Same! Must resist. Too many games already without being sucked into Early Access games…!
Looks like it’ll be on Steam for the 1.0 release, so that might be enough to convince myself to wait.
I purchased this the other day.
The gimmick is that you have a new tech that allows you to predict where the enemy is going to move and who they will attack and you set your response in a video type editor to plan everything out.
I am having some problems learning how to set commands and movement. I thought you would move a bit and then set an attack and then move again and so on. Now I am thinking that you set up the entire movement and then go back and select what you will attack and with which weapon on the movement path you established.
The other awkward part is switching to my second Mech. I keep thinking I set both Mechs with their orders but only one seems to do what I said to do. I have to keep practicing until I get it down.
For those curious you can ram other Mechs and there are shields and swords in the game. I do not have a sword yet. One of the starting Mechs does have a shield which can lead to some interesting tactics. Have the second squad member follow behind the shielded member and than dash out for an opportunity attack.
There is scavenging and I hope that they do not make it too difficult to gain parts ala Battletech. I want to be able to try different things and not be tied down to how much stuff I find.
The game looks very good but a more Japanese art style? The mechs remind me of some the anime Mecha I have seen over the years.
Has anyone by chance played this on EGS and have thoughts on how it’s coming along?
I saw it’s finally coming to Steam end of the month and thought I’d check back in on how it’s looking now.
I’m up for some rock’em sock’em robots doing the WEGO rodeo.
You could try the demo.
True, but what I’d really rather do is hear from someone who’s given it a good run through while it’s been on EGS for what seems like the last 2 years.
Oh snap, finally coming out! I haven’t heard anything from Epic players recently. I recall when it first went into early access people who played it said it definitely needed more time, but also think they stayed pretty positive about the prospects?
Yeah, I just thought I’d check if someone had grabbed it and played it over what feels like a long stay on EGS with the hope being they improved it.
The impression back a couple years ago I got was it was graphically quite nice looking but there wasn’t enough meat to the game.
And the reason this gives me pause is because another game of theirs, Industries of Titan, is getting knocked pretty hard in steam reviews for being pretty yet boring and a bit shallow (the suggestion being the devs either need to finish the game or worse don’t entirely grasp what they’re making).
I purchased it on Epic as I recall when it was supposed to be pure TBS. They changed it to the hybrid TBS/RTS system and I really didnt like it. To be fair I played it a long time ago and it could have improved. If there is a demo I would recommend giving it a try.
I tried the Steam Demo and it doesn’t make a great first impression. First, it defaults resolution to 1080 rather than the monitor resolution. Second, the tutorial is the very frustrating handholdy type where it just keeps telling you to click things and you can’t do anything else until you click exactly what it says. On top of that the UI just didn’t feel great to use, but that may be a thing you just need to get used to but after I played a couple of missions I still found it frustrating. But hey, maybe it’s really a very cool WEGO mech game, but I’ll wait for 1.0 and reviews and hopefully impressions here at this point.
Thanks for taking one for the team and firing up the demo for a look. I suspected they’ve not put the last 2 years to good use. I’ll also wait for 1.0 and see where it lands, but something this far a long is likely baked for the most part, so if the first impressions aren’t good I doubt that’ll change.
Well I just gave the demo a spin and yeah, it defaulted to 1080p and for some reason the sound didn’t work but a quick restart and dive into the menu once cut loose from the tutorial and I was able to fix all that.
The UI/UX is odd at first, but I clicked with it really quickly (two fights) and had a blast choreographing shield blocks, dashes, waits, beams across multiple units, breaking line of sight with cover and other enemies, and blasting at anything in range. I laughed several times when my plans came together which I’ve not done since… well the Howl demo last weekend but before that, Frozen Synapse.
A few things I’d like to see added after my first hour or so:
- I want to see the heat level on the timeline so I can line up successive shots. I’ve no idea whether I’ll overheat until I confirm an attack, after which point I remove the command and try again.
- I’d like to see the to-hit percentage chance adjust as I move the attack command on the timeline.
- A bit more clarity when my attacks will likely kill an enemy. I felt like I was unnecessarily spending attacks and overkilling (or shooting a wreckage). Perhaps this is intentional though!
- And I want a full replay at the end of a battle so I can enjoy the fruits of my labour (whether this is a feature or not already I’m not sure).
I haven’t finished the demo yet but I highly suspect this will be a launch purchase for me. The world map, mobile base, squad customisation, salvaging, mech parts and weapons hold promise.
WILL THERE BE A REPLAY FUNCTION SO I CAN SEE MY COMBAT ALL AT ONCE?
Yes, we have now added the single-turn replay feature to the game! At this time, we cannot promise that we will be implementing any other replay functionalities such as full match replay.
Booo! I mean, you could technically edit that together yourself but that’s a fair bit of work.
This has been suggested to Steve over at Battlefront on more than one occasion.
The ability to replay as a complete movie the entire battle engagement has been begging to happen for 20 years.
I mean of course after spending weeks or even months playing a PBEM one minute at a time we’d love to string them altogether into a complete movie and watch it.
It was one of my favourite things about Frozen Synapse 1 & 2! John Wick Hex tried it but the movement was far too janky to capture the fluidity of the movies’.
I mean, look at my knife guy ducking and weaving all the way across the map to stab the sniper:
So you can slide your attack along the timeline until you’re no longer in the overheat bracket, which is good.
So a quick clip from my session just now:
I slowly scrubbed the timeline to show taking cover to break line of sight (solid=clear, dotted=broken), then both my mechs charging down the final enemy (the cones show weapon scatter), and last off there’s a moment where my shield mech intends to block return fire but the enemy dies before they get a chance.
I forgot to mention that the world map stuff feels very XCOM/Phoenix Point where you’re trying to deal with events as they crop up. There are objectives on certain missions like protecting structures, taking down comms towers to prevent reinforcements and concussing commanders (which involves some ballistic restraint). Obviously this is all demo stuff so my impressions are limited but I wonder whether it’ll be more ‘narrow’/linear like new XCOM, or more simulated/open like old X-COM/PP? I suspect the former given the size of the team but I hope the latter.
The UI is actually pretty slick but some of it takes some working out with unusual icons and graphic elements. I don’t know what those things mean above the mech’s head:
The bars below relate to the pilot (red top), then arm, torso, arm, then legs at the bottom. Oh wait, I see some of the icons in the panel on the right: kinetic, concussion and impact damage. I’m not sure what ‘action/second/hit’ means. There’s definitely some crunchiness in here. I realised earlier than mechs have mass which dictates who stumbles when they collide, which is pretty cool.
Not sure how I missed this but the I downloaded the demo and did the first couple of tutorials up to getting the base to customize mechs. The UI has some definite wonk, but I felt I was getting the hang of it. And when it works (setting your turn moves along the timeline) it’s kind of awesome! It’s a gorgeous little game that appears to be moddable and thus a giant freaking sandbox of WEGO mech lasers, shotguns, missles, and 'splosions. Not sure what it’s going to cost yet, but I’m already day one on this.
It’s $30 on Epic where it’s been out in early access for quite some time. I’d expect they either stick with that price point or make it $35 or something in the jump to full release.
Oh, not bad at all. I don’t have an issue with EGS but will just wait and get it on Steam assuming it will have or eventually have workshop implementation for ease of modding. Even if it doesn’t, I’ll still prob get it on Steam barring some super savings on EGS.
From the FAQ:
HOW MUCH DOES PHANTOM BRIGADE COST?
$29.99 USD
Not sure what that will translate to in GBP, but £30 tops, £25 low side sounds good to me. I should stop playing the demo because I’m pretty much decided at this point…