Othercide

[shinymcshine]

Been playing this for around 6 hrs on Series S - and it's quite enjoyable. Has some similarities, in terms of roguelike progression, as Into the Breach, although game presentation and pathways are significantly different.

 

I've defeated the first boss, and so I'll see how well it keeps my interest (probably up to a point where it turns into a grind (or not)).

 

Anyway it's certainly a bit different in looks at least to the mainstream.

[shinymcshine]

Another 90 mins this morning and whittled down the second boss to about 10% remaining HPs before it took my last daughter out - so now to start the sequence over again.

 

Fortunately you pick up rewards that you can spend to allow you to carry forward buffs and benefits - so you don't start off completely from scratch.

 

Don't think I've unlocked all the character class yet either - so far there's a melee, ranged, and defender class - and each has their own skills and, importantly, traits and reaction effects.

 

I'll see how it feels in terms of 'grind' as to how much longer I'll give it, but so far it's holding interest.

[shinymcshine]

11.5 hrs, and I've killed the 2nd boss, and have a reasonably decent cadre of daughters making up my party.

 

The problem is - the gameplay and story isn't particularly all that interesting, so I'm not sure how much longer I'll continue.

 

It feels like a good idea, with competent, yet not too compelling, execution - it just lacks variety, most of the fights play out the same way in a similar environment - without any particular terrain effects and structures (which made games like XCom and Mutant Year Zero more tactically challenging).

 

There's only 3 variations in the fights; kill all enemies; escort mission; kill certain number per daughter - then an end boss (who invariably adds all new dynamics (high powered attacks, movement restrictions etc), so you can really only then apply new tactics once it's beat you and you've then gone through the whole sequence again to retry - which I get is some of the point of roguesque games, but needs to be more engaging to pull the repetition off.).

 

So I think it got a bit of notice due to it's bleak presentation - it's all black, white & red - but without that it's all a little bit too 'average'.