Launch trailer (spoiler warning):
Reviews are dropping, it’s getting the usual review scores for a strategy game from a big studio, 84 average on OC.
I will never understand what holds strategy games back from getting more 9’s - a lot of reviewers that are bad at tactical combat maybe? In any case, I didn’t actually read any of these so I’m sure there are legit reasons to hold it back a little, hopefully nothing I myself dislike! I’ll watch a few video reviews later from folks I tend to agree with.
Interested in impressions from anyone who liked the new (and old) XComs but has no knowledge of card games :)
This won’t be required - it’s not a card game per se, that’s really more a UI choice in many ways. Have you ever played a strategy game where you can select which active/passive skills you can bring into a battle, like Diablo 3 or Tactics Ogre? Imagine if instead of a text-based menu it’s cards. Same thing.
Though in this case, the combatants cards are shuffed into a deck and then you seem to get a random selection of those in the deck, so some turns might be Spidey heavy for instance, if you drew a lot of his cards (Dr. Strange can’t play a Spider-man card, of course), but the cards are just the actions you are taking on the battlefield, so I wouldn’t over think it.
ACG was not a fan
Skill Up recommends… half of the game. ;)
I’m going to go bird watching with Wolverine and you cannot do anything to stop me!
(But yeah, why not go to play billiards and drink some beers in a bike bar with Wolverine and Blade, instead of doing a freaking book club?)
I like ACG but my experience with him is that he is not a strategy gamer so wouldnt look to him for reviews in my favorite genre.
The Christopher Odd video isn’t really a beginner’s guide at all so much as a (pretty good) combat walkthrough/explainer. No need to avoid for fear of major spoilers or anything like that.
This was my take away as well, coupled with the idea that he seemed to have a splinter in his craw over something that isn’t actually a thing, but that he expected to be a thing (that it would play like a mobile game) and seemed unwilling to let that “feeling” go. Is he wrong or right? I’m not sure, I haven’t played it, but he’s the only one that seemed to be bangin that drum, so I ditched his video. He seemed, this is just a sense I got not based on anything, to have some sort of agenda against Firaxis, if I’m being honest.
I actually came here because I had posted it before watching it, and now having watched it I don’t think anything I’d seen about this game before this sold me as hard as this did. I’m a rules/strategy/math/mechanics guy and this sort of thing is really fun for me, and seeing the level of depth we have on display in even this very early mission bodes well for me really digging this.
One example of the things I love to see was taken care of include the idea the card values are living values that change in real time. For example, early in the video you see Quick Slash, a Hunter ability, deals 8 damage. Once the player levels up, they have not just a larger health pool, but the cards listed damage increased +1.
Fextralife review probably rings true:
The combat is aces but story is not Firaxis’s strong point. He felt that there is not enough enemy types - in the beginning the game is a lot of fun but near the end seeing same enemy types gets a little wearisome (I think this is probably true is any tactical game). He believes that Firaxis will improve this aspect of the game over time based on their history)
Having watched the Fextralife and ACG reviews, I will be waiting for a year or two. I wasn’t that interested to begin with because I am not a huge Marvel fan, but both the videos seem to agree that they did good job on the combat mechanics, but then did everything else badly. The base stuff looks horrid to me, from the conversationss to the graphics, and then throwing in the currency thing on top of it.
Now I am hoping we get an Xcom game based on their new system though.
I don’t think the abbey stuff looks that bad, but for me the main draw is the combat system.
@Scotch_Lufkin one thing that video did really well is show how much you can do in a turn, even when card plays are limited.
I think the Abbey stuff could be tiring but most of the reviewers binge through the game. I will be playing several games Tactics Ogre, Persona 5, Midnight Suns which will help me not to get to weary on any one game.
Thing is, despite at least one review that said the the combat wasn’t a large enough part of the game, the majority of abbey stuff is optional. Yes, there are many gameplay reasons to want to do that stuff, but it isn’t necessary to play the campaign from what devs have said.
That is what kind of confused me about the Fextralife review, he said combat is fun, but repetitive. He said he played over 100 hours but eventually skipped most of the conversations. So the combat is fun despite it being repetitive with the same boring 5 mission types. That says a lot about the combat, but I find it hard to believe.
Think Into the Breach. The combat is interesting not because there are a bunch of unique mission types, but because of the unique situations that will arise during missions. It’s about having a bunch of threats to deal with and managing those threats with limited resources. A great combat system doesn’t need a bunch of different mission types to make it fun, imo. Enemy variety is certainly important, though.