Recent reviews by kaliyama

if you are sick of games with unrealistic micromanagement and want to control things at the level an emperor might actually be able to achieve - always with imperfect information and relying on untrustworthy subordinates - get this game.

A visual novel thinly disguised with some bland adventure/QTE gameplay. I thought I was going to get something more culturally incisive given all the media hoopla about it, but it's just X-MEN meets HANDMAID'S TALE, except instead of superheroes you're the new roommate in Portland's most-insufferable poly intentional living community. Games unfortunately remain a poor medium for political storytelling

The handful of negative reviews are right - this is fundamentally a puzzle game, not a tactics game like X-COM. It doesn't have the roguelike and random elements of Into The Breach that turn that puzzle game into more of a tactics game. The writing does try too hard at time, and the progressive agenda of the writers (hurr organized religion bad, white guys only appear as villains, we can solve energy geopolitics by destroying all of our oil) means the characters start claiming motivations and goals that don't make sense for a noir private investigator, a cynical veteran, or a morbid necroedic.

That said, TBW is a supremely well-designed tactics-puzzle game, with a thoughtful and fun setting. They manage to (barely) keep their politics from derailing the story and world-building. If you're at all on the fence about it, check out the tutorial - it shouild take you about 15-30 minutes, well within the refund window. You'll probably want to keep playing.

Another well-executed release in the franchise. It + FoG Kingdoms is the video game equivalent of peanut butter and chocolate.

Great design marred by a weak AI that doesn't know how to handle the politically complex multi-agent "story" scenario that is the capstone for the game. Even if you give it bonuses, it doesn't know how to handle threats or manuever correctly, so combat or production bonuses don't really fill the gap. Game should pivot to smaller scenarios with fewer sides that the AI can handle or needs a big revamp. At the moment it's worth buying at $15 but not $30.

This game competes in the same space as: Birthright (1997), Master of Magic, Age of Wonders, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes, and while I think this game is better designed than those in various ways any of those games provide a much greater AI and narrative challenge than this game does. This is a very small niche, so wanted to flag some other good hybrid strategy/RPG games that had very different focuses and gameplay loops: Star Traders, Expedition: Rome, Battletech, Endless Legend are also all worth checking out.

Someone needs to just take the mechanical rules (which are not protected IP) from the Birthright 1997 game and re-implement a modern version with an original/non-infringing setting.

a great game ruined by dialog so infuriatingly stupid you feel dumber having heard it. like getting a frontal lobe lobotomy with an ice pick made of puns

a great game sadly ruined by hacking and lack of will to stop it

recent changes to gunplay have made the gunplay way worse and less fun. the difficulty of finding games where both teams are organized and competitive means you can waste an hour on a game that's decided in the first five minutes. when the actual gunplay isn't fun any more, the downsides mean it is often becomes a boring walking simulator. that said, driving a logistics truck around the back lines is decently zen and fun. so buy if you are into trucking games.

i'm not a big JRPG fan but really enjoyed this. the writing is better than most AAA titles today. the art style doesn't manage to be as pretty as say, secret of mana or the SNES final fantasy games but it's still quite appealing

The writing is so, so terrible that it manages to be bad in two ways at once. The handful of characters you interact with have lots of quippy cyberpunk techno-babble about ship systems, but whenever that's not happening the writing goes maudlin and self-important, trying to project a feeling of epicness and deeply-felt emotion without ever bothering to get you invested in the characters.

Lots of reviewers blast the game for being less complex or "dumbed-down". I don't begrudge it for trying to find a different audience than the audience for previous homeworld games, but the game just isn't good. A good simple game presents the players with fewer decisions and knobs to fiddle, but it makes sure that the decisions the player does face are meaningful and easy to understand. Endless Space / Endless Legend does this very well compared to say, the needless complexity of Stellaris. But Homeworld 3 just removes systems from Homeworld 1 without creating new, streamlined systems or mechanics to replace it.