If you want a more up to date beautified classic roguelike, I'd go for TOME (Tales of Maj Eyal).
At it's core this is a tactical RPG, with procedural campaigns, in which you command a ragtag mercenary company, in a very grim, very dark world. Your main character was afflicted by a mutation during an experimental procedure by an alchemist, and you travel the world looking for a solution to your ills. This is... as much as I've figured out of the main plot so far, but more unveils as the game goes on. Graphics: very good, hand drawn. Vaguely reminiscent of Darkest Dungeon. The gameplay itself: - It's hex based strategy. Pretty much traditional hex-based strategy. Terrain is very important. If you have the high ground for instance you have an offensive advantage and a defensive penalty over those who dont. If the height difference is high enough and you use a ranged character, the damage you can deal is dangerous, and noone can strike back at you.... but if you get knocked off your perch, it might be game over. - In the overmap you roam around gathering resources and finding places to explore. Map is proceduraly generated as well, clues you in as to how difficult a prospective encounter will be. After encounters you get loot, mutators (kind of... equippable special abilities), and resources which can be used in various ways. - Tactics impression: I think the stat-to-rule-them-all is agility to act first and more often, followed by vitality (HP), strenght (plusdamage), focus (this one is the least by far.... once you build up enough focus you trigger party-wide special abilities.... but I get the feeling it's too situational and they're not that much better than the default ones?) - More tactics-impressions: I think battlefield control abilities trump raw damage, in general. - Integrated graphics support: Runs perfect, at least on 2017+ systems. All in all, it seems a very entertaining game. Strategy/wargame lovers will probably enjoy it.
I'm giving it three stars because its still the grandfather of hack and slash games we all know and love, but it doesnt "updated" for modern systems. The interface is clunky, and graphics have been stretched (might as well play with a low screen res. Results.might be better, even). I'm pretty sure I've seen better hi-res adaptations (Freeablo, for one). As far as remasters go, it's a pretty lazy one.
It has all the bells and whistles of a Baldur's Gate like, but there are SERIOUS issues. Dont recommend it unless it gets a significant overhaul - First: bugs, bugs, bugs. In theory this is an 1.0 release, so why is it so full of bugs? Seriously, this feels like an early Beta. - Character creation is seriously flawed, options are far more limited than it might seem at first, both because of the low starting stats and because... - Game balance is completely out of whack. Out of depth encounters are dime a dozen. Even regular encounters can be hit and miss. This forces you to both minmax characters (which is a problem from a RP pov), and to reload constantly... and by the way, the developers don't think this is an issue. They see it as a feature that is working as intended ( ! ). - Related to the above: the biggest influence in the game is RNG, simple as that. This is a big part on why you end up constantly reloading.. results differ wildly from one reload to the next, to the extent of steamrolling a foe vs getting a TPK. Hell, you can even see it in conversation options... EVERYTHING is rolled. Even what is avaiable for you to say. "But it's based on a P&P so that is to be expected!" No it's not. Go look at any of the classics. BG didnt work like that. Or P:T. Or NWN. If anything THIS is what makes the whole combat system so frustrating. Everything is random. In other games if an encounter is too difficult you reload once, level up doing other stuff (which this game doesn't really encourage btw), and then go back and beat the foe. You don't expect that repeating the same encounter several times will result in wildly different outcomes at random. - Minmaxing characters is very frustrating. Either you build a talker and then you're screwed if you explore, or you build a minmax that will be good for combat (or some combats at least. provided RNG doesnt screw you). Also, you're pretty much forced to use custom chars as the default party is suboptimal.
I find this game to be boring. Combat tries to emulate NewXCOM after a fashion, but it's bogged down by endless animations,. As far as the fights themselves go: Basically you move your mechs around and, once they meet a rival mech, they pummel each other until one gives out. It almost feels like a chore & I grew bored of it quickly The story itself is nothing to write home about either. I was not a fan of BT lore beforehand, and I'm still not one afterwards. It's as bland and clicheish as you might expect, and I find it hard to give a flying duck about any of the characters. I daresay the game would work better if the overarching story was scrapped and it just emulated Battle Brothers. I give it a 3/5 because it's not exactly a bad game. It has some nice individual features. But overall the whole thing feels really, really bland.