Recent reviews by Fiasco

Exceptional games. And I usually don't care for first person shooters.

Haven't played the original game, so take this as a review of the current product.

Pros:
- Exquisite classic survival horror experience.
- Great graphics.
- Well done third person view mechanics for confined spaces; also, I personally love the fact they didn't use a classic fixed camera;
- Well built and satisfying combat mechanics.

Things that are not so great:
- There's no head bashing or foot stomping mechanic; probably would've made things too easy, but in a zombie game...I feel like something's missing; it's like they made things more difficult in an artificial way;
- Although the game lets you play as two characters that are supposed to be acting in the same time frame, quite a lot of their game-play overlaps (same areas, same puzzles, same actions); indeed, there are differences and it's a cool feature, but it feels a tad lazy;
- Cheesy acting and artificial relationships construct between characters, but it's something you'd expect from a Japanese producer.

Personal annoyance:
- There's a dude who stalks you sometimes and you can't kill him. People like this as a horror survival experience, but I found him very annoying. I like to be able to kill anything.

Conclusions:
- If you enjoy survival horror, even if you're not a big fan of the genre, the game is a must have.
- The price is fair. There's replay value and there seems to be planned some free dlc story content.

Quality over quantity. A rare approach these days.

Pros:

- It has its own identity, personality and it is very atmospheric.
- Beautiful depiction of a post-apocalyptic world. Very well constructed too. Also, each area is presented with a little bit of history through notes and characters’ comments.
- Good story. Not mindblowing, but good.
- Characters with personality. Also well written and with good voice acting. I ended up getting somewhat attached to them even for a top down view game (that doesn’t usually happen to me).
- Simple and clear character development system and weapon upgrade system.
- Simple, yet effective game mechanics.
- Great graphics.
- Bug free and stable build.
- Deep tactical system (except on easy difficulty). The mechanic of recharging skills involves getting kills, not waiting turns, so it leads to the player carefully planning his fights, by picking targets, equipment, skills combos and even switching team members.

Stuff that’s not so great, but can’t qualify as cons:

- Some of the skills and team members are somewhat redundant.
- As beautiful as each area is, you end up feeling like a tourist. You’re only looting and killing. Perhaps some occasional puzzles or more side missions would create a better connection to the game’s world.
- The AI behavior is a bit dumb in regard of the fact they don't get alerted if they find a body. However, considering the game's difficulty (you can die quite easily), making the smarter should also involve introducing a new mechanic like...attracting an enemy's attention and making him come to you.

Potential deterrents for buyers (again – not necessarily cons):

- The game is linear. You do get to go wherever you want, whenever you want, but once you’ve cleared up an area, it says that way.
- No replay value, except for testing your skill on a harder difficulty. On a new run, everything is exactly the same.

Conclusion:

- It’s worth getting it for its quality and the price is fair. I feel it’s the beginning of a beautiful franchise.

As a final statement, it’s a breath of fresh air on today’s gaming market. I highly appreciate developers who choose to keep a clear scope in their sight and don’t fall into the greed trap of making barren sandboxes only to fill them up later in order to squeeze more cash from their customers.

If you like the rebooted series, you'll like this one too. Good graphics, almost identical mechanics with the previous releases, a new story / adventure (it's ok, though rather easily forgettable). It's fun and entertaining to play. Works smooth enough (could use a bit of optimization) and I haven't encountered major bugs.

On the down side, there's still something awkward with the combat system (once again - almost identical to the previous releases): I don't know if it's Lara's somewhat erratic movement or the way the camera follows her in combat, but it always feels quite difficult to have good situational awareness.

One other...rather disappointing issue: Lara's personality. I kinda' expected her to develop one between releases. Flat. And remember that dude who always gets lost and / or captured? Yep, he's still there, doing what he does best: getting lost and captured.

But like I said, it looks good and it's entertaining to play.

Random text for rating.

Well, it’s not a triple A game, but it IS a remarkable experience in its own rights.

TL:DR

- Deep and immersive story and atmosphere. I dare say brilliant in this regard.
- Beautiful but rather limited and annoying world design and navigation mechanics.
- Decent, yet unremarkable and somewhat shallow combat mechanics. You won’t feel the urge and joy to go kill something in this game.
- Price should’ve been a few bucks lower.

What it is:

The simplest way I would describe it is as a mix between a detective game and an action RPG. You won’t crack your brain to solve mysteries and puzzles, but there’s a ton of talking in this game. That’s the main way the story is delivered. There’s also a constant chunk of action while navigating the game’s world, for combat enthusiasts.

Story and atmosphere:

While not exactly mind-blowing, the story is good and very well constructed, providing some surprising twists along the way. But most important: it is delivered in a brilliant manner. The writing is very good, the NPC characters have deep and diverse personalities and there are no fetch quests. Everything you do feels unique. While there is obviously a main quest, it is closely entangled with each and every side quest in the game, so basically the story is told and through each and every action you take.

Graphics are good and the atmosphere is really immersive. Also - impressive soundtrack.

Game world design and navigation:

It’s dark, beautiful and heavily cluttered (thus feeling realistic). Once again, the environments not only support, but also tell bits and pieces of the story. There is a strong feeling of confinement, which falls very well in line with the idea of a plague ridden quarantined city.

HOWEVER, the game’s world is also small, maze-like and artificially locked away in order to force you to slowly uncover it while going ahead with the story. This generates some awkward inconsistencies: you’re a powerful being with supernatural strength (and a reasonable array of firepower), yet you can’t blow a simple lock on a gate blocking a street, having to go around an entire neighborhood in order to open it from the other side.

This brings us to the next problem: navigating the world is really stiff and limited. No jumping, climbing, crouching or stealth mechanics. You basically can only walk the streets (and run, of course) and there are some specific locations where you can perform sort of a teleportation move (described as being just a very fast movement). It’s once again inconsistent to be able to perform 5 meter jumps only in a few places in the city.

Movement animations also feel a tad dated.

Combat:

It’s the second major flaw. It’s not bad, but it is very simplistic and it lacks any spectacular note.

The skill tree is rather slim. You have 4 types of damage, which correlates to 4 types of resistances for your enemies. The skills you can choose deal various types of damage, but they require a lot of experience to upgrade and you don’t get that much throughout the game. This basically makes you get stuck with a specific set of skills that you can’t change on the fly to adapt to any situation. On the good side, there is a possibility to reset your skills and try new combos.

But the worst part is that the combat is simplistic and unremarkable. No finishers, no slow motion, no spectacular moves (like stakes through the heart or heads rolling, for example). The vampire lore was not exploited almost at all. For some reason, regular blades and ammunition kill any kind of vampire just like they do humans.

Conclusion:

For a classic story driven RPG fan, it’s a must have. For an action RPG fan, not so much. The price tag is reasonable, but a tad on the steep side.

Charming.

One more story, richer in tactical combat content.

For a fan of turn based tactical combat games, it's a pleasant experience. Overall however, it's just a decent time burner.

The game offers a bunch of separate story lines, each featuring different protagonists and each reverting your progress to zero at start. You don't get attached either to characters or to character progression.

The tactical combat is solid, albeit a bit simplistic. There are no skill trees. You get special abilities (some of which are quite cool) by obtaining random playing cards through story progression. This basically means each play-through ends up being different from the skills' point of view, but it doesn't really add much replay value, especially if on your first run you got lucky to find some really useful cards.

The stories are text based. You visit various locations on a map, stumble onto some events that push you to make some choices. These choices affect your characters' abilities, once again trying to add replay value by making you start each fight with different odds. Once again, replay value is indeed added, but not in a truly meaningful way.

The atmosphere is strong, but...not necessarily attractive.

The stories (again) are okay, but the way they are told is annoying. The whole point and click "adventure" around the map feels forced on you, in order to finally reach the combat scenes, which - like I said - are quite enjoyable.

I guess the developers aimed to give players the feeling of being completely in the hands of fate, or...what it means to play the hand you're dealt. Cool concept, but the lack of control over your characters' evolution and the impossibility to create a connection to any of the protagonists make the experience simply...unattractive.

So, like I said, it's a decent time burner for fans of the genre.

After 70 hours of game-play I decided to change my rating and my review. The game is no GOTY contender, but if you are a fan of turn-based tactical combat, you’ll enjoy it.

Important notes:
- The game has a somewhat long and deceptive learning curve. You’ll only start enjoying it after about 15-20 hours of game-play.
- Most official reviews mention issues with bad RNG on shooting and unbalanced difficulty rating for missions. These issues have been fixed.

So, pros and cons altogether, ‘cause it’s a tad hard to separate them:
- Strategy and tactics really work well in combat.
- The story setup gives me a Firefly feeling. If you’re a fan of the series and the movie that originated it, you’ll love this. I wish the music was also similar.
- The story itself is Ok, peppered with RPG elements, but you have read all of it and it’s also heavy with lore. You need to really want to know it.
- It has a vast array of mech types and they really allow you a lot of flexibility with loadouts. It’s fun to set them up and you can really feel and see a difference in combat.
- The skill tree is poor and unsatisfying. The active skills that define your mechwarriors’ classes are dull, but you’ll find the passive boosts quite useful in your game-play.
- Graphics are on the low end side. Same goes for the environments. These issues make the game feel dated.
- Damn long loading screens. Reminds me of the time when it took like half hour to load up a game, 20 years ago. Not the good type of nostalgia.
- It’s not spectacular. Animations are pretty simple and camera angles are sometimes awkward. It’s a mech game, so it should’ve been spectacular.
- Sounds and music…meh.

As a conclusion, I do recommend the game for genre fans (Fallout 1,2 Tactics and the XCOM series), but I’d still say it’s better to get it on sale.