The biggest problem with Phoenix Point (other than I can never spell “Phoenix” right the first time) is that XCOM 2 War of the Chosen exists, and it’s still the absolute best game of this type, imo. I just fired it up again because of @Balasarius’s fantastic thread and I’m falling in love all over again, for the third or maybe fourth time. Such a great game, it’s hard to imagine PP being able to top it at launch.
I haven’t been following this much, but I think there is room for a game like this to surpass XCOM 2 + War of the Chosen. I loved XCOM 2 and it is one of those games that I haven’t ruled out playing multiple times even though it is heavily scripted from a story and ‘play arc’. I think it was in the running for my GoTY that year (can’t recall).
If PP can handle the way enemies start to engage the player in combat in a bit more fluid way, maybe offer something more flexible than the move + attack system in XCOM 2, and be more open ended in how each play through develops, while not digressing in other areas - it can surpass it. Maybe things have been revealed to make this unlikely (I don’t know), but I have severely tempted to get this immediately. Since it’s part of Gamepass it is easier to hold off and try first.
Why do you cal MYZ a “fiasco”? The Metacritic score is 78 and it has a “Very Positive” rating on Steam. i realize that it may not be your cup of tea but calling it a “fiasco” seems to be an inaccurate description.
So everyone should just stop making tactical squad type games? XCom2 is the pinnacle that can never be exceeded? I’m not saying PP will be better but with this reasoning we’ll never get better games of any type genre :)
I had a lot of good will for Julian and Phoenix Point back at the beginning of development but he’s burned though that and then some with the decisions made during the process. At this point I’ll wait 2 or 3 years and pick up the GOTY version with all the DLC included at a steep discount. Hopefully on GOG.
My bad. Non-native English speaker here.
What I mean is that those 2 games were a letdown for my tastes, specially MYZ, because I was expecting a squad tactics game but it felt like a puzzle, and a boring one.
With reference to PP specifically, yeah, from what I’ve seen so far. But overall? No, I’d love for something to come along and knock XCOM 2 from it’s perch. I also want new, cool games. I don’t think PP is going to be it though. I’d absolutely love to be wrong though! But every time I watch gameplay of this, plus with the delays and the most recent look at the game it just doesn’t seem like quite what I was hoping/envisioning earlier in development/announcement.
The tactical engine definitely has some things that could be killer features: fully destructible environments; segmented aliens with HP on different parts; ability to aim at will; simulated bullet trajectories. The question is whether these things, played over and over, make for a good game. It’s possible that the abstracted percentage-based approach XCOM takes is ‘good enough’ and gets you to the interesting decisions faster.
For me, the thing they’ve not shown will be the deciding factor on where I land on this one. I consider what he’s doing with tactical as not adding much to that game loop, again for my tastes.
So what have I not seen that could for me be an improvement (or not) over xcom2, the strategic layer.
The freedom of the original w/o hand holding to run your base and build it out as you saw fit (with tense base invasions putting that design to the test), where to put new ones on the entire globe, and not run out of money while doing it was challenging and interesting.
While WOTC helped for my tastes in making xcom2 stategic layer more engaging, it also made it pretty damn frenetic, giving me the sense I was being forced down what was in reality a fairly narrow victory path that just gave the facade of decision making.
Notice how he hasn’t shown us the strategic layer, that gives me a lot of pause about this one.
I am having trouble understanding what about this game “looks bad”. It looks fine to me.
:shrug:
Agreed.
Was it that it graphically looked bad or “looks bad” as in the situation seems a bit hinky?
I’m looking forward to it and get a kick out of the iterative nature of it all. Firaxis took Julian’s initial game, tweaked and streamlined some aspects, and now in PP, Julian appears to be taking ideas both from his original series of games, some of Firaxis’ tweaks, and a bunch of new twists. I can’t say it will be better than Firaxis’ remake, but am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
I hear ya. Didn’t they once promise randomly generated baddies?
I don’t know for sure. I watched the gameplay trailer and thought it was okay.
Thought it was Evolving To Your Actions Through Mutation Enemies?
ETYATME is not very catchy.
My understanding based on a reading of this thread is that the concern is less about the tactical aspect, or ETYATME etc, but more about (fear of, concern about):
- boring strategic level stuff
- slicing the game up before release in order to “milk” it
Please note I am not condoning nor denying this, merely seeing if my understanding is correct.
I agree with this. I just went back and played the original reboot (Firaxis one) and they have static pods in that game. XCOM 2’s patrols and ambush mechanic were a huge improvement but you get into an ambush grind after a while. I’d love to see someone come up with a more fluid/responsive system.
ETY at me, bro.
I agree with this. In those areas, of course – which, admittedly are a large part of the game loop. But XCOM2’s polish and extraordinary ability to get the player to care about their “soldiers” bespeaks a significant amount of resources combining with some deep game design intuition that is rarer to find.
I haven’t been following anything very closely. Do the day 1 DLC available for the game. Do some of them end up being mini-cheats and unbalancing the vanilla game?
Whoa, those will be Day 1 DLC?