I played (unashamely) a lot of on easy before I got the hang of it, as I was getting punished on normal.
The progression between Easy-Normal-Hard isn’t about enemies getting stronger, but their number, and thus the number of variables you have to take into account for each of your moves.
After getting familiar with the game on easy, where each island takes about 10 minutes, a normal runs took about 30 minutes of brain time per island here.
I guess I am trying to say that easy is the extended tutorial mode.
They actually aren’t, as per the designer’s words on one of their post-release analysis. There are a lot of them, but you eventually grow accustomed to the one you love, and the one you hate. As you can preview them in the map, it’s a pretty nifty system and yet another “interesting decision”.
One of the hardest parts of the game for me is to choose a proper initial position for my mech. This is very dependant on what threat you are facing and the layout, but there are definitely good and bad answers at that decision level too.
Indeed, they specifically mentionned L-shaped cities as a big no-no (understandably).
The way they formulate it is a bit open (in the same vein they described their UI as “okay-ish” to RPS), but looking at how the player (at least, I) get familiar with the maps, I think the basic layouts are handcrafted — which doesn’t mean much anyway, as the map will dramatically and dynamically change right on the first turn, as you pointed out earlier. But getting that first turn to be a better prospect is possible, and quite a challenge on its own!
I’ve won as the Rust whatever now, so I must really be getting better. I think before I wasn’t putting enough priority on blocking spawns and completing mission objectives. Thanks to all of you who’ve been giving good advice in this thread.
At first I didn’t understand what they hired Chris Avellone for. Where’s the story? But if you pay attention to the little bits of dialogue, you start to see how the characters are related to each other and to the places you’re fighting in. The time travel nonsense is actually a pretty clever way to have a story that unfolds gradually over multiple play-throughs.
The Flame Behemoths are great on the ice island since their fire melts ice tiles instantly. Are there any other squads that are particularly well-suited to one island?
Are items sold at the Secured Island Costco, although semi randomized, somehow tied to the island selling them? Like will the Ice Island always have ice themed items?
That was me! And it seems like I’m still the only negative opinion.
It’s tempting to call this game similar to a Chess puzzle, like “move these pieces so that in 2 moves, your opponent cannot checkmate you”, except half your pieces are kings, and it doesn’t tell you what your opponent’s pieces are until the 2nd move. It’s fine if it’s a puzzle game and not Advance Wars, but hidden stuff you can’t plan for doesn’t make for a good puzzle.
It’s not solely difficulty though, I’m just finding it not very compelling and repetitious. The upgrades aren’t very impressive and it feels like you could take on the final (underwhelming) mission with your starting units. Each squad plays out every battle the same way from start to finish. Everything between battles is massively stripped down from FTL. I beat it on easy, fiddled around with 2 unlocked squads for a bit, and have no desire to fire it up again.
It feels like this was a quick cheap mobile game that a new team put together in order to wet their feet and raise money so that they could go on to make FTL. The idea that it’s the follow up to FTL boggles my brain.
You’re talking about the FTL I’m thinking of, right? Because I remember a game where you alternately clicked on text menus and then had fiddly real-time spaceship fights that all felt the same.
To each their own, I guess!
Edit: also, it’s too hard, but you could also beat the final mission with your starting units? That’s an impressive combo! ;)
It tells you what 3 types will show pre-battle. It does not tell you what it going to pop out of each ground burst (some maps you don’t even get the ground burst warning). Hence the comparison to a Chess puzzle where it tells you where the opponent pieces are but not which pieces they are. “But you know it will be a rook, knight, or bishop!” Okay, but the necessary positioning is completely different for each of those.
I really don’t appreciate the condescending tone there, Roberta WIlliams.
I disagree that it’s even a puzzle game. Puzzles have definite set ups and solutions. You can’t have randomly generated layouts and still call it a pure puzzle. The Adventures of Lolo (one of my all time favorites) is a puzzle game. Into the Breach is very different from that. Going back to the Chess puzzle example, if you don’t know what the opponent’s pieces are, you can’t really call it a puzzle anymore. Nobody with even a passing familiarity of Chess would call it such anymore. They’d tell you, “You can try positioning for multiple possibilities and hope for the best but there are going to be some setups you just can’t defend.”
In fact the more I think about it, the more I’d say it’s not that different from something like Advance Wars. In AW, you try to think out a turn where your tanks blow up a front line anti-aircraft gun, moving them so that no one is blocked, so that your bomber can zoom in and blast the enemy rocket before it can shoot at your tanks. Into the Breach adds knockback and makes static buildings your healthbar instead of the units (unit lifebars are actually resources you use up to protect your “real” lifebar), but how ultimately different are the two? In both, you’re trying to work out steps in your limited number of actions in a turn that will nullify the most enemy units. I think Into the Breach just gives the illusion of a puzzle because the way buildings work feels like you’re trying to avoid being put in checkmate, and the knockback reminds you of a block pushing game. It makes you think it’s not a tactical battle game because the goal is to block (something you also do in Advance Wars) and hold out rather than to kill all the enemies. The time limit makes the “do this in X moves” factor more obvious, but that factor is most definitely present in Advance Wars.
Because if you don’t have information to theoretically plan everything out, then it’s not a puzzle game.
But “it’s a puzzle game” is what it’s being defended as (with some implying that anyone who doesn’t like it is a drooling mongloid who should be talked down to like a child) so that’s what I focused on refuting. It gives the illusion of being Kaiju Sokoban, but it’s really not.
That’s fine, not everything have to be a puzzle game. But it’s also not satisfying as a tactical war game. So to me it comes off as two designs that compromise each other. There are much better puzzle games. There are much better turn based tactical games. Every battle feels the same and it quickly gets repetitive. There’s not much more to say about my opinion. If your impression was different, fine. You had fun, I didn’t, I chimed in that I didn’t find it fun. I just take exception to condescending remarks that not liking it means you’re a simpleton.
It’s both of these things and neither of these things at the same time. Why do we have to put it into a box? You say they compromise each other, but I say they compliment each other.
Okay. That’s two different impressions people can read when deciding to buy it or not. Some games can mix genres and add up to more than the sum of their parts. I don’t find ItB to be such a game. I found it strange that it was not only getting unanimous praise, but tons of GOTY claims. So I threw in my two cents.
It’s just off putting that it’s been more about attacking me than discussing the game. “It is a puzzle game, dummy.” “This guy thinks it’s LITERALLY a chess puzzle!” Thanks, you two. Appreciate it.
I just didn’t think it was a particularly helpful analogy.
I’m still curious how the game can be simultaneously too hard yet not hard enough to require you to upgrade your units in order to win. Now THAT’S a hybrid that fascinates me!
