Recent reviews by LeSingeAffame

Fun game about discovering and translating languages, very cute with a nice atmosphere, visuals, and music

Very fun "survive the waves" type of game with a lot of unlockable content, and at a very cheap price!

Probably the best ARPG on the market.
It's quite (very) complex and can be overwhelming, but it enables a level of depth and complexity that no other ARPG reaches.
And it's free! So feel free to give it a go.

The struggle interactions and rules allow for a much more dynamic playstyle, but it tends to fall flat as the rest of the world still follow very rigid rules and interactions. The content is still very buggy almost a year later. That along with the price increase makes it very difficult to recommend.

Very badly written and low quality content. Far too overpriced.

Was interesting at the time for a first Flavor Pack, but is now very outdated and the price increase made it even less worth it.

The rats are very cute and the game is very fun

Wasted potential. A very positive release botched by far too slowly drops of content, subpar DLCs, and random price hikes.

We know that Paradox games get better over time, but for this one it doesn't seem to be the case.

A shame as I fell in love with CK2 and was ready to live it again with CK3.

A really good take on the XCOM series. The smaller scale compared to XCOM 1 & 2 (a single city compared to the whole world) with the much smaller squad allows each member of the team to have a fleshed out backstory and much more personal interactions with both Central Command and the other characters. An interaction that really touched me was when Verge, the Sectoid, asked Cherub, the Hybrid, to taste food that he couldn't eat without being poisoned, as his strong psionic powers and empathy would allow Verge to feel the taste through Cherub's mind.

Including Hybrids and Aliens, most of which were part of the initial invasion and fought against XCOM during the Liberation, allows for very different gameplay and strength in your squad. Your Muton will charge on the frontline, bashing enemies with his bare hands, your Sectoid will be your psychic, staying in the backline and disrupting enemies, while your Viper will snipe enemies from afar, or binding strong targets that need to be pinned down.

You lose some of the customisation of your squad, but it's not something that I was really using so it's not too much of a loss to me. And again, it's more "story-focused" than the other games, so it may have been kind of needed to keep the flow and interactions between the characters.

The Breach system is a really good addition. It removes some of the slow moments at the beginning of the mission and between the separate groups of enemies, and it allows for some really power-fantasy moments, which definitely feels good. The characters' unique abilities and equipment during the Breach is also really good.

The game feels potentially much more punitive, the removal of the perma-death allows the game to go much harder, imo, in the resources requirements, in the encounter difficulty, and in the "ticking bomb" that's always above your head.

For 10 bucks, it's an incredibly good deal. It's not exactly the same as the previous XCOM, so it could be a good introducation to the series, but those who liked the previous two XCOM should still feel at home with still some new twists.

Really enjoying this game.

The bases are solid. The trade system is both simple enough to understand, and interesting enough to provide meaningful choice - especially with the strategic resources, denying them to your enemies can prevent them from training entire types of troops entirely.

The military side is also rather good, the different types of units are unique enough to feel like building Light Infantry and Heavy Cavalry will provide totally different results.

The pop mechanics are very interesting, each pop having its own culture, religion, type and hapiness means that you can see your realm population change overtime. Going from a very decentralized tribe to a powerful kingdom feels meaningful, and your country will significantly change during the process.

The religions in game are all mechanically the same, but the omens are powerful enough to provide some interesting choices, so it's still solid. Would be cool to have different religious mechanics.

The diplomatic ascpect is rather straightforward, but the realm ranks are a very nice addition, forcing you to either stay small enough to keep your web of alliances, or be isolated but potentially much more powerful.

As for the characters, the way they are referenced to in game makes them easy to remember, but some interactions don't feel interesting at all. Mariage is also a bit bland, choosing your wife or husband doesn't bring any really meaningful choice, and you don't even have an alert when someone of your family, like your child, is unmarried. Hopefully it'll be revisited someday.

Overall this game is really interesting, the bases are there, and I'm really looking forward to the future updates. The 1.1 patch will bring many new mechanics and changes to existing ones, this should make the game even better.