Battle Worlds: Kronos
Summary
-
+Turn Based Strategy, Advance Wars style
-
+Long campaign (I haven’t finished it yet)
-
+Skirmish mode (custom maps)
-
+Varied units with slick designs [1]
-
+Tactical and challenging
! git gud
-
+Map editor [2]
-
+DRM free (look into the game folder)
-
+Available for Linux (though not the Map Editor)
– Real player with 71.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Sci-fi Games.
Turn-based strategies. It’s hard not to love them. Especially if you’re old enough to remember the genre at its best, when every new Battle Isle game used to make a huge impact. Battle Worlds: Kronos wants you to remember about those times. Unfortunately, it fails to be entertaining enough. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
First of all, the game looks surprisingly cute, while being both nostalgic (even though this game clearly tries to be some sort of Battle Isle spiritual successor, visually it reminds me a lot of 1995 cross-platform game called Return Fire) and fresh. In other words, visually, it’s pretty much exactly what you may want from modern TBS. Nothing groundbreaking, but just good enough to look fine on modern systems.
– Real player with 53.3 hrs in game
WARMACHINE: Tactics
Short version: Don’t believe reviews older than March 2015. The game is better, prettier, and more stable than ever before. It still might not be for everybody, but it’s worth a look.
UPDATE: August 2016 - Updated spell effects, all new UI, somewhat improved AI, and generally very attractive and stable performance. This is how the game should have released, and more updates are on the way. I can recommend it still.
Long version:
I’ve been playing since Early Access, but wanted to wait until the last of the Kickstarter DLC was released before writing a review. In the meantime, I’ve watched a nearly unplayably buggy game get lots of fixes and polish from the developers, and now I feel like it would be fair to give it a balanced review. APRIL 25, 2015
– Real player with 205.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Steampunk Games.
As a Tabletop/War Gamer in general and especially a Warmachine/Hordes player, someone who followed WMD when it first announced a Warmachine game and a backer of the later Kickstarter-Project I truly hate to say that I can’t recommend this game. The developers had enought time to fix some major bugs or design flaws, but they didn’t. Performance issues are still at hand: if your game kept running for a respectable amount of time without a crash, than that just means a crash is a soon-to-be occasion. Not a “possible” occasion, a crash -will- occure. The UI is quite obnoxious, but usable, and keeps looking like a developing kit.
– Real player with 136.9 hrs in game
Jagged Alliance Flashback
Note: this is written by a fanboi of the originals JA series. To the uninitiated it’s a fair game that resembles the original series. Not sure whether it’s worth the price tag, but it’s a fun game, though clearly needs some polish. I give it thumbs up because it’s a nice game to play, even if it’s a long stretch from the original series.
For the fanboi-ish review: meh. This review won’t be very positive. So this is supposed to be a fanbased remake of the original. Clearly it resembles the original in some ways. But it’s actually the little and subtle things that make this game far from “like” the original. On top of that it feels unfinished, content seems missing, hints seem missing, achievements somewhat broken, but mainly it feels as if the story line was rushed in.
– Real player with 54.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy RPG Games.
Not Quite JA2 But Still Fun
tl:dr version
Pros:
-
Good combat mechanics
-
Meaty weapon sounds
-
Fun barks (they get repetitive but barks always do)
-
Pleasant simplistic saturated art style
Cons:
-
Buggy
-
Dull storyline
-
Characters lack personality
Jagged Alliance Flashback is a Kickstarted game that aims to recapture the greatness that was Jagged Alliance and Jagged Alliance 2. Did it succeed? Not completely. First off, if you’re expecting Jagged Alliance 2, you’ll be a bit disappointed. Flashback is closer to JA1 than JA2, in my opinion. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing, though, as JA1 was a great game in its own right.
– Real player with 33.1 hrs in game
The Banner Saga
Fantastically well done story and presentation, but one of the most AWFUL gameplay designs imagineable.
Story+Dialogue: 9/10
Presentation: 10/10
Gameplay: 5/10
The banner saga tells the epic tale of individuals fighting for survival in a dying world that dead Gods no longer watch over.
The story was great, interesting characters, dramatic plot twists, and serious consequences you wont see coming.
Your choices DO matter. And while watching the overworld slowly crumble under the pressure of enemies, there are many fun choices you’ll make.
– Real player with 34.0 hrs in game
I have mixed opinions about The Banner Saga, but I’m still very happy to have played it. Most of the time, when I find games to be surprisingly brief, it’s generally to their benefit. However, this is one title where I felt like it ended before it could really shine. I’m appreciative that it didn’t drag itself out, but at the same time it’s always a bit jarring when the end credits sneak up on you.
The Banner saga is some weird mesh of grid based strategy rpg (Fire Emblem, Tactics Ogre, FFT/A) and…the Oregon trail. And Vikings (or something resembling Vikings). However, only the first part of that hybrid combination does the game feel polished, gameplay wise. The game’s most notable feature when it comes to the primary battle engagements is the Armor/Strength duality, as well as Willpower and Exertion mechanics. In order to deal a lot of damage to most enemies, especially Dredge, you first have to spend time working down their armor instead of trying to outright lower their health to zero. This is only a small wrinkle to the normal rpg standby, but it is implemented well enough to have two interesting results. One, it creates some very real consequential moments where you’ve got a unit able to do decent armor or strength damage and you can’t be certain whether you should really strip the armor down further or if you should take a chunk out of the enemy health so that they might be finished off sooner. Secondly, it creates much needed class specialization where certain units are much more adept at stripping armor while others are better set finishing weakened foes. The game then allows you to use some basic accessory-equipment to either further specialize (giving an armor-break boosting equipment to someone already well equiped to break armor) or to make certain units more versatile. One thing that I suppose I wasn’t used to is that the class-roles are specified and listed on the heroes pages, but they still don’t seem as iron-clad or strict as those in games such as the Japanese srpgs I listed earlier (where the class given to a unit is much more defining). I couldn’t tell you which units were which class off of the top of my head, only what each given unit was good at performing in battle. I suppose it feels a bit more organic this way.
– Real player with 33.6 hrs in game
Xenonauts
More faithful than the modern XCOM games. You can build multiple bases to your own style and needs! Multiple drop ships, not a single one and an anthill for you to save the world with. Troops are expendable like they should be! Yay!
Eagerly awaiting the sequel, and hopefully eventual Terror From the Deep spiritual successor.
Only thing letting it down is lack of final polish - quicksave works, quickload doesn’t for some reason, and there’s a few minor glitches like the camera being stuck panning in a direction after an alien turn which requires a quick reload to fix, etc. Sometimes the AI acts a little omnipotent, such as sitting in a corner in a building never moving until the moment you get close enough for it to take a fair shot at your soldiers and then dip back into cover again, even though it shouldn’t have known you were there.
– Real player with 347.6 hrs in game
Good: Mostly faithful recreation of XCOM UFO Defense but with significantly better controls and a cool Cold War setting. No class restrictions like Firaxis XCOM and fewer restrictions in general. You make your own classes. Four gun and explosive tiers.
Nice, detailed lore with the Xenopaedia. Great music overall. Overall good weapon design, with humans getting their own distinctly designed plasma weapons. Sound effects are fantastic, especially for high level weapons and explosions. They even have different sounds for the weapon reloads.
– Real player with 140.7 hrs in game
Dead State: Reanimated
A pleasant way to spend a few hours.
Pros:
+The Base-building Aspect is a lot of fun. The delicate mix and interplay of facilities, resource management, and character skills including your own definitely play a big impact on your crew’s morale and survival prospects. Those who get bit (infected) during the game as a result of combat with zombies have to be managed with daily antibiotics. Each infected cause a potent little morale hit on a daily basis (fear those infected will turn keeps your survivors up at night).
– Real player with 429.9 hrs in game
There seems to be 2 reviews of this game. either it is the dumbest game due to ui problems or its the greatest game because you have a base and zombies.
was very concerned about the bad reviews before getting this game , because so many people said it had bad ui and how can that many people be wrong. well they were wrong… the ui granted is horrible if you dont know what you are doing and give up 2 seconds into the game.
things you need to know:
!. if you kill a guy/zombie you can move on that square still( seen a lot of reviews saying you cant)
– Real player with 320.1 hrs in game
Chaos Reborn
TL;DR: I enjoy this game immensely. This review summarizes some reasons why.
THE THEME: At the end of the 14th century, Earth shattered into innumerable fragments in a magic-instigated apocalypse. Powerful magic allows fragments of Earth to endure as habitable, island realms scattered between planes of existence. From a planet called Limbo, wizards and gods engage in eternal conflict over who controls the many, surviving realms of old Earth. Each realm holds the promise of ancient artifacts, lore, and power to fuel the ambitions of wizards and gods alike. It is a feudal, dystopic society of magic users.
– Real player with 2074.1 hrs in game
Note: I deleted my old review because with so many updates since last Octobers release, it was simply too out of date to warrant an edit. So here is a new one, reviewing the game as of V1.10, released today!
Chaos Reborn is a hex based, turn based, card based strategy game where you are a wizard and you have to kill the other wizards. This is done by casting spells which can either summon creatures to attack other creatures and wizards, cast magic attack spells to kill almost anything, or create growth spells that hinders mobility. You’ll soon learn that different creatures have different strengths and weaknesses, far too many to list here but you’ll learn them.
– Real player with 1186.0 hrs in game
Fallen: A2P Protocol
I watched the trailers, and the thought that went through my mind was “Awwww Yeaahhhh, post-Apocalyptic X-Com!!”. I waited for a while until it was on sale, because I’m a miser like that, and I got at at 75% off. Whoooo boy, that was probably the best decision I made. Quickie run down, Do I reccomend it? No. Also Yes, but then more No.
Here is the thing. The mechanics work simlar to X-Com, maybe even slightly better because instead of 2 actions each round you may be able to run, shoot, and then run, or stab someone three times, or other options. Its actually a superior action point system in my mind. The graphics while not stunning are surpisingly good too.
– Real player with 86.3 hrs in game
SHORT VERSION
Short, unfinished, unbalanced, not well optimized, bugged and last but not least - abandoned (there are no more signs of life from devs at all since 2016-01-27) turn based tactic with very weak AI and a lot of weird stuff. Get it on sale for 5 bucks if you are really interested in such kind of games and don’t mind to support a developer/publisher, who basically has thrown a “half baked” product out on market and disappeared after that.
LONG VERSION
Discovered this title while in early access and went for it in October 2015 after it was officially released and got a couple of patches/updates. Now after 70 hours spent I am pretty sure that I have seen and done everything possible within this game, so for all those of you who ask yourself “should I get it or not?” I got an answer. The answer is - no, unless there is a discount like -80% or better. Now some of you may ask “hmm, but what’s wrong with it? Trailer looks promising, screens are looking good… okay-okay there were some bugs, but devs are fixing it, right?” and this question is legitimate for sure.
– Real player with 70.3 hrs in game
Hard West
Thanks to the Developers at CreativeForge games and the Publishing group of Gambitious Digital Entertainment for providing a game that provided hours of entertainment and escape.
Hard West is a strategic turn based game set in the wild west with minor RPG and choose your own adventure elements. The one surprising addition is it’s all told with a fantastic dark written narrative(some voiced) that I could swear was written by Stephen King himself. Impressive in every way I found myself addicted, not since Xcom EU, to the world of Hard West.
– Real player with 73.3 hrs in game
I’m so glad I got this on sale for $2. Hard West isn’t worth $20.
It’s rare to see a turn-based game THIS wrong. Hard West is the most unimpressive turn-based tactics game I’ve ever played and I played Warhammer 40,000: Deathwatch. Although it has some great theming, a fun setting, and decently fun adventuring, I really REALLY hate the combat.
What’s so bad about it? Well it’s X-Com lite, but without the charm. Let’s start with the biggest flaw. Luck. Each character has a luck score, usually starting at 100. Every time an enemy misses, you lose an amount of luck equal to their chance to hit you. I’m not entirely clear on how the rest works, but it seems that if you have 0 luck, enemies will always hit.
– Real player with 53.2 hrs in game
MASSIVE CHALICE
Massive Chalice is a turn-based strategy game that has the player rule over a land that is under attack. The defense force consists of heroes, which battle in short, turn-based skirmishes against invading forces. Heroes live for 70 years on average, but the player has to defend the land for 300 years. Therefore the player has to marry off heroes so that they produce children, which get some of their genes and personality traits from their parents. This way, the player attempts to breed heroes of good stock, so that future generations are better able to defend the land against the invaders who get stronger all the time. Sometimes a hero may leave behind his weapon upon death, which then becomes a family relic, that gains better properties over time when it is used in combat.
– Real player with 93.8 hrs in game
XCOM (2012) meets Crusader Kings II with a eurogame design aesthetic.
If you are a fan of those games (or even one of them), Massive Chalice is worth a playthrough. XCOM was already a streamlined remake of X-COM, so you might wonder how it could be further simplified. The solution is reducing resources that need to be managed to just bloodlines, territory and “Research”. The later can be used to get new technology, build out infrastructure and aquire new heros. Instead of the slightly complicated system of engineers, scientists and money, you can build one project at a time and speed it up by dedicating heroes to become lifetime “Sagewrights”. They can’t fight for you anymore, which is always the tradeoff when assigning heroes to special positions.
– Real player with 63.6 hrs in game