This review contains SPOILERS! Click to expand.
For context, I consider myself a veteran of the genre having logged hundreds if not more hours into turn-based tacticals and rogue-lites alike including Divinity Original Sin, XCOM, Wasteland, Mutant Year Zero, Battle Brothers, and more going all the way back to the original Fallout. All usually on 'hard' or better.
That aside, I find this game absolutely infuriating.
The
For context, I consider myself a veteran of the genre having logged hundreds if not more hours into turn-based tacticals and rogue-lites alike including Divinity Original Sin, XCOM, Wasteland, Mutant Year Zero, Battle Brothers, and more going all the way back to the original Fallout. All usually on 'hard' or better.
That aside, I find this game absolutely infuriating.
The enemy will consistently run through control zones and funnel points you create, through attacks of opportunity, to one shot your back line weaker characters who are desperately clinging to life behind cover. The enemy is so horribly overtuned that the majority of fights you'll not only be outnumbered substantially, you'll be outclassed by at least 1-2 levels per enemy. Now, let's talk damage.
The enemy will consistently hit your characters for 30-60 points of damage where even my pure defensive tanks only have 72. These are *regular* attacks. Their criticals, which will occur often, will one-shot your best characters. Meanwhile, your best offensive characters *if they actually hit* will hit for 15-30. Your skills do no more damage than standard attacks and often have less chance to hit so they're essentially worthless. And on top of all of this, even following the games advice on how to approach combat, you will *regularly* miss with *over* a 100% chance to hit (dodge). Further compounding this absurdity is that the games mechanics work in such a way that it encourages you to stand shoulder to shoulder with your team essentially forming a 'battle line' to increase your support and hit chance. This would be fine if the enemies you're against didn't all have some massive AOE that will chunk all 5 of those shouldered-up characters at a time for 20% of their hp, then poison me, then set me on fire... sometimes more than once in a single turn. Further, the AI doesnt even take their own advice and *never* shoulders up for support yet they hit my team of fully buffed supported front line tanks like it was nothing.
Lastly, one of the most exasperating aspects of the game is that there have been fights that on *turn zero* 1-2 of my characters have been one shot before I could even take a single action with that character. I'm talking fight starts, enemy acts, my character dies from 100% to 0 in a single action. What? The damage output of the enemy is absolutely insane and I've scaled the difficulty back *twice* to try and get to something manageable but the game just won't let me. When you are facing 9 rogues in a fight and each one does 30-45 damage per regular hit, while your shouldered and in cover, its essentially a one-shot on my back line and an almost-one-shot on my front line. There are no tactics you can even employ to counter this. It's entirely possible your whole party will be wiped in a single turn by basic attacks from common enemies. Its a painful, unfun, slow slog to fight anything and the rewards and progression don't feel 'big' enough ("Lame Shield", "Okayish Daggers") to justify the pain.
Yes the game is cute, yes it has some (some...) humor, yes its well put together and fairly polished but the combat which is essentially 60% of the game ruins it. The mechanics are clearly overtuned in favor of the AI, so much so you don't have a chance in hell in most encounters and will be reloading your quick saves more often than my rogue will miss a backstab on an oblivious target from stealth. If the enemies hit percentage and damage was roughly close to mine it might be tolerable but this is the T-Ball league of fantasy teams going up against the 72 Yankees.
I've got better things to do than waste my time re-loading games 6 times an hour only to find new and rage inducing ways the computer is able to absolutely murder me.
Pass on this and go play Wasteland 3 or DOS2. Trust me, for $40 you'll get way more bang for your buck and won't rip your hair out.