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#turnbased

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Grissallia

January 11, 2024 - Day 376 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 412

Game: Chess Ultra

Platform: Steam
Released: Jun 21, 2017
Installed: Jan 11, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 21m

Rating: 4 - Good

Chess Ultra is a 3D turn-based strategy... chess game.

With a name like that, you'd expect it to have gun battles and all kinds of extreme weapons and it's just a very good 3D chess game with online multiplayer, and reasonably good bots to play offline.

It has several different options for the location of your game, with appropriate sound effects, as well as several difference chess sets you can choose between.

Given my complete lack of chess games on Steam, it was nice to just kick back and play chess for a while. Chess Ultra is:

4: Good

#ChessUltra#3D#TurnBased
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Grissallia

January 10, 2024 - Day 375 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 411

Game: Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark

Platform: Steam
Released: May 1, 2019
Installed: Jan 10, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 32m

Rating: 1 - Nope

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is a fantasy-oriented isometric turn-based tactical RPG.

It mixes different art styles, which the characters being almost an anime style, while character portraits appear hand-painted.

It would have been a hard sell at the best of times, but compared to some of the tactical RPGs I've played in the last month, the game didn't have a chance.

Will Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark get to stay on my PC?

1: Nope

#FellSealAribitersMark#Isometric#TurnBased
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Grissallia

December 8, 2023 - Day 342 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 361

Game: Expeditions: Rome

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jan 21, 2022
Installation Date: Dec 8, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 25m

Expeditions: Rome is an isometric turn-based RPG, which I think is a combination I haven't played this year, or possibly at all.

This is the first game in the December Humble Choice bundle.

[next morning, coffee in hand]

So, where were we?

I started up the game, and was faced with a character creation screen. The game is set in Rome, circa 80 BCE (I'm estimating the date based on the age of one of your in-game companions; some guy named Gaius Julius Caesar. Yes, that one.)

The framing is that you're the youngest child of a senator who's just been murdered, and your mother has spirited you out of Rome.

You can choose the gender and name of your character - at which point the game explains the structure of Roman names; First name, Family Name, Nickname.

If you choose to play a female character, the game prevents you from choosing a first name, explaining that women in Rome did not have a given name, just a family name, and nickname.

Playing as a female, the NPCs within the game reflect the patriarchal attitudes of the setting, reminding you of your "place" in society, and the expectations upon you.

You're fairly quickly thrust into battle, at which point I was disoriented. I was faced with hex tiles, and choices on how to move the characters in my party.

"This is a turn-based tactics strategy game?"

Throughout the year I've found myself caught out trying to categorise some games.

I have no experience with table-top RPGs; I grew up in the middle of the "Satanic panic", and was taught that D&D was evil; when my only friend at high school was spending his lunch breaks playing D&D, I was on my own elsewhere, reading.

If I had any experience with TTRPGs, I would have immediately recognised it as a turn-based RPG; instead, with my history with first- & third-person action RPGs, I just didn't recognise it as an RPG, and it felt unique to me.

Even in reading up this morning, and having that "a-ha" moment, I recognised that I *have* played another turn-based RPG this year—Honkai Star Rail—but didn't connect the two, due to Honkai being third-person.

If I'd played the official Game Of The Year, I also might have recognised the gameplay (Santa, please leave Baldur's Gate 3 under the tree).

As such, it's hard to rate Rome: Expeditions comparatively; I can only really judge it on whether I enjoyed it, and... kind of? The graphics are very pretty, the voice acting is OK. I found the combat a little clunky, but maybe that was my lack of experience.

I'll probably give it another shot, (at least until I get BG3), so I'll say Rome: Expeditions is:

3: OK

#RomeExpeditions#TurnBased#RPG
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Grissallia

October 13, 2023 - Day 286 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 305

Game: I Am Not A Monster: First Contact

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 27, 2018
Installation Date: May 14, 2019
Unplayed: 1613d (4y4m29d)
Playtime: 18m

I Am Not A Monster: First Contact is billed as a "retro sci-fi tactical turn-based strategy" game.

By retro sci-fi, they mean early-mid 20th century pulp sci-fi.

If you like that kind of sci-fi, this might be right up your alley. Unfortunately, it's not really my cup of tea, and I couldn't really get past that to lock into the game.

Graphically, it's a weird combination of pulp sci-fi stationary graphics for menus, full-screen pixel-art animated transitions, and high-res gameplay, and it feels kind of jarring switching between them. It just feels a little incoherent.

There was almost something there with the gameplay, but when the game was making me feel like I wished I was playing a completely different tactics strategy game, that pretty much sealed the deal.

I Am Not A Monster: First Contact is just:

2: Meh

#IAmNotAMonsterFirstContact#Tactics#TurnBased
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Grissallia

September 29, 2023 - Day 272 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 292

Game: Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 22, 2017
Installation Date: Sep 29, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 15m

Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf is a deck-building turn-based tactics strategy game set in the 40K universe.

It showed up in a Humble Bundle offer, with all but one DLC included, at the lowest tier - AUD$1.56.

The catch is that the game is being delisted from Steam on October 12th.

For $1.56? Yeah, why not.

There are only 2 DLC missing; one is free, and I got the other for $1.02 with Steam's "Complete your bundle" option, so for a grand total of $2.58 I got an OK-ish turn-based tactics game.

Having played it, I actually feel like I got a bargain (I'll add a link to the Humble Bundle page below.)

Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf is:

3: OK

#Warhammer40KSpaceWolf #TurnBased #Tactics #MastodonGaming #Gaming
#Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

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Grissallia

August 26, 2023 - Day 238 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 258

Game: Hero's Hour

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Mar 2, 2022
Library Date: Apr 2, 2023
Unplayed: 16d
Playtime: 17m

Hero's Hour bills itself as "A fast turn-based strategy RPG with real-time combat."

It was included in the Humble Choice March 2023 bundle.

I've repeatedly said that nostalgia does nothing for me, and it turns out I was wrong about that. Nostalgia can piss me off.

One of the growing trends at the moment in gaming is to remake old games. The most important thing about taking a game someone loved and remaking it for "modern" gaming, is to understand what made the game tick, then update the things that were limited by technology of the time, while keeping the elements that made the game tick intact.

For instance: The Quake II RTX "reimagining" took the first three levels of Quake II and made them pretty. Ho-hum.

The Quake II re-release updated the game itself and pretty much nailed bringing an ancient game into the modern era, without losing the character of the game.

I didn't know what to expect going into Hero's Hour, other than the pixel-art that featured in the header graphic, but within a couple of minutes of starting the tutorial, I realised I didn't need the tutorial, because I knew exactly how to play the game.

Describing Hero's Hour as "A fast turn-based strategy RPG with real-time combat." sounds better than "A pixel-art knock-off of Heroes of Might & Magic III".

I sank countless hours into Heroes of Might & Magic III. It might even have been the first "one more turn" game for me.

If you want to create a knock-off of a classic like HOMM3, you need to understand what makes it tick, what gives it that "one more turn" element, and the devs of Hero's Hour clearly don''t.

Desktop Dungeons demonstrated that a great gameplay loop overcomes the limitations of pixel art.

Hero's Hour made the art worse, and breaks the gameplay loop.

In HOMM3, your pixelated hero explores the pixelated map, but when entering a town, each kind of town has a character all its own, that grows as you expand the town.

Hero's Hour has almost-identical little boxes for each building.

HOMM3 battles were a carefully managed hextile-based strategy affair that could leave you elated or exasperated.

Hero's Hour replaces that with chaotic real-time battles that leans into the exasperation, and adds frustration. You can speed them up to 2x, but that still feels like an eternity.

Heck, some of the sound effects during map exploration feel like a straight rip from HOMM3.

Ultimately, Hero's Hour feels like the Temu version of HOMM3, and if I wanted to play a game that felt like HOMM3 without understanding HOMM3, I'd play HOMM VI.

Hero's Hour is an unsurprising:

1: Nope

#HerosHour#TurnBased#Strategy
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Grissallia

July 31, 2023 - Day 212 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 231

Game: Möbius Front '83

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 6, 2020
Library Date: July 31, 2022
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 30m

As I mentioned in my Opus Magnum review, I own most of the Zachtronics games. I went through the list, and there were four I don't own, and I recognised Möbius Front '83 as a key I had in my spreadsheet, so I installed it.

I read an interview with Zach Barth (not to be confused with Zach Braff) about ending Scrubs.

Oops... I mean ending Zachtronics. In it he mentioned that Zachtronics was known for a particular kind of game (correct), and that if he were to go back to development again, he'd want to explore a different genre of game.

Ah, there's the rub. I wish him all the best in his future endeavours, but everything about Opus Magnum that endeared the game to me is missing from Möbius Front '83.

It took me half an hour to complete the tutorial. I probably could have completed it faster had I not been exhausted, but it just felt like a grind.

Möbius Front '83 is a hextile turn-based strategy wargame. You've got infantry squads that can move only move one tile at a time, or shoot, but can move through forests and hide in them to ambush others, and can also load into a troop carrier to go further. In addition, when hiding, they can only be shot at by units in the next tile. Also, they have rocket launchers as well as rifles.

The troop carriers can go further, but appear to carry the a single rifle's worth of damage, and you lose a turn when it deploys the troops.

Tanks have guns and missiles (?), can move multiple tiles in a single turn, and then shoot in the same turn.

That about seems to kind of be it. I was just bored by the end of the tutorial.

After finishing a NewPlay, but before writing a review, I'll read one or two other reviews about the game. Not to crib from them, but to see if there's something I missed, some aspect to the game that I would have seen if I'd played longer.

It's disappointing how often a game turns out to be more of the same.

As such, with Möbius Front '83, it's interesting to note that apparently the game introduces some more interesting sci-fi stuff later in the game; the title isn't just something that sounds vaguely cool, but is actually relevant.

Unfortunately, it turns out that my initial feelings aren't that far off the mark. There is quite a bit of a grinding involved to get to that point.

Grinding in service of a storyline isn't a bad thing, per se. I played WoW for a very long time, and that's just par for the course. The key is to hook the player with the storyline first. Not just force them to grind.

In any case, Möbius Front '83 was a bit of a disappointment as a Zachtronics game. As a turn-based strategy game, it's just:

2: Meh

#MöbiusFront83#TurnBased#HexTile
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Grissallia

May 8, 2023 - Day 128 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 143

Game: Total War: SHOGUN 2

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Mar 15, 2011
Library Date: Apr 28, 2020
Unplayed: 1105d (3y10d)
Playtime: 25m

Total War: SHOGUN 2 (TW:S2) did not get off to a flying start.

As this was the first run, it wanted to install Flash Player. I refused to allow that, and it seemed to run OK. Turns out that it was included to show ads on the main menu, so no loss.

In the case of TW:S2, I knew it was a strategy game, going in, and since I've had a pretty good run with strategy games over the weekend, I thought I'd give it a go.

That good run ended today.

I started with the tutorial, and it was just teeth-grindingly slow. I tried to persevere, and finally, after 15 minutes, I was about to engage the enemies on the main battlefield of the tutorial, after a couple of skirmishes.

...and it crashed.

I started it again, went into the campaign, one the first battle, but what little forward motion I had was gone, and I quit out a few minutes later.

TW:CS2 is, apparently, a "blend of real-time & tactics strategy, but it just hasn't grabbed me, and the random crash was enough to leave me wanting to spend time in other strategy games.

Maybe ones with Space Marines.

Total War: SHOGUN 2 is:

2: Meh

#TotalWarShogun2#RTS#TurnBased
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Grissallia

May 7, 2023 - Day 127 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 142

Game: Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War

Platform: Epic Games Store / Steam
Release Date: Jul 13, 2018
Library Date: May 7, 2023
Unplayed: 0d (0d)
Playtime: 6h17m

Gladius - Relics of War (GRW) is a turn-based 4X (apparently) strategy game, as opposed to Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters' (CGD) tactical strategy.

Oh no...

After getting my head around CGD on Thursday night, I remembered I had a Steam key for Gladius - Relics of War (GRW) in my spreadsheet of shame (think pile of shame, but Steam keys I haven't even redeemed).

Not only that, I'd also gotten it free on Epic Games Store at some stage. On the chance I wouldn't "get" it and/or like it, I installed it on EGS (and I despise using EGS), with a view to adding the key to my giveaway list if I hated it.

4 hours and 46 minutes later, just after finally completing the *tutorial*, I discovered a missed alarm, when I got a phone call from the appointment I'd missed.

Tonight I installed it on Steam, started over, & completed the tutorial in 91m.

It's not quite as pretty as CGD, but it's incredibly engrossing, and I'm not entirely sure why. Civ 5, Civ 6, Age of Wonders: Planetfall didn't grab me like this, and Stellaris did my head in.

Gladius - Relics of War is:

4: Good.

#Warhammer40k#GladiusRelicsOfWar#TurnBased
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Grissallia

May 4, 2023 - Day 124 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 139

Game: Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters

Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 5, 2022
Library Date: May 4, 2023
Unplayed: 0d (0d)
Playtime: 61m

Given the date, I see now I missed a solid opportunity to theme my NewPlay, but what can you do?

Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters (CGD, OK?) is the first cab off the rank for this month's Humble Choice, and is the latest... (checks notes)... *turn-based* 40K *PC* game.

I honestly thought it was the latest 40K game, but I checked, and there have been FOUR 40K games released since this, with two new ones later this year.

Embarrassingly, I've tried multiple 40K games, & failed to connect in any genre. I went into last night's stream, not sure which which genre CGD was, and it's a turn-based tactics game.

CGD is both visually & aurally gorgeous, and was I not pretty much trashed, I could have gone on playing for another hour or two.

However, it feels very lore-dense, with some assumed knowledge, which might be off-putting if someone was buying it cold, without any 40K knowledge.

A few weeks ago it dropped to a historical low, and I was tempted, but decided against it, which meant that for once, Humble Choice paid for itself.

Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters is a really long name, but it's:

4: Good

#Warhammer40k#ChaosGate#Daemonhunters
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Grissallia

Feb 26, 2023 - Day 57 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 63

Game: Steamworld Heist
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Jun 7, 2016
Library Date: Jan 24, 2023
Unplayed: 33 days
Playtime: 16m

Well, I think this is the first time I've ever encountered a sideways scrolling turn-based strategy game.

A couple of days ago, I set up a new dynamic collection in Steam that collected all of the unplayed games in my Pile Of Shame, excluded all of the unplayed VR games, and then I just hit free-scroll on my mouse, close my eyes, move the mouse around, and click on whatever comes up.

Even though this is a seven year old game, when I checked the details, I remembered that I'd bought it on sale last month as part of a deal.

It was worth it. It's a fun little game, that does not feel seven years old. The missions so far are pretty quick, so I could see myself firing it up for 10 or 15 minutes just to kill some time.

Steamworld Heist is:

4: Good

#SteamworldHeist#TurnBased#Strategy
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Grissallia

Jan 11, 2023 - Day 11 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 15

Game: Loot Rascals

Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Mar 8, 2017
Library Date: Oct 28, 2017
Unplayed: 1901 days (5y2m14d)
Playtime: 24m

As soon as I started this game, I thought "I'm going to hate this." I was wrong.

I don't love it but I don't hate it. It drew me in, but then crashed and kicked me out.

It's a hex-turn-based-roguelike-deckbuilder, and has quite an odd design style to it.

It did intrigue me, but crashing out at random threw me off. I'll probably poke at it again at some stage.

Loot Rascals gets a rating of:

3: OK

#LootRascals#Roguelike#TurnBased
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Dusk Tactics

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🏰Meet dozens of unique characters in a huge world!

Manage an army & battle over dynamic terrain where
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Classic #PixelArt sprites, map tiles, and #UI harken back to the golden age of tactical role playing games!

50+ Jobs
200+ Abilities/Passives
300+ Equipment & Items

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