Yeah, Tom’s review is probably spot on, but it’s a really endearing game and I’m having fun with it (I’ve been playing it for almost 2 straight hours now since I woke up). I have had memorable events, encounters, found cool stuff like a corrosive weapon that unlocked a new character, and am just having a blast. Will it sustain me past this weekend? Likely not, sure, but then a fucking TON of other games I want come out next week, so all I needed this for was a fun diversion for this weekend. Nailed it.
I started to write a full review, but figured that wouldn’t be fair unless I played a few more hours, which I didn’t want to do. So I just used a few of my notes for a Steam review.
But here’s the equivalent of a much longer review. It’s also a fun drinking game!
-Tom
Reviews for Pathway seem to be the same as reviews for Halfway. Simple, weird mechanics. Not a lot of variety of enemy types. Few weapons. Nice pixel art graphics.
I like that it is different from RE:IS, but with the expansions that is a much deeper and varied game. I am really enjoying my time with Pathway so far, and am looking forward to playing it more. At any rate, it is a very refreshing change of scenery from RE:IS even if it turns out to not have the same legs.
A simple, cheap, original game that tells its tale and let’s you move on, nothing wrong with that.
The encounters look a bit short, but I want to play it at some point.
The punching sound in this game is straight from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
I like this a lot: it plays quickly and it’s really polished. Certainly, it’s not the deepest game around and I can totally understand people knocking this as too simple, or too shallow. But sometimes, that’s exactly what I’m looking for. A cool little adventure game.
Yup. It’s not something I would want to spend hours and hours playing at one sitting, but it’s a nice ‘jump in and see what happens’ kinda game. A quick little narrative generator.
Whoa, the second Adventure was way longer than I thought. I ran out of fuel, so I didn’t stand much of a chance in the final mission. I think I’ll replay the first one and level up some more of my dudes. Also, I need to replenish my grenades.
Yeah, I tried the second mission a few times and failed all of them, but I did find goodies every time, like better rifles and even a few new characters to unlock.
I was expecting the second adventure to have two maps; not three.
Maybe I am just a bit enamored with it yet, but I don’t really agree with the complaints against the game being repetitive. So far I enjoy this a lot more than I did FTL.
I’m currently on the 3rd map of the second adventure and it’s been a lot tougher than the first adventure. I had just made it onto the 3rd map and was down to 1 fuel. Just enough to get me to a question mark I’d been steering toward out of desperation. Fortunately, it ended up being a trader and I was able to fill up there.
It’s been a wild ride. I picked up 2 more characters along the way and also ran into some really nasty new zombie types that explode when you kill them and throw bombs of some sort. They KO’d my sniper but I was able to heal him up before he died.
The loot’s been pretty crappy. I still haven’t found a decent sniper rifle and I keep getting the same weapons over and over lately. I just haven’t seen much weapon variety so far. I’ve also had quite few of the same event. That’s not supposed to happen, according to the devs. They have a post up about that:
In the medium term (over the next weeks) we want to look at ways to address some of the more fundamental concerns brought up. Many of you voiced that the game can feel repetitive and that there’s not enough variety. Some things like the same event popping up multiple times in the same adventure are simply bugs. Other issues have to do with how the procedural generation works. We believe that with some work on our side we will be able to much better present the variety the game possesses. There is a lot to discover in Pathway, but we can do better at making sure you experience it.
I’ve leveled all my 4 characters on this trip 3 times. I do think that leveling up your characters in this game is not so much fun. It seems like equipment matters a lot more than leveling up. The skill trees are just not that inspiring. I’m not a big fan of +1 to a stat as a skill perk.
The game does have a lot of charm and the tactical combat is fun as long as you have a team that has some complementary abilities and skills. I love the ambush ability of the sniper. My grenade thrower has saved my bacon several times as well. The strongest guy I have seems to be the sea captain. He has a great uncommon shotgun and knife that I found and he can one-shot most enemies with either one.
I’m about 5 or so locations away from the 3rd map objective so I’m hoping I’ll be able to finish it up on the first go. I’m still enjoying it all quite a bit.
Too simple, too samey. Not enough value. Refunded.
If Halfway any better? I like the basic idea of Pathway – simple XCOM combat in an FTL campaign structure with unlockable characters – but I’m wondering if it’s a step down from their previous game.
-Tom
Okay. I bought the game. I understand the negatives, but I’m looking for a beer 'n pretzels type of experience and think I’ll be okay with them. I like the theme and the art enough to give it a shot.
You are in for a delight then. Well executed theme, best-in-class soundtrack, and a really fun adventure awaits you.
“Don’t believe the haters”.
I didn’t think Halfway was great either, TBH.
I failed my first three attempts on the first adventure, but the fourth time was a charm. On to adventure #2!
TBH, after about 30 minutes or so, I was starting to regret my purchase. In both combat setting, tactics, and enemy type, combat in the first adventure is remarkably repetitive. I was also nonplussed with the equipment finds. I wasn’t finding anything interesting.
But I kept at it, and things started to get interesting. I started accumulating slightly better stuff. I unlocked two characters. I got faster at combat. Some of the story encounters had an element of mystery to them.
By the hour mark I was enjoying myself. I’m looking forward to seeing what the second adventure holds. At the moment, I’m happy with my purchase.
It’s definitely light entertainment, though. I can certainly see why people would be turned off by it. Combat doesn’t seem to have a lot of tactical variety yet, and the sameness of the battlegrounds doesn’t help. But with a battle taking just a couple of minutes now, it’s all going by fast.
I think for me the question will be whether the character development, equipment upgrading and story elements will hold my attention. I’m hopeful combat tactics will start to feel more varied, either via my characters’ skills, enemy type, or setting.
It barely has any, IMO. which isn’t to say that it’s bad, but simplistic is the right way to describe it.
You shoot stuff. Sometimes you stab it (melee attacks do more damage because. . . nonsense). There’s a cover mechanic but that’s the long and the short of the tactical. The characters look like they are all going to behave differently, possibly radically so, but I haven’t found that to be the case. Outside of “can’t equip shotguns/rifles/etc because lacks the perk”. I’m finding the level up options mildly disappointing but I’ve only done it a couple of times. The first two missions limiting you to two characters seems like it might be part of the reason. So e.g. you can’t take a better healer or someone who can repair armor necessarily. But I run out of the consumables to do that stuff anyway and don’t see it very often so it doesn’t matter. It seems like there’s only 4 hit chances that I have seen, which speaks to further simplicity in the mechanics. Gear upgrades existr but they’ve been marginal so far.
Which isn’t to say it isn’t fun at all. But it is a bit simple for my tastes.
Random thoughts after 2+ hours…
• The variety has improved as the campaign unfolds. I’ve reached a map-shift checkpoint in the second mission now.
• You end up playing a lot faster as things move on. For me, that improves the game quite a bit. The best analogy I can come up with: I like to play most informational (non-music) YouTube videos at 1.25x speed; playing them at 1.0x speed feels painfully slow. This game feels a lot the same. I’m having a much better time now that I’m moving through the content at a brisker pace.
• Once you get three characters in a party things improve tactically, and the gear upgrades/level upgrades can add quite a bit of punch to a character.
• They’ve spread out new elements over the arc of the campaign, but I’m not sure they’ve gotten the new elements / hours of gameplay ratio right yet.
• It’s kind of an interesting feedback loop with simplicity - game speed - repetitiveness. The combat is super simple, so you can start cranking out battles fast after just a little experience with the game. This improves the speed of play, which reduces the sense of repetitiveness because you’re unlocking new stuff more quickly and spending less time doing the same exact things. And with so many combat engagements, they do have to be short. But in the same way, it’s the simplicity of combat more than anything else that makes the play feel repetitive in the first place.
• I’m less enamored with the variety of events. There are a lot of different ones, for sure, but the end results are largely the same: nothing happens or combat happens or you get some stuff that largely converts to cash. So while it’s great that you might uncover some tomb in the desert, when you end up finding a broken monocle and an ivory figure that you immediately trade in for cash, it’s hard to get super excited about it after a while. It’s filler for “you found some money”. The different combat setups don’t seem to make all that much difference either. I find it’s often easier to handle getting ambushed than it is to ambush someone.
• Overall, it’s still in the thumbs up category for me so far. I’m engaged enough with the character development, gear upgrades, unlocking new characters, and moving the story along. The music, art, and feel of the game help a lot too. It’s easy, simple fun for those times when you aren’t looking to bash your brain against a game.