Frozen Synapse 2

I have to say when you plot out all the moves of you and the enemy and it all works out perfectly - its a rush that keeps you coming back. It’s one of those games I find myself thinking about levels when I’m not playing and different strategies I could use to counter a particular setup.

This Eurogamer review is lovely:

To get your shotgunner in just the right position to take out their SMG as it rounded a corner, oblivious to your presence, was just about the sweetest pleasure tactical gaming could offer, as if ghostly dimensions were colliding, bullets passing through these strange membranes as deeply personal timelines kissed against one another.

Not had chance to play this properly yet but I’m itching to. A Hat In Time first though…

I just realized in gameplay footage that units in Frozen Synapse 2 don’t have the cool blood physics and neon red pools of blood left behind like in the first game.

That is a DLC opportunity right there!

Did anyone get through all of the campaign in the first Frozen Synapse? I liked it quite a bit but damn it seemed to go on forever. I think I quit after 30-40 missions, maybe even more.

Was it really that long? I started it but the siren call of multiplayer was so much stronger. The dynamic city campaign in FS2 excites me a lot more!

Wiki says 55 missions!

I’m going to put this down for a while until they fix the regular crashes. (Although as far as crashes go, they’re not too bad - you don’t lose any progress when it goes down and it’s quick to reload, but it’s still annoying). Otherwise the game is great.

I haven’t had any crashes since my very first try at a city game, but then again, I haven’t played much. I’m just figuring out how to actually move slow enough to succeed at missions; thank god for the “restart mission at this turn” option!

What was the final prognosis on this?

I held off on it due to the bugs on launch but they seem to have squashed most of those now so I’m hoping to give it a proper go in the new year. It’s a real shame it got off to such a rocky start and I think Early Access might have worked out better in this case. Either way I hear it’s still got that FS magic and I’m looking forward to jumping back in for all the new stuff, particularly the one turn mode. Glad the shield units are back too! They were my faves from the FS DLC.

The game looks good, but moving into ‘Mixed’ territory on Steam completely killed off the player base.

Where is this option btw?

@vyshka, expect some proper thoughts from me on FS2 soon. Finally got round to starting it last week.

Wow, I completely forgot about this game.

I loved Frozen Synapse 1, but my enthusiasm deflated with the reception and reviews of 2. It appeared that they took a step away from the elegance and simplicity of the first game (though I might be wrong?) and had a noticeably buggy launch. At the time I opted to wait for a decent sale.

I don’t know that the elegance has been removed. They focused on the single player component, which is a procedurally generated city a la xcom apocalypse. Regarding the bugs, I suspect that a lot of it has to do with them using a dead game engine that is now open source.

For what it’s worth, I’ve been playing for… 23 hours now, and not had a single game-breaking bug or crash. There’s been the odd UI blip but other than that it’s been surprisingly solid given the concerning reviews. I’m not really concerned any more!

I’ll try and post my thoughts up tomorrow.

So, yeah, I finally got round to playing Frozen Synapse 2 and I’ve been going through a range of emotions with it. I rarely get excited about games in development (it’s a safety mechanism!) but the hype for FS2 was real because, aside from loving the first game and Frozen Cortex, the ambitious direction it was taking (X-COM Apocalypse-style city and warring faction simulator) addressed the main issue I had with the original: the weak SP.

I bought it day one, fired it up and did the tutorial but decided to finish the other game I was playing at the time (can’t remember which – A Hat In Time maybe?). I noticed that Steam reviews and forum discussions for it weren’t exactly positive because it was buggy and prone to crashing so I parked it and kept an eye on development. That was a major bummer. I was worried I’d never get the same fire to play it again so I was glad that glowing Eurogamer review came along and re-energised me:

Fast-forward to February 2019 and it’s allegedly a lot more stable, so I dove in last week while I was off work. The writing and lore of Frozen Synapse 1 never really did much for me, it was always about the hot tactical blood coursing through its icy blue veins, hence why I sunk 70+ hours purely into its MP. FS2 has been no different on this front: the story is full of daft proper nouns that I don’t understand and backstory I don’t really care about but the city aspect of it gives all the tactical battles some context and, because it’s a simulation, entertaining stories are emerging from the scenarios that crop up. They’ve added a lot to FS2 and even as a series veteran, I found it overwhelming and confusing and very frustrating. Like, I nearly knocked it on the head early on. Nearly rage-uninstalled it in fact, which is rare for me.

It all felt so much more complicated than I remembered it. Did I want to go through all the move planning and tweaking again? And with focus diamonds this time? And new units? And a complex city layer? I felt like the Gregg that fell in love with FS1 and Frozen Cortex was alien to me now. But aside from paying full whack for it, there was something in the back of my head niggling at me to keep going. I was weirdly compelled to tackle each new thing the city sim threw at me. I was taking on contracts and earning money to hire new mercenaries. Some contracts pissed off other factions but if the money was good, I could re-invest to keep them sweet. Slowly the duff units I started with (pistols and SMGs, but mainly cheap pistols) were being replaced with deliciously interesting new units like flamers, mini-gunners, toxic grenade launchers, scoped rifles and snipers that, while opening the game up, allowed me to formulate strategies and tactics that I could better rely and focus on. I stopped flailing around trying to make bad units win against better units. I’ve not even got to riot shields yet for deflecting grenades and blocking line of sight, or mine-layers, or smoke grenades, or turret railguns.

Yesterday Brightling University told me that the city’s big financial faction, the Diamond Brothers, were money laundering in a car park somewhere in the city and asked me to put a stop to it. The Diamond Brothers were a powerful faction and I didn’t like their leader’s attitude so I decided to send my new squad over to test the water. I gave him a chance to duck out of the situation but he just dug in. Thankfully we were already in position from the road ready to strike and the car park was wide open with their gang huddled up in a corner. In less than 10 seconds (after nearly an hour of planning the attack) and no losses, they were toast, two of them quite literally: my new flamer was able to send a stream through a window from the street. Sweet. Afterwards the faction leader told me what I’d done was unlawful and, sure enough, the Municipal Council hit me with numerous criminal charges for firing weapons in public. Pffft. I’ve had this twice but you’ve got to break some eggs to make an omelette, MC.

Anyway, between this altercation, a few satisfying ‘dark’ building breaches (door kicking and clearing rooms), a parcel delivery gone wrong, road blocks and an HQ invasion… I’ve turned a corner with it, which I did not expect after the threat of uninstalling. I feel like I’m back in touch with the old Gregg again; the tactical combat just feels so fucking good (still) once you’ve wrapped your head around it – and with all the new stuff that’s taken me a lot longer this time. It threatened to scare me away but I’m glad I stuck with it. I was very concerned that Mode 7 had added too much but I think I’d have difficulty going back to FS1 now. The SP is so much better and I’d imagine that applies to the MP too.

I don’t think you’re wrong, but I don’t think they’ve stepped that far from the elegance and simplicity of the original once you’ve got your bearings. The new units are just a blast to play with, and the focus diamond, while seeming overly fussy to begin with, really starts to shine when you realise how best to use it. It’s basically a mechanic that rewards players who are able to predict or factor in certain movements and positions and it doubles as a good weapon range indicator too. It can defeat cover if used well!

One of the new units that I was very apprehensive about when they unveiled it was the knife. Knives are fast moving melee units and you have to have pinpoint accuracy to score a kill because they have no range or proximity arc – you have to bump directly into the enemy to slash 'em. I figured they were useless but, god damn, they can be lethal if deployed and maneuvered properly.

Take the last battle I fought last night for example. The Guest faction decided to attack my HQ while my defence squad and secondary strike team were there. If I’d lost this battle, it would have been a major setback. In FS2 any squad in a building can have their deployment and patrols set up so that if they’re attacked, they’re ready. If you don’t do this, your squad is randomly spawned into the building and this can catch you out if you’re not careful. Sometimes you don’t gain control of your units until they get line of sight of an enemy! I hadn’t deployed either of my squads so I had to get them into position while the enemy busied itself dealing with some militia in the streets (this is a city service you can pay for). Anyway, if you can pick out my knife unit, watch how he does the unthinkable:

Yep, he ducks and weaves around cover to get on top of a sniper that no other unit could reach or outgun.

The game’s UI can be a bit fiddly (still) and there are minor bugs/quirks in places but I’ve had nothing game-breaking or any crashes so far, which is the very thing users have been dinging it for. Hm. It’s a shame Mode 7 didn’t go Early Access because that would have tempered expectation while they got the problems sorted. It sits at ‘Mixed’ now, mostly because of technical issues. I’d not watched the trailer until just now and I think it does a good job of getting the scale of the game across. The music is characteristically great too.

So my FS2 range of emotions: hyped > disappointed > excited > confused > overwhelmed > frustrated > apoplectic > curious > enlightened > euphoric > relieved > very happy and content

That’s about the shape of it so far. Basically, I think it’s good to jump in now if you were interested.

If any of you folks fancy some MP, let me know! We could always get some One Turn seeds going too. That’s basically a scenario generator where you get one turn and you score points based on how many enemies you kill and how few units you lose. Then it compares your score to everyone else’s who’s played it.

Thanks for the write-up @geggis! That’s very reassuring. I was pretty excited for the game too but then decided to table it after its mixed reception. Maybe I should give it a shot.

OMG lil’ knifey! what a champion!

Ian Hardingham left Mode 7. He was the main developer in all of their games, and from now on Mode 7 will focus solely on publishing. They’ll support their released games, but that is all for now.