(disclaimer: I originally posted this review 2013. 08. 13. on a now defunct site)
This game is a true Kickstarter success story, it raised almost five times the goal amount. And the developers delivered on their promise. They created an awesome game, this is what every kickstarter should be like. Of course I'm not saying that every game should be in this genre, but that every game should be this well put together, and delivered on time.
The game has a lot of common things, that are not so common to appear in a single game. It has Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Trolls, Orks, magic, spells, shamans, swords, all the ingredients of a fantasy game. But wait a minute, this is not a fantasy game, it's cyberpunk game set in a dystopian Seattle in the future. So these Dwarves are not limited to wielding war axes, but a shotgun wielding Ork is just as common a sight in the game. And of course there is hacking too. To me this is a truly awesome premise. What is better than having a cool looking shotgun wielding Ork hacker as your character?
The game is a classic rpg game, with isometric view, and turn based combat. If you knew Fallout 1, 2, or Jagged Alliance, you'll feel right at home with this game. But first thing's first, did I mention cool looking? Yes because the avatars of characters are not fancy 3d models, but truly classic 2d artwork. And they're beautifully made. Unfortunately the same cannot be said to the character's 3d representation in the game world, but this is conveniently masked by the limited ability to zoom in the game world. So you only see the characters from a bird's eye view, and from there it's really not as distracting, that they don't look much like their avatars apart from some exceptions.
The game has an extensive skill tree, that looks alarming at a first glance, but you get your bearings in a few minutes, and realize that it's really straightforward, and you'll only be upgrading a few of the skills depending on what direction you want to take your character. In my case I choose to be an Ork, with a keen ability to wield a shotgun, but later went on to add hacking to the resume as well. In most games I was never comfortable with choosing characters from other races because of their uncanny valley looks, but here the avatars are so well made that I didn't have that problem at all. And there is plenty of choose from as well.
The possibilities are numerous, you can be a close combat specialist, or choose to use ranged weapons. But you also can become a mage, or a shaman. And there is another specialization that allows you to use military drones in combat. And of course there is the hacker, but since hacking or decking as they call it here, is only useful in the matrix (if you're sighing now I have to tell you that shadowrun used the term long before the movie) there is not much point to develop your character to be a pure hacker.
Let's speak combat. As I mentioned it's turn based, that means each of your characters have a specific amount of action points to be able to perform things. And after you used up all the action points, or decide that you don't want to use any more, the controls are turned over to the enemy and it does the same. So it's a strategic game first. You have to position your squad in the right positions to be able to attack the enemies but still be fairly well protected. It's not wise to have one of your squad run out of action points in the middle of the battlefield. And there are dozens of offensive, and defensive spells and abilities that you can use, so the game is a tactician's paradise.
Curiously I read opposing statements in reviews about the actual difficulty of the game. According to eurogamer it's almost impossible to fail any fight in the game, while according to kotaku the combat is very difficult. In my opinion it's neither. It's certainly not very hard, and if you take the right characters and equipment on missions, then it's much closer to the easy side. So eurogamer has more truth to their story, but it's certainly not impossible to fail, if you're a little careless.
I haven't mentioned the way you recruit your crew before missions. Well actually for the beginning of the game you only get one or two guys to work with you and you can't choose them, but later it works like this: They throw a certain amount of money at you plus what you saved from earlier and you try to hire the best squad of runners possible. You can hire 3 people max, or you can even go in alone, but that's pretty much suicide even on the early missions. But you can save money if you go in with a three man squad instead of a four, but it's only recommended in the first few missions. The smart thing to do is to bring two tough combat characters, and two support guys who can cast spells from the background. But of course there are other ways to succeed as well, this is the strategy I used. Like in Jagged Alliance all mercs come with their own gear, but you can also give them other stuff from your stash. But contrary to that game, here the mercs are usually better equipped than you so you can't really give them much, apart maybe from medkits.
I also want to say a few words about hacking, becaue of it's unique nature. When you enter a computer system your avatar is transferred to a virtual world that looks much like the geth conciousness from mass efffect. Here you combat IC's and Intrusion detection programs much the same way as in the real world, but instead of real weapons you use attack programs. And another good thing about hacking it that usually while one or two characters are tied down within the matrix, the others have to defend them against real world threats. So in this case the turns are alternating between the real world and the virtual world.
As for the story, you get a pretty long campaign shipped with the game, and it's very well written, unfortunately due to the indie nature of the game there is no voiceover done for the game, so you have to read everything. Usually that's a big negative for me, but not this time. There are no walls of text in the game and the conversations are written better than many books I read, so it's like reading a good book. Especially because on occasion you don't just get said text, but a written description of events/characters as well. It's a small thing but it truly gives life to the 2d avatar drawings they almost get off the screen. And the story itself is interesting as well, from a simple whodunnit premise it grows into I won't tell you what, but it truly gets greater in scope.
Apart from the great potential to replay the game with a different character, the developers also have great hopes of the community. The game is shipped with a fully featured editor, that can be used to create your own story campaigns, for others to play out. Much like in real life role playing. I hope there will be a constant flow of decent stories from enthusiasts. And the developers are hard at work at new campaigns as well.
Another aspect of the game worth praising is the music, there aren't many tracks, but there are truly some great dramatic tunes in there, that fit the cyberpunk setting very well. It's similar to DeusEx, that had very good moody music as well.
But as I use to say there are no perfect games, and this one is not perfect either. Apart from the lack of voiceover, and the not so great graphics, there are a few problems worth a mention.
During combat sometimes the game just pauses for a few seconds during the AI's turn. It not happens often but it seems like the game froze , but it continues after 10-15 seconds. The save sytem is checkpoint based, which is a bummer, It wouldn't be hard to have a normal save system in a turn based game, since there are no dynamic things in it. Anyway saving is limited to the start of each level. (There are usually 3-4 levels within a mission) But the biggest problem with the save system I found out the hard way. It turns out if you load an earlier save that means you discard all saves that are newer than the one you're loading, there is no going back after loading an earlier point in the game.
The view is fixed, you can zoom in or out slightly but you can't turn it around, which means that some parts of the levels are always hidden from view, and there are no see trough walls as a help either. You have to fiddle blindly sometimes.
It's easy to mistakenly move your character to an enemy instead of attacking it, this is especially true when you're in the matrix. Looting and using things in the game world is difficult as well, it's really hard to click on the small icons, because they tend to disappear from time to time.
The mercs or runners you recruit have no personalities like in Jagged Alliance, they don't make remarks, their only trait is their avatar, and of course their abilities.
+
- 2D Drawings
- Story
- Perfectly balanced combat
- Truly immersive world mixing fantasy elements with cyberpunk
- Great writing
- Straightforward and easy to use UI.
-
- No voiceover
- Save system
- Sup par graphics for the characters in the game world
- Control issues
- The rest of the bugs and annoyances I mentioned
- The game is perfectly linear, no room for arbitrary exploration
Scoring card:
graphics/realization: 7/10
story/atmosphere: 10/10
gameplay/controls: 9/10
overall impression: 9/10
This game is the proof that there is still hope for truly good games to be made, that are not crafted for corporate profit, but because the developers truly wanted to make it, and make it good.