Tactical Indie RPGs - The sucessors of X-COM, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics and Heroes of Might and Magic.

The AI is absolutely retarded and can be very easily manipulated since they're programmed to prioritise attacking your property. Because of this and the lack of mission score and rankings, I believe there's no tangible difference between the four difficulty levels, since unit formation is the same (I think), damage numbers are unchanged, and enemy AI remains in turbotard mode.
 
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It seems advance-wars is doomed and there are no good inspired games out there (tiny metal was not like AW and i admit i didnt play wargroove
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Well, I think that it's an dying genre, as far as I'm concerned.


The game has turn limit by default and says it's the intended experience and i don't like it how strict it feels this early. I hate how FE fandom is obcessed with LTC and shit to the point i can't even enjoy romhacks, let me turtle and farm supports reee.
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But on the other hand, it's kind of an given that the FE community is incredibly autistic. Not just the "peak efficiency" kind of 'tism; but genuinely autistic
 
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NerdShamer said:
Well, I think that it's an dying genre, as far as I'm concerned.
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I dunno, i think Advance wars is a "cursed" franchise, (9/11 and russia invasion) but i think the problem is that Nintendo and the indies keeps marketing these games for kids when the strategy game audience isn't the same it was back then. Modern kids are not playing slow strategy war games and adults don't like how absurdly childish rebootcamp looks.

Everyone expects "tactical war game" nowadays to have dark political intrigue so normies can't handle a game like AW where no one gives a fuck. Rebootcamp even makes it look like a tabletop with plastic toys.


But there was already a mature AW, it was Days of Ruin. It was much edgier and gray and post apocalypse sure but it was peak. The stroy had, ya know, stakes. It even had true fog of war, where AI enemies could waste turns meeting you. 1500 infrantry, fun new units and COs on field. I want to see indies ripoff days of ruin for once.

Alternatively, this genre needs real original ideas. For example, i'd love to see and AW-clone with an alien/robot faction that has a whole different army (like starcraft). Some type of secondary content that attracts normies would go a long way too, like how fire emblem added a self insert avatar and 3 houses had straight up school life.
 
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Im kinda surprised that Silent Storm series wasnt mentioned here. Def would recommend giving it a shot, since it has some best destruction physcis.

Theres also Empire of Sin, which itself isnt bad but sadly wasnt finished and got abandoned, as the 2nd DLC never came out. However, whats given there has enough material to get some enjoyment.
 
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Played a couple of games recently which were relatively enjoyable for a short while but I wouldn't recommend buying either for the same reason (maybe pirating if they look interesting to you).

Shogun Showdown isn't like most games talked about here because its played on a 2D plane and you control a single character but it is still turn based and fits this category. Mechanically its actually pretty good, the combat feels satisfying and it is well thought out. Graphics and music are also really nice.

Metal Slug Tactics was also decently fun. Its a bit different to most games in the genre and the best comparison is probably Into the Breach. You control a small squad of 3 characters and the focus is on setting up combo attacks. You are also rewarded for moving so turtling isn't really an option. Visually looks really good, the pixel art is top notch. It is a bit jank unfortunately, the cursor and camera can be weird at times and I thought the final boss bugged out on me because I couldn't target him with any abilities and there was no visual indication for the enemy hitbox. Eventually managed it by trying to target every square around the boss to figure out where to shoot.

Why would I not recommend either game? They are both rogue lites. There is maybe 3-4 hours of actual content in each and the rest is just grinding out the same shit with lazy rogue lite padding. In Shogun Showdown you have to complete the game I think 6 times with the same character to see the "true" ending. Same shit with Metal Slug, think you need to do like 4 or 5 runs.

Its just fucking lazy development, put some time in to make an actual full length campaign instead of this shitty rogue lite trash. It has no place in tactical turn based games, keep your stinky rogue bullshit in the metroidvania slop games where it belongs.
 
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Chains of Freedom has come out. I'll probably sit on it a day or two before playing it to see what the reviews are like.
 
NerdShamer said:
Even the biggest SRPG fan on YT is disappointed in Warside
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Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention. The Kickstarter campaign page promises at least three units that aren't in the game, as well "indoor maps" with close quarters combat.
There's a unit called an Icefang that the characters even talk about in the map it's introduced, but it's not actually in the map, except for a generic tank unit that has the name "Icefang" if you right click on it, so it was clearly just a palceholder.
People wouldn't be as pissed off if the devs just attached an Early Access label to the game, because this is clearly an unfinished build of the game.
 
Flopper said:
, I believe there's no tangible difference between the four difficulty levels, since unit formation is the same (I think),
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The initial enemy placement is largely the same and the only thing that's really being tested is how fast you can starve the other guy
Flopper said:
and enemy AI remains in turbotard mode
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One thing that's worth pointing out is that the enemy CO absolutely refuses to use their special moves.
 
How could they drop the ball so hard? Visually the game looks great. If they ran out of money they should have just gone the early access route and been upfront. Are they planning to fix the problems? I was looking forward to maybe getting a steam deck and this game..
 
LucasSomething said:
Everyone expects "tactical war game" nowadays to have dark political intrigue so normies can't handle a game like AW where no one gives a fuck.
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It's disappointing, I loved the Advance Wars games and a large part of it was just the cartoony look and the 'after school club' level of repercussions to winning/losing battles, up until the final act when the evil masterplan starts going into effect. Maybe they'd just be more successful if they rebranded it as 'tactical puzzles' instead of strategy.

LucasSomething said:
But there was already a mature AW, it was Days of Ruin. It was much edgier and gray and post apocalypse sure but it was peak. The stroy had, ya know, stakes.
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And I absolutely hated Days of Ruin. I don't think I even finished the tutorial, and that's even with me playing through 14-16 missions worth of it. The AW series certainly liked to drip feed the mechanics and units to you, but it felt like it was never going to let me play an actual battle. And meanwhile, the whole story was 'unless we win the battle everyone's going to be raped, poisoned, murdered, and mutated' and then after the battle 'oh no some other village got raped, poisoned, murdered and mutated while you were busy.'
 
I don't know what to feel about Chains of Freedom so far. I'm fine with it but it just seems weird to have this Resident Evil-ish take on resource management in a TBT, and then also have very minimal impact of having your guys get downed on your health stocks(you get 50% hp back and it doesn't seem to have any permanent effect besides maybe you needing to use the AP on it which considering each battle has a turn limit can impact that.)
I will say at least it's great to have a three way faction brawl and having the NPCs actually fight one another instead of focusing solely on you, even though in this case it would have been actually plot accurate.
 
The tired cat said:
Im kinda surprised that Silent Storm series wasnt mentioned here. Def would recommend giving it a shot, since it has some best destruction physcis.
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Literally shooting your way out of a building was the best.

Anyone ever played The Fall: Last Days of Gaia? It was basically "Fallout but German" (there is no English version, you have to use a fan patch to play if you don't speak kraut). One of the few turn based tactical games I've played that lets you use vehicles in the turn based phase as well as the free roam part.

Also they got Darkseed to do the game theme.
 
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Hugbox Kommissar said:
Literally shooting your way out of a building was the best.

Anyone ever played The Fall: Last Days of Gaia? It was basically "Fallout but German" (there is no English version, you have to use a fan patch to play if you don't speak kraut). One of the few turn based tactical games I've played that lets you use vehicles in the turn based phase as well as the free roam part.

Also they got Darkseed to do the game theme.
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I did, once had a Russian copy of this game from a friend, but sadly lost it. Then again, the game also had StarForce protection, so installing it was a nightmare.
 
BiggestKai said:
I don't know what to feel about Chains of Freedom so far. I'm fine with it but it just seems weird to have this Resident Evil-ish take on resource management in a TBT, and then also have very minimal impact of having your guys get downed on your health stocks(you get 50% hp back and it doesn't seem to have any permanent effect besides maybe you needing to use the AP on it which considering each battle has a turn limit can impact that.)
I will say at least it's great to have a three way faction brawl and having the NPCs actually fight one another instead of focusing solely on you, even though in this case it would have been actually plot accurate.
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I've refunded it.

What I like:
  • Tight turn limit forces you to git gud
What I dislike:
  • Nothing fun about the game to actually make you want to get good. The aesthetic is stale and uninteresting for an RE inspired game, the sound effects are meh, the voice acting is very poor, the characters have AI portraits that look meh, the animations are awful, the combat feels like me constantly fighting against the game instead of me enjoying a deep tactical layer
  • Everyone's ridiculously tanky and has bullshit mechanics such as
    • "Enrage", buff they randomly get when getting attacked. This buff makes them attack from a longer range(I should mention these enemies have shotguns that nuke ~50% of your health) and randomly attack their teammates instead(no real way of guaranteeing this) and the kicker, they take 50% less damage during the duration of that buff(which is three turns which like I mentioned there is a very tight turn limit everywhere). These enemies have a whopping 175 hp, the most you'll get out of your guns which can fire twice assuming you never move is 60. They're immune to stuns and melee attacks.
    • Having ~200 hp, being able to run ridiculous distances, heal, and summon 125 hp grunts every other turn with no limit.
    • Horseshit grenades that break the supposed line of sight enemies have, that nuke practically 50% of your health and can cripple(AP reduction) your dudes.
  • The only form of customization you have is slotting in biocrystals that give a dinky stat boost and some unique passive like healing on kills, on crits, carrying over your AP from turn to turn. This is good, except biocrystal slots are limited and locked so you don't really have an option that isn't healing or AP boost at the start.
  • Health management isn't a thing. It's more you leapfrogging downed companions because reviving them is a 50% health boost with no downside besides a cooldown that's unique to every character.
  • Melee is poorly designed. First off it takes 8 ap for a very weak attack. Secondly movement in the game is very janky when it comes to AP calculation. You'll find yourself unable to move in an increment of 1ap, only locked to 2AP moves at times. the worst interaction with melee is how attacking someone who is in cover with melee will instantly snap your character into cover, which requires 1ap for you to get out of. Meaning if you were attacking someone and the UI says you'll have 8AP left, and you were banking on that 8AP to be an extra attack, you'll be shit out of luck because your second attack is actually 9ap.
It reminds me of all the worst parts of Showgunners with none of the parts that made me stick around and love that game.
I've heard this is similar to something called Miasma Chronicles, is that any good?
 
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