Reseñas recientes de Kazanski

Very good auto-battler.

Going to be pretty brief and just highlight some qualities about the game.

10-20 minute games. Units you place are permanently placed on the battlefield and each round you add units to bolster your strengths and counter the plays of your opponent. Very chess-like in many respects with trying to out-position your opponent and predict their moves.

This game is very difficult to balance due to the sheer volume of units and possible upgrades. Great complexity and very addicting to play. The 1.0 release has seen the game to a very good place and very excited to put some more time into it.

Best $5.00 I've spent for content I already had.

This is a really strong game with a lot of really good value for the player. The game offers a unique take on deck-building and auto-battlers and has a respectable amount of content for the asking price. I expect you'll get between 10-20 hours of good content out of this title and time well spent.

World Map
You start each run with a cookie-cutter deck and can immediately explore and start gathering resources with a lot of freedom. You have supplies that limit how far you can travel without engaging with the world, but if you simply just move from monument to monument, you will find that you will never have any supply issues and can spend as much time as you want gathering resources and cards. This freedom of exploration works pretty well and allows you to rush to the end or take your time.

Deck Building and Game Progression
The deck building aspect is pretty well done here. The game paces out the introduction of new cards steadily and you get a reliable introduction of new units to consider the uses of. Similarly, enemy designs gradually update and change. Each run introduces new enemy unit types that are distinct and encourage you to think about building your lineup differently.

You can actively change your active cards before each encounter and are encouraged to do this. All units (with some exceptions...) have really clear use-cases and there is a variety of different ways to attack challenges in this game. I was pretty impressed with how much is on offer here for the low asking price of this game.

You will probably have seen all content and unlocked all cards around the 10 hour mark. An additional difficulty is unlocked at this point that you can probably squeeze another 10 hours out of, but I imagine most players will be finished with the game in 20 hours or less.

Stretching for Negatives?
The introduction to the game is actively being fine-tuned by the devs, but there were a few things about some of the cards and mechanics that just were not introduced properly to the player.

For example, you can spend some of your mana to draw cards. Maybe I missed it, but I never saw this explained anywhere and it is a pretty important tactical tool.

The way units prioritize targets will become clear to you in time, but having clear rules around this would make planning for the player easier.

There is no way to see how many cards are in your draw pile or to see what cards are in your discard pile.

These are all fairly nit-picky QOL complaints and I don't consider them deal-breakers at all. If this is the worst thing I can say about this game, it is an incredible entry for the $5.00 asking price.

This game is absolutely incredible in every dimension. Blown away by how good this game is and what it brings to the table.

Story
Story elements and writing in this game are 10/10. The writing is humorous and witty. The story has unpredictable twists and turns that are interesting. The pacing of the story-telling is absolutely perfect. You get a few lines of dialogue between each encounter and are not drowned in it at all. I can't really think of any tactical RPGs that I have played for the story, but the writing in this game alone is worth the price.

Tactical Combat
This game is not XCOM.

This game is a tactical puzzle with very predictable outcomes and solvable solutions. Every piece of this game is hand crafted and there is no procedural generation in the game. There is no real RNG in the game. You have your toolkit of skills and abilities and you are given a level to solve.

The core game is outstanding with about 20-25 hours of core content. You can extend your playtime by using the map editor or playing user-submitted levels. The absence of proc-gen does mean there is a real cap to how many hours you can get out of this game, but every game doesn't need to overstay its welcome.

Abilities and Progression
The pacing on abilities and progression is fantastic. You start out with a base character and slowly unlock new abilities and characters that steadily add to the complexity of what you have on offer. Think of it as mastering a tool and then adding another tool to master and combine with what you have until you end up with 5 characters with pockets full of different abilities and options. Pacing on the introduction of new tools, characters, and abilities is really well done.

Difficulty
The difficulty settings are very well done and make this game pretty accessible to a wide audience. I've played the game through on the Hard difficulty and found the puzzles to be very challenging, but solvable and rewarding.

Optional objectives are given on each level that allow you to get cosmetics for your characters. The game has done a great job of allowing a path for gamers of all abilities to enjoy this game and approach it from a place that is comfortable for them.

Overall?
Can't believe how much I enjoyed this game. The theme looked bizarre, but I had to give it a shot when I saw how overwhelmingly positive the reviews were. The game did not disappoint and I don't have a single negative thing to say about it. Wonderful game.

Very good tower defense game. One of the best I have played. Good co-op integration, great design on the towers, and very well done enemy types. Feels like the spiritual successor to Defense Grid and was very welcome.

The only bad thing to say about it is the story and dialogue they have built into it is dumpster tier. However - they are self-aware of this and give you full ability to disable it. Play it for the tower defense game, not the gripping story and voice overs.

I have been watching this game from afar since it was announced and decided to finally give it a try once it hit 1.0.

I do not have many hours on this, so there may be some potential in this game that I am not seeing. I played through one of the biomes, worked through a boss, and played a few of the different mission types that were available.

Summary
Ultimately - I am not recommending this game because it did not feel very fun and the tactical gameplay just didn't feel very engaging. It is not doing anything really innovative in the genre, and where it does innovate, I believe it is taking a step backwards.

If you really enjoyed games like Into the Breach or Tyrant's Blessing and you want something slightly different, then this could be worth your time as the price point is accessible and fair. Nevertheless, I feel it is inferior to both of those titles.

World Map and Run Progression
The world map and run progression is almost identical to Into the Breach. This is not a bad model to borrow from, but at least at first glance, there is not really anything innovative happening here. You do a few missions until a region boss is revealed, do the boss, unlock a new hero slot, move to the next biome. Do a few biomes and then face a final boss to finish the run.

You basically get a pool of shared lives for your heroes that if they run out, the run is over.

Damage your heroes take persists in between levels and can be healed by giving them a break or using abilities/items to heal them up.

Tactical Combat
This is where the game kind of lost me. The enemy acts by setting up fields of Overwatch patterns and then you take your turn using active abilities to maneuver around them. Each of your heroes has a linear set of traits that are unique to their class and a set movement pattern that you have to account for.

Some of your heroes may move only on diagonals or horizontals while others may have a movement pattern similar to a knight in chess. Attack patterns are similarly rigidly structured requiring you to move and place your hero in a unique spot so they can use their abilities.

All of these mechanics are similar to into the breach, but I would say that the movement system is just more complicated, and in my opinion, unnecessarily so.

Similar to Into the Breach, you can block enemy spawns by standing on them in exchange for a little bit of damage.

With the whole picture together, the tactical combat just feels clunky and unrewarding. It takes a lot of inspiration from Into the Breach (or so I think) and does not really capture the combination of fluid gameplay and tension that Into the Breach evoked. Into the Breach has you solving a series of problems in really creative ways by moving not only yourself but enemies around to mitigate damage and solve objectives.

This game is trying to do the same, but by using an overwatch system and extremely clunky movement patterns the player's options to engage with the systems are a lot more one-dimensional by comparison. Early time with the combats didn't really show a system that was giving me a complicated array of options or a puzzle to solve so much as a linear field with a few basic paths forward. The system is so limiting that the only option in many cases is to decide whether or not to trade damage with an enemy. It was just as often the case that I would have one of my units paralyzed and unable to do nothing because it just wasn't worth trading damage to have him contribute to the encounter.

Perhaps the system gets more interesting with more time and more heroes on the board, but the new player experience just wasn't interesting enough for me to continue.

Progression and Items
There are items that drop and can be equipped on heroes, but so far, these item options are pretty generic upgrades on raw stats. I only saw a pair of legendary items, and they were pretty straight forward stat increases.

You get currency to spend on upgrading your heroes (Once again - VERY similar to Into the Breach). This currency moves your capabilities to different levels that increase damage, push range, or status effects. So, unlike into the breach, your characters have a generic plate of skills, and you are just going to slightly improve on that plate and use it to the best of your ability.

The system isn't terrible, just not doing anything great. It does no harm, but does nothing to identify the game from what others have not already done before it.

Conclusion
Low hour reviews are kind of sketchy, so would definitely defer to others with more hours who want to point out how this title identifies itself . . . but I could never in good conscience recommend a game that I refunded. Similarly, if I am refunding a game, I feel it is helpful to explain why.

Was really surprised by how much I liked this game. Very cool adaptation to the Slay the Spire model. Will give some observations below.

Equipment Stands in for Relics
The equipment system in this game works really well. Instead of relics, you receive items that you can interchangeably use that give your character passive bonuses. There is a great system of item sets that can give you further bonuses for matching them up.

The character avatars display the items that you are using as a nice touch and this system is a great innovation on the relics system and works very well.

Deck Building - Curses Emphasized
I want to call out that this game really likes to clutter your deck with curses. You are going to have to build your plan around the curses and status cards that get flooded into it. The game gives you the tools to be able to deal with it, and because you consistently run into this problem you'll always get value out of tools that help you deal with deck bloating.

I am personally good with this, but this is going to be an adjustment for many players, especially for people less familiar with deck building principles or the genre as a whole.

The other elements of deck building are pretty standard and from what I've seen so far, many of the cards and mechanics are shamelessly similar to what you would see in Slay the Spire. The game innovates in other places, but at least the base card sets that I've been exposed to are fairly similar to what has already been done.

Story
A lot to like about the story of this game from a few perspectives. The game does an exceptional job building a plausible world around your repeated deaths and this generates a lot of good immersion in the storytelling. Your 'meta progression' in this game is very much acquiring information about the map and then going through the map making different choices to change the future. Very cool concept here.

They also do the pacing on the story-telling perfectly. You get 3-5 lines of dialogue every few nodes that move the story further and the nodes themselves contain a couple paragraphs in very tight bites. This form of storytelling works really well to deliver you a lot of depth of the story, but you are not drowned in it at all and it is paced out nicely between combats and decisions.

If more games did their storytelling like this, we'd be in a much better place with RPG narratives.

World Map
As mentioned before, the world map is semi-dynamic but extremely open-ended. You can path through the world and revisit old locations or discover new ones with abandon and the player has a great deal of agency here. This system is very rich and allows for both discovery and planning for the player that really enhances the experience in a way you don't see in other places of this genre.

Characters and Classes
At time of writing, I have only played one of the characters, but I've played all 4 of their archetypes. As you play, you'll unlock additional archetypes that are not just different starting decks, but a unique set of background mechanics that significantly changes the way the deck/player plays. I found that the pattern of play for the runs changed significantly with the available archetypes and this is before I've even had a chance to explore the other two characters.

To emphasize, in a lot of other games in this genre you just get different starting decks . . . these mechanical changes are a breath of fresh air that keeps things very dynamic and enjoyable.

Bugs and Optimizations
At time of writing, I have stumbled into some minor issues here and there with some descriptions not being very clear. However, outside of some light things on the margins, I've run into no performance problems or crashes.

Summary
Highly recommend this if you like the genre, great innovations and so far been a very enjoyable time.

I would normally want to wait for a lot more hours before giving a positive review on a game - but there are some structural things here that are so good that they need to be called out.

I highly recommend this game with a few acknowledgements.

Innovations:
It can be really hard to find innovative game designs nowadays and this game is really doing something different with its design and how it combines some game-play loops together.

Co-Op:
My focus for this title is almost exclusively co-op, and the greatest appeal of this game is that my wife enjoys it and is able to take her skills playing Bejeweled and join me in a genre I enjoy. One player manages the Bejeweled Blitz game on the side, while the other manages the resources that are generated from the partner. This is a very satisfying local co-op experience for a couple and if you have a friend of any type that enjoys those kind of games, this is an awesome way to connect with them in an area of their interest.

Developer:
Need to give a special shoutout to an awesome game dev here. I had a couple of tech issues (that were wholly and completely on my end). He took the time to reach out to me within an hour of posting my concerns and helped me walk through some possible solutions. Didn't have to do that. He is a real class act and has a good vision for the game and a desire to improve it on the margins and make the player experience better.

Singleplayer?:
The game really is tested and balanced around a single player experience. I cannot really weigh in on how good that experience is, but I know that has been most of the focus in the development process and it is done in a really compelling way.

8/10/2024 Edit:

I've finally put a decent number of hours into this game and can confidently say that this game is really good at current state. It is still very much in early access, but a few things I'll notate to give a current state of the game.

Combat and Stealth
I though about speaking about these separately, but they are very much harmonized into one gameplay loop. Almost all missions are viable with a heavy stealth or combat emphasis (with some exceptions). However, in truth, the game is best played in a hybrid state. You want to use controlled aggression to take out key targets and maneuver to your objectives quickly and efficiently. Having a mind to do both is very satisfying and plays very smoothly.

Overmap
You manage a base very similar to XCOM and take missions from it very similar to XCOM. They take some innovations here with some really interesting rooms you can build and the system is very engaging and fun to use. These systems are in a very good state in early access, but have some edge polishing and balance that will almost certainly still need to happen.

There is a crafting system you can get into that is adequate. The guns mods that are available are fairly basic, but enough to be interesting. Consumables fit well into the kits of your mercenaries. I would say most of these systems are average to above-average, but nothing truly exceptional in current state.

Bugs?
I've stumbled into a few bugs here and there, but nothing that is game shattering at this point. There are some typos here and there, some abilities that have some low reliability in when and how they'll trigger - but the devs are continually squashing these as they come up and are remarkably responsive to them when they arise.

Skill Trees and Skill Balance
The skill trees in the game are serviceable and pretty fun - but the balance within it needs an overhaul and in many places they are not finished. There are some placeholder slots for skills that have not been released into the main game yet, and if you evaluate some of the existing abilities objectively . . . some of them are just useless while others are overwhelmingly powerful.

I wouldn't let it dissuade you from enjoying the game - but it needs some work to be moved to an excellent state.

Class diversity is also fairly average. They've done a really good job making classes very distinct and they all bring different tools to the table to help you in your game. All classes are combat serviceable and stealth serviceable depending on how you build them and the flexibility in the way that you level and equip them is really nice.

Hacking
A special call out needs to be given to the "Hacking" mini-game in this game. It is a really great system and is very unique. The team is working on a tutorial for it - but there is a decent Steam Guide written that can help players get introduced to it.

In many missions, you'll want to bring a Hacker from your mercenary group into the mission and escort him to a terminal where he can engage with this mini-game. This mini-game will probably take 2-5 in-game turns to complete and it can massively influence your loot as well as security on the map. It is very fun to take a team in to setup this hacking station and then protect him while he accomplishes this. Very fun gameplay mechanic.

Campaign and Quests
The game works off of an overarching campaign with many story quest lines that are actively in development. One or two missions within these quest lines is currently available in early access, but the remainder are in development. Presently, if you complete the existing ones there is a placeholder left for them to continue with the content is ready. This may feel pretty jarring, so if this is going to be annoying for you - wishlist the game and wait for more.

Level Design and Variety
The level design and variety right now is pretty good - but you will quickly find yourself repeating maps. The game tries to keep maps fresh by inserting you on different portions of it and changing the exfils and targets, but once you know the layout of the map after a few runs on it, it does begin to become a bit bland.

Depending on the kind of gamer you are, this may not be that problematic for you - but a few more maps in the pool would definitely help a bit. To be clear though, there is easily 20-30 hours of original content in here already.


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First Review:

I haven't played this game since it released in early access back in October. I bought this game because it is a Trese Brothers game and the way they do updates and build games is pretty much second to nobody.

I am not really at a point where I play early access much anymore, I am looking forward to playing this at full release - but wanted to recommend this game because these developers do great work and wanted to support their project.

So - I can't tell you if the game is good or not, but their other games rock and the way they do updates is fantastic.

I love everything about this game.

The progression system is interesting and paced well. The game introduces new ants and colonies at a reasonable pace that keeps the game very fresh.

The way they offer difficulty paired with achievements really works nicely for me. There are 6 different difficulties and many of them have their own optional challenges to encourage you to approach a level differently. The levels are highly fine-tuned experiences to challenge the player and I have found myself playing the same level on different difficulties and still enjoying it because the spin is interesting.

The overall story is amusing and I have found myself interested in following it through.

Nothing negative to be said, the game is outstanding.