Don't be fooled by the low overall rating - people burned by the deal with Epic game store are bombing the reviews. Personally, I don't care about all the petty drama, I'm here to judge the game based on its merits. Phoenix Point effectively uses the classic action point system as opposed to move-and-shoot mechanic of the 2012 XCOM reboot. I don't consider the latter system to be inherently bad, but as someone who played a lot of Jagged Alliance 2, I'm happy they had the courage to go with the old-fashioned way. There are no artificial, contrived percentage calculations. Instead, the trajectory of each shot is simulated to determine the outcome. This is a huge improvement upon XCOM and XCOM 2's way of calculating hits which often led to cringe-worthy situations (missing point-blank, miniscule probability of hitting a huge mech because of an abstract defense bonus, ...). Weapon behaviour is more realistic. Each shot within a burst is simulated individually. My review is premature since I've only started the game. But on the basis of how many things Phoenix Point does right, I'm giving it 5/5.
I just attached a cell phone to a cat with a duct tape after feeding it a rotten pizza. Need I say more?
The physics aspect of the game is awesome, no question about it. The visuals, audio and music are also nice. But game mechanics are a different matter. The impact of randomness is enormous. You may be stuck with your puny starting weapon for a long time or you may find a magical equivalent of Kalashnikov machine gun early on. After each level you can select one new perk. What each perk does? There is one only way to find out - pick it. Sometimes perks have a downside and the wrong choice may ruin your run. But there is no way to know beforehand. Same goes for weapons. Here is a weapon that may kill the user, but we're not going to tell you. Enjoy your random death! On top of randomness and intentional obscurity, the basic combat is extremely unforgiving. Enemies have perfect aim and hit you hard. A seemingly minor mistake may end your run in less than a second. My last run ended with an enemy effectively oneshotting me from the edge of the screen even though I had full health. AOE attack that stunlocks you, not allowing to do anything before the second shot lands - that's not difficult, that's just unfair. Randomization and high difficulty are the standard features of many roguelites, I get it. But when compared to say Dead Cells (another roguelite) in terms of game mechanics, Noita looks bad. In Dead Cells, weapons are balanced and evenly spaced. When I die, I know it's my fault and I could've played better. Every new run is satisfying, while in Noita frustration is the only thing left when the novelty wears off. Noita is an example of a purposefully cruel game design. I can easily imagine the evil maniacal laughter of the devs during the design process. So buy it if either you don't mind paying the price just to look at cool physics simulation or dying to random nonsense is your definition of fun. Maybe you are more hardcore than me and a game that requires 200+ hours of suffering to achieve any sort of progress is exactly what you want.
