I think you nailed it for me. Chimera Squad in a world that is worth caring about would be great. I enjoy a lot about the condensed and streamlined scope, and the pre-built characters. As it is, the lore just feels flat.
Well yeah, sure… Or you could get that ability meaning that if your melee guy got a killing blow, they could get their full movement again. However, pulling that off, including ‘all enemies dead at the end of your turn’ was a tall order.
What do you do with them the rest of the time? Not a lot.
I use them all the time, obviously. And the ability that makes the next attack against them automatically miss is super useful. Do you think their guns are useless?
Its not that I think that they are useless, its more like, why have a melee dude when I can have another dude that is even better?
I also found them to be less viable the later in the game you went. You know when like very enemy has some armor and like 30 health. And sure you can make the next attack miss, but then your dude is closest to 5 other enemies who then pummel you melee guy.
I tried it for a while, but it just never worked out once I got to the mid game.
I think the issue is that you see them as melee guys. I see them as shotgun guys who can melee if needed.
That is a good point.
Do you not need Specialists? I found them of mixed value when I last played.
So far I haven’t missed having one.
Also, when spec’ed out the right way, “melee guys” are going to one-shot/terminate one or more of the enemies they are up against, removing the threat. They have high to-hit chances, high critical hit chances, can tear through armor, and are particularly devastating against certain enemies (however, you will also learn the hard way they are absolutely inappropriate for others).
They are also great for finishing off enemies.
I was skeptical at first, too. But the Blademaster perk is incredible when paired with the right set-up. Even if your Blademaster doesn’t kill the enemy at the end of their turn, if/when that enemy moves at the beginning of the next turn, they’re dead sliced meat.
If you get Blademaster on your Templar, it is devastating.
Ever wonder why the vehicles in XCOM 2 explode so spectacularly? In the future there is only one car manufacturer, Tesla.
Kids these days! In my day, we made jokes about Pintos, and we liked it!
The Pinto (and its flammability) was even the subject of a gag in my favorite dumb comedy movie, Top Secret! Of course in that one the thing (which is improbably present in either late 50’s East Germany or Nazi-occupied France, depending on how the writers felt that morning) blows up with the slightest tap on the rear bumper.
Exploding cars have been a “feature” of the automotive world forever. I mean, you cram combustibles, heat sources, friction, electricity, flammables, etc. into a thing that moves fast, weighs up to three tons, and relies on a more or less advanced primate for control, and yeah, this is what you get.
Exploding cars have been a Hollywood staple since forever, until someone, I don’t know who but it must have been the most boring person in the world, pointed out cars in real life don’t explode at the slightest bump like they’re carrying those crates of nitroglycerin from Sorcerer.
Fortunately Video game cars are still extremely chemically unstable.
Also there are a bunch of office towers being built near where I work, and the plaza thing they’re doing on the ground level looks like the architects used the Advent city tileset.
The GTA games have taught me that any car that ends up on its roof will spontaneously combust in short order. And Hollywood since at least the late 1960s that cars that go flying off cliffs and into ravines always explode.
I imagine one day, in like 100 years after gas powered vehicles have become a thing of the past, that most people will believe they were all super unstable and would explode just like in the movies and video games.
I suppose, a bit like the popular conception of the medieval era as being uniformly drab and miserable?
Anyone who hasn’t seen this film must do it now. Immediately. Or I will invoke the god @tomchick. You have been warned.
You can also see Cold Sweat, in which the nitroglycerin is still nitroglycerin, but instead of two badass trucks, it’s a young girl, and instead of the jungles of South America, it’s a couple of old men. But one of the characters wears a Sorcerer T-shirt, which means it’s okay if it’s dumb because it’s self-aware. I’m not making any of this up.
-Tom