Everytime I hear that a game's story is good (no less from a game post the 2010s) I always compare it to Deus Ex to see if its that good. 13 Sentinels, like Spec Ops: The Line and Disco Elysium, is pretentious. It took the 2deep4u and chronologically confusing aspects of Evangelion and stretched it to 13 characters, most of which are filler as hell. The only person who fits from a plot perspective is the pills bitch. The gameplay does not help either, its an RTS but doesn't even play like one (kind of like Dawn of War 3). No wonder it left a sour mouth, easily the worst game they made.
I never sniffed the farts of Deus Ex, so can't really compare with that, but I'd say it's less pretentious and more convoluted and very much on purpose. I liked the characters, but wasn't really in love with any of them except maybe Nenji, but what kept me hooked was how much it was fucking with my expectations constantly. After a session I would go into the remembrance section with my half baked theories of what the hell was happening and I had to reevaluate like 4-5 times till everything fell into place. It was a very fun puzzle basically. I didn't particularly felt it was moralfagging at me or giving mea holier than thou attitude, so I don't see where you can compare it to Spec Ops or Disco Elysium. What it was was gatekeeping certain characters with more blatant clues of what was actually happening to keep the house of mirrors going longer. Would have been pretty daring if characters were not locked behind prior events and if somebody happened to stumble into glasses guy plot first allowing for even more varied experiences between players.
As for the game of the game. I liked it, yes, it looked like something that could be rendered on a spectrum, but it actually managed to be fun and get me hyped here and there. The final battle with the endless horde was honestly tense. Throwing a missile rain always felt very satisfying, the sound design was very chunky and meaty giving a good feeling every time something exploded. I see it as an example of what can be done with minimalism. I imagine the real idea was detailed animations like the little demos of the attacks to be the main way of experiencing thing, but making it psuedoreal team and very quick and snappy was good enough in my book.
The difficulty is what kills it for me. You can play on hard and start from the beginning in the northern regions and the game still feels easy as shit. You can have the greatest combat system known to man but what is even the point if the difficulty of said fights never challenge the player. It was makes UO generic, and the last thing you want your Turn-Based-Tactics RPG to be is generic.
This I agree with. The battle randomizing every time you changed an equipment piece or a character slot meant that you could reroll the dice constantly till you got something good even if it meant putting the healer in the front line alone because that simulation happened to start with you critting. The story is a non entity, it's just a backdrop for the pretty visuals. I don't mind that, but unlike with 13 sentinels where wanting to know more kept me hooked, UO just lacks that and it had to do all of it's work through it's gameplay. UO would really benefit from being cut in half. Also doesn't help that I tend to play in a semi completionist way, maybe if I only did the core missions I would enjoy it more.
It's especially weird since the start of the game has units that seem to be a bad choice or mutually exclusive, but no everyone is cool with that and even the bandits have a good side.
Having incompatible characters could have given it some spice, but it really is idealistic and straightforward fantasy. I do think it was a solid venture, but I would appreciate something more ambitious narratively next time or a more condensed game experience.
