So, I was doing well on the first island. Then I shot a bug with artillery and all of a sudden a bunch of bugs appeared and it said we lost this timeline. And had to choose a pilot to continue and now I’m at the beginning again.
Did I… did I just lose the game? I had only one power bar, did I hurt a building?
Ouch.
Once more into the breach, dear friends!
Picture me as Eddie Murphy in the Golden Child when he’s walking across that bottomless pit. He thinks, ok, this is weird. Not much danger, ok, seems deep. But it can’t be that deep, right?
My version of him getting a coin out, dropping it, then dramatically waiting for the impact is me frantically looking for a way to save right now. And when I didn’t find it, just like him, I looked up to the monks (the designer) and said:
“There ain’t no goddamn save in this thing!”
One curiosity of Into the Breach is that failure is inevitable. There’s no shame in failure, but also the game is definitely winnable. In theory you can plan out each of your moves so meticulously that a flawless victory is within reach. The information is always at your fingertips, whether via mouseover tooltips or by holding down the Alt-key.
However, the random number god sometimes gives you a bad setup, hopefully not a game-ending setup, but one where you have to choose the lesser of two evils. Maybe that means losing a point or two from your power grid, or results in setting your mech on fire. And maybe, just maybe, you make good choices more often than bad ones, and you can hang on just long enough to complete the finale before you’re forced Into the Breach again.
So I finally beat 3 islands and then of course got destroyed on the final mission. But I did unlock a new team, the laser/puller/rammer combo. I have no idea how to use these guys. You take damage on every hit for the rammer? And I can’t figure out how to throw down shields with the puller/shields guy.
I’m back to original team because I understand it. But I’m looking forward to a stronger team if there is one.
Yeah, that was where the game fell down for me. The other teams are TOO HARD to use!
Plenty of game in there with the starting team, though.
There isn’t one! That’s what’s so great about Into the Breach. It does unlockables right! Why would you want to have to grind and grind, learn how the game works, and then get a STRONGER team? At that point, you’ve learned how the game works, so the game needs to push back at you harder! All the teams you unlock are weaker than the one you start with, so you’re constantly challenged.
The alternative – grind and grind and get stronger and stronger – means you don’t know if you’re actually getting better at the game, or if you’re only doing better because the game is giving you bigger guns.
This is generally true, but I did find some unlocked teams and combinations to be better than the default, but I think that’s because those teams/combos appealed to my preferred play-style specifically. So some of the fun is in trying out the new teams and learning them, even if they feel “weaker” at first. Often it’s just that they are more complex/advanced than you were used to.
I put it down before I could really dig into the unlocked teams, but I always got the sense they were of roughly equal “strength.” What mattered is that they were giving you new configurations of tools and puzzle pieces to play with. Each team is a new Chick Parabola for you to crest before moving on to the next one.
I wouldn’t say they are weaker just different. Personally the pyro team was my favorite and they may have the single strongest unit with the upgraded flying teleport swap unit.
Mostly the other teams are side-grades rather than upgrades. A lot of it comes down to what board patterns are good for the mechs you’re using, and each team has different good/bad patterns.
What drives me nuts is that, like, none of them do any damage. You have to figure out ways to push the bad guys into pits, or drown them, or whatever. In a lot of cases it seems like there’s no way to do that, so you’re just hosed.
Usually there’s one or two mechs that do damage. If you have 2 movers, the last one usually compensates by doing a lot of damage. And usually also you can get upgrades for the movers that allows them to do damage or at least have some extra utility, like a force field.
Rusting Hulks best Hulks!
I think the ice team is my favorite though.
IDK, they’re all amazing.
GotY contender every year.
This game has it’s hooks in me. Very interesting design, I’m still deciding if the random seeds and gameplay are fair, seems good so far.
Last battle though… what’s up with it? I beat part 1 no problem then we all fall down to hell and after the first turn all my guys die simultaneously to some purple light that kills them all. What’s up with that? Is the endgame unwinnable? Kinda cheap, it just auto kills me 3 times in a row now, and also kills my experienced pilot.
So no endgame? Kinda sucks you can’t beat it. It’s a fun game but if it’s scipted unwinnable this is a rip off.
It is not unwinnable.
Hmm, must have been a bug or something. Tried it again and success!
More content coming to this game and not another game but just this one. Don’t ask….
Guapo had his account closed?
DO. FUCKING. WANT. HOLY SHIT. YES. PUT IT INSIDE MY GAMEHOLES.
Apparently this is no longer on Game Pass. I should have tried it while it still was on there! D’oh!