Pros: - Don't let the dated graphics fool you. This game has an oppressively dark atmosphere about it. This is honestly one of the most atmospheric games of its kind for its time. - Accessible, yet still challenging gameplay design. Positioning, facing, and energy management is key for both offense and defense. - A good variety of weapon types, a decent number of which open up alternative design avenues beyond the supposed initial purpose of a chassis. - Above average enemy AI. Leave a gap open in your shields, and the AI WILL take advantage of it if it has the movement to do so. Cons - Gets repetitive after a while, as the mission generator is only really able to create a few variants for each mission type. (Though the terrain variety of the different planets goes a long way to mitigating this con to a minor one.) - Low number of actual chassis types to play with. Especially with how many of them become blatantly obsolete as you progress in the campaign.
Pros - Adds a highly varied faction to Ancestors Legacy. The Saracens are great fun. - Adds the second best campaign in the game, second only to the Rurik campaign. Cons - This is the second best campaign in the game... But the stealth sections are janky.
Pros - A solid take overall on a Medieval-themed Company of Heroes style RTS. - Pretty good graphics. The melee combat animations are pretty impressive, with the bonus of silly ragdolls. :P - Has a wider berth of tactics to try than you'd expect. This game makes pretty good use of its relatively limited unit variety. (The mechanics for Archers and Cavalry are great specifically.) - Decent Skirmish AI. Far from amazing, but it's ok. Cons - The campaigns are quite repetitive overall and their storylines are largely pointless. (Both Viking campaigns, the Teutonic Order campaign, Mieszko I's campaign, and the Saracen campaign if you get its DLC are the campaigns that are worth at least trying. IGNORE THE REST, including BOTH Anglo-saxon campaigns. The Anglo-saxon campaigns get special mention for being the worst in the game.) - Multiplayer/Skirmish settings are pretty limited. Not a lot of map variety either. - Don't zoom in on Cavalry combat animations... It's very clear that on-foot infantry got ALL of the animation attention here.
Pros: - Excellent combat with a good variety of builds and strategies to try. - Fun enemy AI. It's not braindead, as it is capable of recognizing choke point situations it needs to try to avoid. Sure, the AI sucks with cruisers and battleship weapons... But other than that, the AI here is solid. - Unlike FTL, you don't have to dread the endpoint of your runs, as the end-run bosses are actually fun. - More accessible than FTL- especially since the lowest difficulty setting doesn't block you off from unlocks. Cons: - Nowhere NEAR enough event variety. You'll start seeing repeated events pretty frequently with your third run onward. This discourages exploration- leading to play styles where you'll just make beelines for ground signals and shops, ignoring everything else. - Can get pretty repetitive overall.
Not a Hero is a game that's over-sold by its trailer more-so than many games. The trailer attempts to imply varied and constantly-hectic action along with a small dose of humor. While the game certainly does manage hectic action a good amount of the time- it becomes tedious action disturbing quickly the further you get due to unenjoyable level designs, and an infuriating end game. And it doesn't help that the trailer is the only place where little humor can be found here. So I can blame myself for coloring my expectations a bit too high with this one. Still though, It's not that Not a Hero is outright bad. But its got pretty much nothing amazing, or even great going for it. Those with a high tolerance for repetition will probably enjoy it though, since the core gameplay is solid on its own when you forgive the level and enemy design. Pros: - Simple and Solid central gameplay that makes for relatively constant hectic action. - Sharp controls. - Good character selection, supporting a decent number of playstyles. - Completionists have a decent number of additional challenges to look forward to. Cons: - Infuriating end game. - Frankly repetitive and unenjoyable level design that results in feelings of repetition and tedium. - Some levels feel way too long- which is disturbing since most of the levels are meant to be beat in less than 2-4 minutes. - For the aforementioned lengthy levels: there are no checkpoints. So be ready to repeat the game's more frustrating encounter chains ad-nauseam. Recomendation: Get Broforce instead- also published by Devolver Digital. It's better in every way.
