Recent reviews by Mikali

I like the dreamy fairy tale setting and minimalist presentation. The combat is fun and there is a lot of variety to the jobs. I wish there were more quests, and the maps are confusing however. But overall I am enjoying the game. Beware the game has level scaling though. If you can't beat the harder battles you will be SOL and unable to "level up" to make them easier.

My main issues with the game are:

1. Almost zero exploration. My interest was piqued by "jurisdictions". Cool! But no you can't visit them except indirectly by doing missions.
2. Level design doesn't look realistic to me. There are props everywhere, sometimes in places where it makes no sense for them to be. In the city I often can't figure out what a prop is supposed to represent. Plus there are literal loot boxes scattered around all the maps.
3. Combat is repetitive. I have played the game 20+ hours? (Steam says 44 but that includes idling.) So far it's the same enemies over and over again with not much variety.

Things I liked:

1. The story and characters are fun.
2. The materials system is interesting.
3. Combat can be okay if there is a nice set piece encounter.

P.S. I can't compare this game to XCOM because I have never played it.

I bought the game on Steam several years ago, and have spent a few dozen or so hours playing the game. Here are a few (mostly negative) observations.

1. The ground combat is slow-ish and involves a lot of pixel hunting to select the correct body part. The units also sway back and forth instead of standing still, making things even worse.
2. There is no movement grid on the ground, so you will frequently end up placing a character in a weird spot with no way to "undo" your move. The game has "interrupts" or "overwatch", and the lack of a movement grid creates additional (and hopefully obvious) issues when you can't see exactly how close characters will be to each other when moving.
3. The solar system is overly two-dimensional. Maybe this is realistic, but when combined with the small physical scale of the solar systems it looks really janky.
4. I was hoping for (and felt like I was promised) space travel/combat more like the Homeworld, Nexus: TJI, and Star Wolves series (especially the latter). I am disappoint.
5. There is a lot of gear with similar stats, differing only in how they look. So it sometimes feels like there is no point in having so many equipment choices.
6. The game is sort of a roguelike, and roguelikes often feel kind of repetitive/artificial versus human-crafted.
7. The game looks and plays really janky overall. As a fan of turn-based tactics and space games in general, I feel the game is pretty mediocre on both fronts.

That is all.

I couldn't get past the clunky GUI and camera. Can't comment on the rest of the game. Sorry.

I've played this game a lot. The production values are pretty good. The campaign/story is also fine. However, the game becomes really repetitive. I am no longer having fun. The long load times (before each mission, or when loading a saved game) really hurt the game too.

8/10 if you can stand the repetitiveness or are a huge BattleTech fan. Otherwise (like me) less.

This is a good game. Not perfect, but worth trying.

The #1 issue IMO is pathfinding. Your troops will sometimes get stuck in tight spaces or between map objects, which means you have to always keep an eye on them. However, it's a minor annoyance and the game overall is a lot of fun. I recommend it.

9/10

Fun, but short.

I may have missed some story content spread across the various star systems, but the main story is certainly very short. And unfortunately once you complete the main story the game goes immediately to credits.

:(

That said, the game is very fun while it lasts, despite a lot of jank. I recommend it.

7.5/10

Level scaling. Ugly. Lots of jank.

2/10

This game felt very plain and sterile to me. I would not recommend it. I prefer more RPG mechanics and a stronger narrative. Jagged Alliance 2 is a lot closer to the kind of game I like.

7/10

Despite being short, the game is entertaining. I liked the combat. I don't remember the combat in Blackguards 1 clearly, so I'm not going to complain about any "dumbing down", "streamlining", etc. in the sequel. I played the game on easy difficulty, so did not encounter any too-hard missions that blocked my progress. I bought this game at a big discount, and definitely recommend it at that price.

8/10