There's something important certain strategy games hold, the kind of relevance that they have stands as monuments for others to see. The kind that teaches players to use everything at their disposal. Limited unit selection and abilities. Making the most to survive against invasive forces.
There's time traveling, earning points to get resources after strenuous battles, battling against attrition as the enemy destroys the source of power, and rescuing pods from another time branch. Sometimes rules of reality are broken to win the war.
If these are the key elements to making a rogue-like this engaging? Then yeah, absolutely am in. It hasn't really aged that well, considering how games recently have gotten better in that genre. This game serves to remind me why turn-based strategy can still be fun.
Deployment
My game begins on Museum Island, an archive island of Earth right before the Vek invasion. But it does also seem like somewhere in time, humanity was on the brink of extinction due to other factors, like the ocean water rising or environment damage. This is the first island I've been deployed to, after starting my game with a total of 3 mechs and only this squad to choose.
In the battlefield, the alien forces in their turn tells me the designated areas they'll be attacking. The power source or my units, so in any easy situation, it would be simple to take advantage of their patterns and strategically eliminate them. The main goal isn't to kill all of them, it is to fend them off.
The game, however, does reward my unit XP for doing so. On the first island, I have a tank that shoots on 4-axis, an artillery that doesn't damage units on one tile but damages anything surrounding it, and a melee unit that punches enemies, pushing them off that tile as well. Making chess moves to subdue or eliminate, all of this sounds like I am playing an interactive board game.
I have to stop them from damaging any structures that provide power; they also have people living in them, so casualties will occur if not. But if all power goes away, it's game over. I have to send one pilot back in time to redo everything again. In order to beat the game, I have to survive with the upgrades obtained, pilots with experience gained, and all 4 islands survived through in one run.
Fighting Attrition
Each battle has rewards, based on the enabled content, providing upgrades and gears. But importantly, to make up for power lost, I had to beat these battles by finishing the objectives. Stars mean reputation points, which after finishing an Island, I can use to reap rewards of my spending, as well as restoring power lost.
So what does it take for me to do to win these battles? Being the good guy isn't always the option, so I have to make moves that would result in casualties or trade in other resources to get the outcomes I need.
This one particular battle, is where after finishing other sections, becomes the last one remaining. This one is where the boss unit shows up, and they're a tank and deadlier than the rest. I lost to one the first time, and had to redo everything. Second time, I came really close to losing. No mission is the same because of procedurally generated fields.
This is the one where I turned the battle in my favor, I was close to losing my units after spending so many tactics to take down the boss alien, the other units that borrowed up the grown were aggressively fighting back to achieve their mission. One of my units finally got a buff to input 3x the damage, and using that, I've killed one deadly bug that was too much trouble.
Newer enemy units did show up, and their range attacks alongside being cornered by other bugs made it super difficulty to slip up, and I had one power grid slot the entire time. There were various aspects to consider like burning forests, water, having other bugs, and even when the aliens successfully attack a power a structure, there's a dice roll where it can resist it.
After finishing the first island, the second one is a desert area, where scientists are experimenting on terraforming land, freaky stuff considering they almost destroyed the place too. Newer alien types, new environmental situations, different tactics, same units.
Smokes create fog of wars, any earthly tile can be destroyed either deliberately or through environment cause and effect, and then I have alien forces that explode after death, if I don't find a way to push them to a safer distance, anything impacted through the 4-axis tiles will take a hit. I lost more power source thanks to this.
Thankfully, one of my units has a special ability that freezes itself, as well as everything around it. So, any real sticky situations come around, I can create a temporary measure to buy myself time. Hence, factoring in as to how I can play impressively in order to have access to better gears.
Choices Do Matter
After finishing the second one, without dying, I felt like it was a great achievement. Until the third Icelandic island, where robots have gone rogue, resides. And that's where my streak ended. Mechs don't sink in the water and die, and if they run out of health, the pilot is the one that dies and subsequent missions are commanded by A.I. Without the traits gained through levelling up.
Either way, the mission ends if all mech pilots die, or I lose all the power source. I have to finish the game with all the levels combined. I stopped using the same squad on the third run, since I was able to purchase out my next squad. The Judo grabs and suplex any bug behind him, the gravity simply pulls enemy towards it by one tile. Siege kind of same as the artillery one.
Playing the third island, I've been contemplating about my reasons as to why I've been playing this game. The moral ambiguity of trying to save the human race, involves doing anything necessary in service to people who are also doing harm to almost anything they touch. Just to reach their goals.
As the game got harder, the more I had to make these decisions. In a video game, connecting its story and gameplay to immerse me into such conundrum. My actions also kill off people in each battle, I do lose electricity, but I also had to choose between saving my man, and fending off the enemy. And using some of the devices affecting terrain, even if inconsequential, makes me think actually what would the repercussions be if real.
After all this, I should have known better. But this is a mentally taxing game, often the mistakes I make are the things that become an oversight. Every angle has to be looked at, in order to succeed. High-concept games like these are what makes these games interesting to play.
My main character finally died, after such a long struggle, we finally conquered the island at a greater cost. The new pilot from the pod I saved, likes to talk a lot, but his skills were the noteworthy trade. So it was time I did continue the fight, making sure all the sacrifices I've made comes through, otherwise I have to do it all over again.
