Thea: The Awakening

Lack of polish prevents this clever game from being truly great.

Overview

Thea combines choose-your-own-adventure storytelling, exploration, crafting, research, rpg advancement, and card-style tactical combat. The merger of these different elements would work well, but none of them are engaging and the interface is cumbersome.

Storytelling

The story is narrated by a pleasant British voice. Frequently, the player must make decisions. Some of these decisions are story-fluff, others determine a short-term outcome, and others can have long-reaching effects. This successfully engaged me in what was otherwise a relatively generic story with a variety of generic side-quests. 

The shortcomings of the storytelling system reflect the failings of the game as a whole. New players and repeat players experience frustration for different reasons. 

For a new player, the story is generally quite good. However, encounters can randomly happen. If they happen on your primary team, that's great, but if you have a weak secondary team gathering supplies, any encounter can wipe you out. You fear the encounters and will always pick the "don't explore" option. 

An repeat player doesn't mind missing stories of a few side quests, but he gets nothing out of watching the main story repeat itself.

Exploration

The exploration is satisfying in Thea. There are points of interest and random encounters on a fog-of-war map. You can search for enemy cities to destroy so that your gatherers can work in safety. If you need a certain resource you can explore the map to look for it. 

Exploration implementation has a few failings. There is incentive to carry around a variety of different foods. This is a neat idea, but in practice there is a lot of annoying micro-management. Also, setting up expeditions and managing them is a little cumbersome. All of these problems could be fixed by a cleaning user interface, or perhaps some automation. Finally, there is a huge benefit to send gatherers with your war party and order them to gather at the end of every turn. However, this is extremely cumbersome and doesn't feel "in the spirit" of the game. I chose to limit myself to only gathering at the start of the turn. This "handicap" is a huge benefit to quality-of-life but in a strategy game it really bothers me to make sub-optimal decisions like this.

Crafting and Research

The crafting system is pretty good. There is some "fun" frustration in trying to gather rare materials. Research points are very limited and must be spent to unlock recipes as well as allow mining of rare materials. For example, if you want to mass produce heavy steel armor, you must spend a lot of research on steel and a lot of research on heavy armor. That's fine if also want to make steel jewelry (you don't) and steel buildings (doubtful). Generally it's a clever system that lets you try different research paths in different games. 

The downside of the crafting system is the clunky user interface. When you want to make something you select two or more materials from a big list. The combination of those materials provides different bonuses. It is not easy to understand what material provides which bonus. It's just cumbersome.

RPG Advancement

There seem to be at least 10 different classes of villagers, although there are only three main ones (warrior, crafter, gatherer). Some "classes" are received as story rewards, like perhaps an orc wrestler will choose to join your group. Going up in level is completely automated. What the player has control of is equipment. There are the typical RPG slot items (armor, weapon, shield, two rings, necklace, etc). 

There are a staggering number of different benefits you can get from items. There are perhaps 10 different methods of conflict resolution (with combat being the most common). These 10 methods are all affected by different types of bonuses. For example, dexterity will help with combat, sneaking, and hunting. Intelligence will help with tactics and social and hunting. Backstab will help with sneak and social. In all, there must be dozens of different bonuses.

This complicated system ends up being neither good nor bad. It might seem like the player is given a lot of freedom to customize his strategy for dealing with different scenarios. That's true, but the systems are quite complicated and "get the biggest bonuses" works very well. The benefit to a crafted strategy seems marginal over randomly spreading the bonuses around. What you can do is notice when you are weak in certain types of challenges and make a general effort to compensate.

Tactical Combat

The tactical combat is acceptable. There are enough options available to be interesting. This is another area where a player could go to a lot of effort to get a minor advantage, but the game works well enough without having to do that.

Recommendation

In the end, I can't think of anyone to recommend Thea to. My first playthrough felt like a slog because I had to learn the different systems and compensate for the clunky interface. I enjoyed the story enough to complete it, but I wouldn't recommend it. On my second playthough, I understood the systems better and enjoyed the strategy more, but the story was no longer interesting. In the end, I didn't even finish my second playthrough.

Despite not being able to recommend Thea: The Awakening, I am looking forward to the sequel (currently in early access). 

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen

XCom remains the gold standard for tactical turn-based squad combat with a compelling story campaign.

Overview

XCom has a lot going on: tactical combat, rpg elements, permadeath, strong story, quality cutscenes, great art, and voice acting. The four difficulty levels are well tuned. The AI is good. You become invested in your soldiers. My first game took around 100 hours to complete, but I think 50 is more common.

The Good

Tactical Combat

The heart of XCom is tactical combat. That's where you spend most of the game, and it's fun. There are plenty of great decisions to make, and it's satisfying. If you really want pure tactics and nothing else, you might be frustrated at everything else going on in the game, but then why are you looking at XCom?

Story

The story is good but the presentation is amazing. The head chief, engineer, and scientist are well written and well acted. On my first playthrough, once I got so strong that I couldn't lose missions, the campaign story kept me coming back.

Campaign

The strong campaign is what really sets XCom apart from other mission-based games. The buildings and technology decisions have dramatic effects on the missions. While you have to mostly succeed, you can fail missions from time to time and still win. 

Levelup

You might have 30 active soldiers at a time and they will all be different. There are 5 skill trees (8 with expansion) and like 6 ranks. There is a variety of equipment that can be passed around. Losing a high-level soldier feels bad, and if you want to keep his valuable equipment you need to carry his body out.

The Bad

Scaling Difficulty

The game does a good job at increasing difficulty as the campaign goes on, but it eventually hits a cap that is too easy. If you can survive to the endgame, the missions go from tense to easy. This is a serious problem. After my first 10 missions, I'm thinking, "what a great game! I can't wait to try other strategies". After 40 missions I'm thinking, "ugh, what a slog. I'm bored with these easy missions. I'll just let the aliens kill civilians until I can do the final mission."

Pod Activation

Tactical encounters are handled with "pods". They are small groups of aliens that don't do much until they notice you. Once they see you, they activate and try to kill you. Generally speaking, if you can do a mission with only activating one pod at a time you will do well. Activating two pods can be very difficult and activating three could force you to immediately abandon the mission. 

This pod system means that stealth is king and carefully moving around the map is critical. I don't enjoy that aspect of the game. I like the fighting. I don't like sneaking around to make sure I only fight one pod at a time. This is by far my biggest complaint about the game. It makes missions take twice as long to complete. I won't mind the occasional stealth mission, but this mechanic forces me to keep at least one stealther in every squad.

Story Pacing

There is not much reason to do the research that advances the story. In order to get powerful, you should research tech to help you win missions. By the time you are free to do research for the plot, the game is easy. There is a doomsday clock that forces you to do the occasional plot mission, but once you pass the midgame, this isn't an issue.

Clunky UI

OK, "clunky" isn't fair but there are some screens that could be snappier. Those animations are cool but after I have seen them 300 times, I'd rather just get in and out of the menu quickly. At the squad select screen there is a ton of information to consider but it isn't easy to find that information. I have to go through a lot of menus to give my soldier the same loadout that he always has.

Should You Buy It?

Yes. It's A+ quality. The story, the strategic play, the levelup aspect, and the tactical game are all strong. It's the king of the genre. If you are unsure if you like that genre, it's a fine game to explore that.

War of the Chosen Expansion

Should you get it? Probably not. It's a great expansion and does what an expansion should -- it offers more content for people who have played out the main game. But if you are only going to play the game once, I don't know if the expansion adds much. It might make the plot seem a little random and unfocused. So basically I'd get the base game and play it once or twice. Then get the expansion. Honestly I'm not sure if the gameplay is better with or without it.

The Witness

The Witness is a game of maze puzzles in a pleasant atmosphere.

Overview

The Witness is a long series of little mazes to solve. The environment hints at a deeper story, although I didn't play long enough to figure it out. The mazes themselves are fun, but after doing dozens of them I would need a break. 

Recommendation

It's hard to recommend The Witness. For me, it was too repetitive. I really liked The Talos Principle and I can't quite put my finger on the difference. While slow, The Talos Principle had a plot to figure out. Also, the puzzles felt more clever. The Witness feels like doing a whole bunch of Sudoku puzzles. I like the occasional Sudoku, but I don't want to do them back to back for hours.

Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords

KOTOR 2

Kotor2 is a popular Star Wars game, expanding on the lore of the Old Republic in the wake of Revan.

Overview

The game itself is a real-time over-the-shoulder team-based RPG. The game mechanics are heavily influenced by the d20 Star Wars game. You follow a mostly linear plot, gain levels, acquire companions, and get better gear.

Assessment

Graphics

This game is over ten years old and hasn't aged all that well. The graphics aren't distractingly bad, but people watching me play commented, "wow, how old is that game?"

The movement scripts are pretty good, though. It's fun watching lightsabers flash and deflect blasters.

Gameplay/Combat

I specialized in melee, and all encounters were far too easy. In general combat didn't feel very good. When you start to attack, you get to queue up your actions. That's great, but for some reason you can't queue up buffs unless there is an attack. Very annoying. Also, one of the companions would often do a melee attack when I queued up a spell. Also annoying. Between the annoyances and the ease of fights, combat was tedious.

On the other hand, some of the force powers are pretty cool. At the end, Force Lightning was decimating everything.

Puzzles/Bonus Quests

Ugh, so bad. I should have skipped more of these. Too much running around doing nothing, punctuated with boring combat. Puzzles were generally too obvious, with the occasional "what do I do now?"

Main Story

The actual story was decent. This is the only reason I can think to play this game. The dialogue is very well done.

Level Up

Good. Leveling up is pretty fun. There are a lot of choices. You have enough variety of companions to cover any weaknesses in case you make a mistake. You eventually gain enough levels that you start down one path and change your mind. At the end, I was gaining powers I never planned to use (melee skills on a mage, force powers on a fighter).

Items

Poor. Getting new items is pretty comparable to other RPGs. However, there is to convenient way to compare item. "Cool. I found a Mandalorian Shield. Uh... what does it do?" Instead of a quick tooltip of the abilities, you have to dig through menus and scroll through an unsorted list of items to find the new thing. For the most part, I didn't bother. Every few levels I would see if I had somehow acquired a better items.

Crafting

Mediocre. The crafting system is almost cool, but it has a few problems. The biggest problem is that it is not clear what item upgrades fit into which items. Is "Energy Absorption 3" underlayer or overlayer?

Companions

Mixed bag. There is a lot of variety in your companions and their stories develop. However, none of them are very deep, and it's not easy to extract the story. Every so often you have to talk to them and go through the same dialog choices you have seen a dozen times before you know if there is anything new. The different companions are great, though. Something for everyone.

Voice Acting/Dialogue

The voice acting is always good and often outstanding. It pairs with good writing to make you look forward to talking with NPCs. 

The Sith Restored Content Mod

Also known as M4-78 mod, this comes highly recommended, but I disagree. It adds another planet, but the puzzles and voice acting are done by fans. The quality of the puzzles are about the same as the rest of the game, except the running around is even worse. While the voice acting is very good for a fan mod, it is far inferior to the excellent work done in the game. Since I consider the voice acting the best part of the game, this Mod is worse than pointless.

Overall

Kotor2 is generally boring with dated graphics. The highlights are the voice acting. It took me 78 hours to play but 20 would have been more tolerable. Overall, I don't recommend.

Fallout 76

Fallout 76

A massively single player RPG.

I'm a fan of the Fallout genre. I've played Fallouts 1,2,3,4 and Fallout Shelter. Fallout 4 is my favorite, and I like MMORPGs, so Fallout 76 should have been a slam dunk. 

Single or Multiplayer

Unfortunately, Fallout 76 incorporates the worst features of a single and multiplayer games. The world doesn't have many other players in it and doesn't really encourage grouping. There is no player economy. For the most part it feels like a single player game. 

As a single player game, Fallout 76 falls short. You can't pause, you can't save the game easily. There are no actual NPCs. Quest lines are shallow. Playing Fallout 76 made me want to replay Fallout 4 to explore areas I missed.

Team Play

Where Fallout 76 shines is playing with a group of friends. It has built-in voice communication and squad combat is fun. You can teleport to people in your group and use each other's bases. You can trade blueprints, weapons, ammo, or whatever. Difference in levels is handled fairly well.

Recommendation

Buy Fallout 76 if you want to play with friends. As a single player or mmo, it is lackluster.

Disciples 3: Reincarnation

Disciples 3

A turn based strategy game with tactical combat, a strategic map, and rpg elements.

Overview

Disciples 3: Reincarnation follows the long tradition of tactical combat on a strategic map. You control one or more heroes who command a small squad. You roam the map looking for goodies while following the story line. Your hero and followers can gain levels and equipment, and you can build your home base.

I lost interest with this game before finishing the first scenario, so this review might be skewed.

Story

The story seemed pretty generic and I wasn't engaged. On the other hand, it didn't get in the way very much. If thought of as a loose reason to move from fight to fight, it was sufficient. I liked the setting, though. It is a little more grungy medieval without a lot of the high fantasy elements you generally see in a game with wizards and angels.

Combat

What should be the meat of the game feels very bland. Combat is only a small step up from Final Fantasy style. There are few real decisions because most moves are obvious. Frequently you overpower the enemy so you can auto-resolve the combat. Unfortunately the AI is not very good so don't be too liberal with this. Also, auto-resolving the "most fun" parts of a game does not bode well.

Strategic Map

The exploring the map is a bland experience. There are a lot of resources to be collected, but it isn't exciting. Really it's just a mechanic to get from fight to fight. Some fights are too difficult and must be avoided and it's a little tedious examining enemy forces to make that determination. 

There is very little time pressure so you can wander around to pick up all the treasure and fight the easy fights, then go back and fight the harder encounters once you are higher level. That sounds extremely boring to me, but the alternative is sub-optimal play.

Often treasures are difficult to see because they might be under a tree or something. You can get around this by rotating the map, but what a pain.

This game triggers one of my biggest pet peeves in turn-based games. After a combat, you don't automatically heal. This means that you might intentionally drag combat out a few turns to give your healer a chance to catch up. This is both mechanically annoying and breaks the fiction. If my healer can cast a spell every minute in combat, why can't he cast a spell when I am spending days to travel across the map?

RPG Elements

You can have more than one hero, although it looks like you only really want one squad for fighting. Perhaps a second hero might make sense for picking up treasure.

Heroes gain levels and have a skill tree. Most of the skills in the tree are very bland and just points on the way to the interesting powers. Even the "interesting" powers weren't exciting to me. Equipping items are similarly bland. Generally they are things like +15% fire resistance.

Followers also gain levels. With each level they gain a predetermine skill. Every three levels they can be promoted to a more powerful unit. This feels exactly right. There is just enough variety to be interesting without having to micromanage mundane choices.

Buildings

Buildings allow your followers to be promoted. In the first scenario, money isn't a problem and buildings are mostly an automatic process with no real decision making. You can choose if you want your mages to be wizards or elementalists but the game could have that decision be made when your follower is ready for promotion. There is no building time or building prerequisites. 

Art

I like the art. The design is good. The animations are good, but they get old quickly. After half an hour I set the animation speed to maximum, and it was still clunky.

Conclusion

Despite my criticisms, Disciples 3 is a fine game for the genre. The tactics aren't complicated but they aren't totally brain-dead simple. You can get attached to your squad as it levels up. The story is light, but it isn't bad. For a similar game, I would recommend Mordheim: City of the Damned.

Dishonored

Dishonored

A stealth/combat game with a rich setting and good character development.

Summary

This game feels very much like Assassin's Creed with a little Shadow of Mordor. I enjoyed both of those games more than Dishonored. However, if you like that style of game, Dishonored is very true to the genre.

I really like the settings of Assassin's Creed and Shadow of Mordor. The world of Dishonored is fine, but doesn't have a massive body of lore to expand on like those other games.

In the end, I wouldn't especially recommend Dishonored unless you like the stealth genre but don't want to play those other titles.