It's kinda like a gothy XCOM and that's so my jam it feels like it was made specifically for me.
• Art Book
5 stars for the visuals, everything else is unfortunately not that good
The progression system feels somewhat lacking and uninspired - more akin to the type of progress you'd see in an idle mobile game. The combat itself is interesting and has a lot more depth than what it initially looked like, and the visual style is absolutely gorgeous. However, that style makes every map appear almost identical, making the already dull progression system feel even more lifeless. If you're not a stickler for engaging progression and are a big fan of deceptively deep combat systems, this could be an excellent pick for you, but otherwise, it's pretty meh.
This game is currently in the Humble Choice for February 2023, this is part of my coverage of the bundle. If you are interested in the game and it's before March 7th, 2023, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.
X-Com Rogue-lite with vampires
Players in Othercide play as the Mother, who is defeated by The Child, and then births Daughters to fight the Suffering… No symbolism here. In Othercide, players lead parties of created and customized characters in tactical battles against an evil force with randomized maps and enemies pulled from horror designs. This is a rogue-lite with X-com influences, and it works well.
The one big issue I have with the game is that outside of the red, grey, and black, this game lacks color. Some people love this, but after an hour I just wanted some color or more definition in the art design. There’s a strange system where players need to sacrifice characters to get health back for others, and with the need to fail multiple runs to build up resources to unlock parts of the game, some players might not love the slower pace.
Pick this up if you like X-Com or tactical games, I keep mentioning that because that’s really what this is. The combat is more melee-based, but ultimately you’ll be taking the Daughters into combat multiple times to put down enemies and stand strong against nebulous forces.
If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/PPQRKDSakk4
X-Com Rogue-lite with vampires
Players in Othercide play as the Mother, who is defeated by The Child, and then births Daughters to fight the Suffering… No symbolism here. In Othercide, players lead parties of created and customized characters in tactical battles against an evil force with randomized maps and enemies pulled from horror designs. This is a rogue-lite with X-com influences, and it works well.
The one big issue I have with the game is that outside of the red, grey, and black, this game lacks color. Some people love this, but after an hour I just wanted some color or more definition in the art design. There’s a strange system where players need to sacrifice characters to get health back for others, and with the need to fail multiple runs to build up resources to unlock parts of the game, some players might not love the slower pace.
Pick this up if you like X-Com or tactical games, I keep mentioning that because that’s really what this is. The combat is more melee-based, but ultimately you’ll be taking the Daughters into combat multiple times to put down enemies and stand strong against nebulous forces.
If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/PPQRKDSakk4
Un juego de estrategia por turnos, que mezcla un sistema de casilleo con componente roguelike en el que tus unidades mueren de manera casi permanente.
Difícil y exigente en su justa medida, no he conseguido conectar lo suficiente con el estilo de juego, la exigencia, que te obliga a tomar cada decisión con cuidado, junto con tener que reiniciar la run y la perdida de unidades subidas, más a un sistema de combate lento (tiene opción de acelerar las animaciones de combate pero me enteré tarde) en el que te pasas gran parte del tiempo mirando por que la IA te supera en número, ha hecho que no consiguiera disfrutar el juego de la manera que me esperaba, pero no es malo.
La historia es igual de obtusa que el sistema de juego y el diseño artístico, tanto visual como musical me parecen una pasada.
Difícil y exigente en su justa medida, no he conseguido conectar lo suficiente con el estilo de juego, la exigencia, que te obliga a tomar cada decisión con cuidado, junto con tener que reiniciar la run y la perdida de unidades subidas, más a un sistema de combate lento (tiene opción de acelerar las animaciones de combate pero me enteré tarde) en el que te pasas gran parte del tiempo mirando por que la IA te supera en número, ha hecho que no consiguiera disfrutar el juego de la manera que me esperaba, pero no es malo.
La historia es igual de obtusa que el sistema de juego y el diseño artístico, tanto visual como musical me parecen una pasada.
Imagine if Sin City, H.P Lovecraft, X-Com and Ciri from the Witcher merged together into a tough roguelike strategy RPG and you get Othercide.
Othercide is set over five ages, each age with a boss at the end your characters known as Daughters have to defeat. If you lose you can reset your run from the start but using resources to add modifiers making your daughters stronger such as dealing more damage, starting at higher levels, resurrecting characters from previous runs etc. so that you can progress further each time.
The combat can be tough at first. (I played on easy, not gonna lie). You can choose up to 4 classes for your daughters, a Shieldbarer, Blade master, Scythe wielder and the Soulslinger. Each class has a variety of skills they learn as they level up and depending on what level they are and their actions in battle they gain permanent character traits which steadily make them a force to be reckoned with.
Skills are pretty varied from direct attacks, buffs, area of effect attacks and even attacks that interrupt enemy attacks in some way. As you kill enemies they drop Mother's memories which are both equipped for bonuses for your character skills as well as lore notes to give background of events to explain story elements of this cosmic horror tale I enjoyed.
The highlight of the combat is balancing your skill and movement usage with the turn based system to abuse taking turns by stacking and planning ahead. It's a great fun system but it does make the Soulslinger (duel wielding pistols) unbalanced to the point at the end it was the only class I used due to their power, range, traits and interrupt attacks allowing them to absolutely crush enemies and bosses.
The big flaw for me though is simply the genre of the game itself. some battles can take a while and runs even longer for a turn based strategy game and this simply does not conduct well as a Roguelike. Levels are pretty repetitive with only a certain amount of maps and though some events pop up occasionally they do nothing but adjust some stats giving no variety to the repetition. Though you can save resources to skip ages or start with higher level Daughters it just raises the question of why have it as a Roguelike at all except for to pad out the experience?
It's a bizarre game in a lot of ways but I must say it absolutely nails it's mostly monotone aesthetic. The games character designs and level visuals are absolutely gorgeous. The voice acting is also of extremely high quality matching the tone of the game perfectly and some of the music is simply sublime. The first boss theme as it builds up to a crescendo at the end is just sublime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1EEfy9OVng
Overall I had a really good time with this I'm not going to lie. It's exactly my type of indie / AA game trying out something a little different. It doesn't nail everything it tries but it's really unique and for that alone I would always say to give it a try.
+ Great turn based battle system.
+ Presentation is superb.
+ Excellent voice acting and music.
- Not sure the Roguelike aspect is really suitable as a strategy title.
Othercide is set over five ages, each age with a boss at the end your characters known as Daughters have to defeat. If you lose you can reset your run from the start but using resources to add modifiers making your daughters stronger such as dealing more damage, starting at higher levels, resurrecting characters from previous runs etc. so that you can progress further each time.
The combat can be tough at first. (I played on easy, not gonna lie). You can choose up to 4 classes for your daughters, a Shieldbarer, Blade master, Scythe wielder and the Soulslinger. Each class has a variety of skills they learn as they level up and depending on what level they are and their actions in battle they gain permanent character traits which steadily make them a force to be reckoned with.
Skills are pretty varied from direct attacks, buffs, area of effect attacks and even attacks that interrupt enemy attacks in some way. As you kill enemies they drop Mother's memories which are both equipped for bonuses for your character skills as well as lore notes to give background of events to explain story elements of this cosmic horror tale I enjoyed.
The highlight of the combat is balancing your skill and movement usage with the turn based system to abuse taking turns by stacking and planning ahead. It's a great fun system but it does make the Soulslinger (duel wielding pistols) unbalanced to the point at the end it was the only class I used due to their power, range, traits and interrupt attacks allowing them to absolutely crush enemies and bosses.
The big flaw for me though is simply the genre of the game itself. some battles can take a while and runs even longer for a turn based strategy game and this simply does not conduct well as a Roguelike. Levels are pretty repetitive with only a certain amount of maps and though some events pop up occasionally they do nothing but adjust some stats giving no variety to the repetition. Though you can save resources to skip ages or start with higher level Daughters it just raises the question of why have it as a Roguelike at all except for to pad out the experience?
It's a bizarre game in a lot of ways but I must say it absolutely nails it's mostly monotone aesthetic. The games character designs and level visuals are absolutely gorgeous. The voice acting is also of extremely high quality matching the tone of the game perfectly and some of the music is simply sublime. The first boss theme as it builds up to a crescendo at the end is just sublime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1EEfy9OVng
Overall I had a really good time with this I'm not going to lie. It's exactly my type of indie / AA game trying out something a little different. It doesn't nail everything it tries but it's really unique and for that alone I would always say to give it a try.
+ Great turn based battle system.
+ Presentation is superb.
+ Excellent voice acting and music.
- Not sure the Roguelike aspect is really suitable as a strategy title.
Una mezcla de roguelike y estrategia táctica muy interesante, con mecánicas como la línea temporal que funcionan de maravilla, pero que se ve lastrado por una estructura bastante repetitiva sin la suficiente variedad como para justificar la cantidad de grindeo que es necesario hacer para progresar.
Visualmente es muy llamativo, tiene un estilo artístico muy único y muchísima personalidad.
Hay un juego de estrategia muy potente aquí, pero el tener que reiniciar todo desde el principio sin apenas variedad hace que, una vez llevas unas 20 horas, ya no tengas las mismas ganas de progresar porque vas a ver más de lo mismo. Tampoco ayuda nada el pico de dificultad que aparece en la cuarta "era", que básicamente te obliga a reiniciar si quieres progresar.
Es un buen juego y me gustaría acabarlo, pero ahora mismo no tengo las ganas ni la paciencia para hacerlo. Quizá más adelante.
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A very interesting mix of roguelike and tactical strategy, with mechanics like the timeline that work like a charm, but held back by a quite repetitive structure without enough variety to justify the amount of grinding required to move forward.
Visually, it's striking, with a very unique art style and a lot of personality.
There's a very strong strategy game here, but having to restart from the beginning without almost no variety makes it so, after 20 or so hours, you don't really feel like moving forward because you're going to see more of the same. It doesn't really help that the fourth "age" is a huge difficulty spike that esentially forces you to restart if you want to progress.
It's a good game and I'd love to finish it, but right now I don't feel I have the patience or the eagerness to do so. Maybe later.
Visualmente es muy llamativo, tiene un estilo artístico muy único y muchísima personalidad.
Hay un juego de estrategia muy potente aquí, pero el tener que reiniciar todo desde el principio sin apenas variedad hace que, una vez llevas unas 20 horas, ya no tengas las mismas ganas de progresar porque vas a ver más de lo mismo. Tampoco ayuda nada el pico de dificultad que aparece en la cuarta "era", que básicamente te obliga a reiniciar si quieres progresar.
Es un buen juego y me gustaría acabarlo, pero ahora mismo no tengo las ganas ni la paciencia para hacerlo. Quizá más adelante.
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A very interesting mix of roguelike and tactical strategy, with mechanics like the timeline that work like a charm, but held back by a quite repetitive structure without enough variety to justify the amount of grinding required to move forward.
Visually, it's striking, with a very unique art style and a lot of personality.
There's a very strong strategy game here, but having to restart from the beginning without almost no variety makes it so, after 20 or so hours, you don't really feel like moving forward because you're going to see more of the same. It doesn't really help that the fourth "age" is a huge difficulty spike that esentially forces you to restart if you want to progress.
It's a good game and I'd love to finish it, but right now I don't feel I have the patience or the eagerness to do so. Maybe later.
Othercide for the first time feels like a game that has learned from the games that learned from XCOM. You can still make out the framework of mechanics that have defined the tactics genre in recent years, but they're better obscured here, and the formula feels genuinely different in ways that are mostly good.
Unfortunately, the innovative tactics in Othercide come alongside a roguelike structure that only serves to artificially lengthen the game by requiring players to grind for experience. There isn't enough variety between runs to justify the repetition; combat encounters are often identical, and I never felt like I was trying a new approach on a new run. There's a great 20 hour tactics game here stuck inside a 40-hour title that's merely good.
Unfortunately, the innovative tactics in Othercide come alongside a roguelike structure that only serves to artificially lengthen the game by requiring players to grind for experience. There isn't enough variety between runs to justify the repetition; combat encounters are often identical, and I never felt like I was trying a new approach on a new run. There's a great 20 hour tactics game here stuck inside a 40-hour title that's merely good.
Othercide is a crazy good Tactics RPG that not enough people have heard of
Othercide combines a roguelite structure (If all of your units, called Daughters, die, you get a game over and have to restart but get new boni that increase with every run)
with TRPG combat that is hard as nails for one reason: healing and reviving units is so expensive as to be impossible, and the amount of daughters you can recruit and level up realistically is very limited.
What that leads to is that every point of health counts, every move has to be optimized, every trash mob is a potential disaster, and every small mistake stacks up. Because health, and daughters, are a finite resource you will run out off. Which translates to constant engagement, constant strategizing, in a way that no TRPG before has achieved.
That gets supported by a really cool timecost system - hundred "time points" per daughter's turn you get hundred "time points", different abilities have different costs, if you use more than 50 points in one turn, your next turn is delayed, leaving you stationary and at risk, but firing from all cylinders and taking that risk can let you unleash huge combos. The risk and reward of that, especially in such a tense game where getting it wrong could spell disaster for the whole run., is addicting.
Monochrome + Red asthetics are unique and enjoyable, narrative wrapper seems a bit edgy at first, but is actually quite harmless and forgettable in a good way? It does not get in the way of the exceptional turn based combat. Othercide is really just a few more classes or character building options away from being an all time classic
Othercide combines a roguelite structure (If all of your units, called Daughters, die, you get a game over and have to restart but get new boni that increase with every run)
with TRPG combat that is hard as nails for one reason: healing and reviving units is so expensive as to be impossible, and the amount of daughters you can recruit and level up realistically is very limited.
What that leads to is that every point of health counts, every move has to be optimized, every trash mob is a potential disaster, and every small mistake stacks up. Because health, and daughters, are a finite resource you will run out off. Which translates to constant engagement, constant strategizing, in a way that no TRPG before has achieved.
That gets supported by a really cool timecost system - hundred "time points" per daughter's turn you get hundred "time points", different abilities have different costs, if you use more than 50 points in one turn, your next turn is delayed, leaving you stationary and at risk, but firing from all cylinders and taking that risk can let you unleash huge combos. The risk and reward of that, especially in such a tense game where getting it wrong could spell disaster for the whole run., is addicting.
Monochrome + Red asthetics are unique and enjoyable, narrative wrapper seems a bit edgy at first, but is actually quite harmless and forgettable in a good way? It does not get in the way of the exceptional turn based combat. Othercide is really just a few more classes or character building options away from being an all time classic
Visuals and art style on this game were honestly great but the difficulty spikes feel random at times and the overall rogue like style just made me annoyed every time I had to redo a run rather than being excited.
The last level of Othercide is a difficulty cliff. Going to have to come back to this one.
esse jogo não está terminado. UI toda atravancada caindo aos pedaços, ciclo de gameplay chatissimo, punitivo só por punir (sequer tem um desafio de tão injustas as batalhas). a arte é bonita e só
Final boss really detracted from the rest of the game due to unfair mechanics that seem to break the rules the game teaches you. Otherwise, an excellent experience.
Imaginad un TRPG que es un videoclip de Evanescence. Pues eso es este juego. Tiene buenas ideas, una estética impecable y una buena base, pero tiene problemas de no saber muy bien lo que quiere ser. Intenta ser un roguelite pero hay una progresión tan exagerada que se juega como un juego lineal normal. Entonces tienes todos esos sistemas ahí que no sabes qué pintan. Además, no hay demasiadas opciones como para variar y es fácil de romper.
Sin embargo, es una buena piedra fundacional para una secuela.
Sin embargo, es una buena piedra fundacional para una secuela.
I love the whole "evanescence meets bloodrayne meets yoko taro tragic white hair girlz meets urban fantasy eldritch horror meets xcom" thing this is doing a LOT! SRPGS are in a good place in terms of mechanical refinement lately but a lot of the worlds have felt a bit too dry or boilerplate 2 me as a sissy aesthete--this is one of the more lush and well-realized ones since The Banner Saga and I really enjoy moving my little 2004 The Birthday Massacre groupies around on these goffick monochrome grids! The skairie plague doctor masks are SO beyond over but Othercide feels like such a pastiche across so many other fun style axes that I will HESITANTLY permit their inclusion in this case!
The combat is thoughtful and punishing fun too! I appreciate the experimentation with incorporating a FFX-style malleable turn order system, and manipulating it opens up a ton of strategic avenues. The classes all feel valuable/have lots of cool synergies and the bosses are brutal but surmountable in well specified, satisfying ways.
The roguelike/reincarnation mechanic is interesting to me in theory, but the game doesn't have the diversity of maps/enemies to sustain so much repetition and feels sort of poorly conceptualized. I like how sparingly it makes you use your super powerful interception abilities (which cost health you can't easily recover) and the character building potential of reincarnations/sacrifices, but repeat runs get tedious fast and the game really could have used some more mechanics to abbreviate (or mix up) your catchup sessions. The options that are there feel more like an unconfident way to lessen the blow of a design choice the developers knew was iffy rather than strengthening/justifying the roguelike concept itself, and that's a problem. At the beginning the game gives you the "e-z mode" option to enable healing your daughters to lessen your cycle count, and I wish I had chosen to play that way because I really didn't get much out of "full early game catchup #7 but this time u start with 25% more hp" or w/e! The joy is in the style and the strategy, the slog not so much. I'm still not convinced that a genre with such a languid gameplay pace really benefits from roguelike trappings, especially something so narratively driven and lengthy. Still a very cool little game and I'm rooting for this corny emo studio!
The combat is thoughtful and punishing fun too! I appreciate the experimentation with incorporating a FFX-style malleable turn order system, and manipulating it opens up a ton of strategic avenues. The classes all feel valuable/have lots of cool synergies and the bosses are brutal but surmountable in well specified, satisfying ways.
The roguelike/reincarnation mechanic is interesting to me in theory, but the game doesn't have the diversity of maps/enemies to sustain so much repetition and feels sort of poorly conceptualized. I like how sparingly it makes you use your super powerful interception abilities (which cost health you can't easily recover) and the character building potential of reincarnations/sacrifices, but repeat runs get tedious fast and the game really could have used some more mechanics to abbreviate (or mix up) your catchup sessions. The options that are there feel more like an unconfident way to lessen the blow of a design choice the developers knew was iffy rather than strengthening/justifying the roguelike concept itself, and that's a problem. At the beginning the game gives you the "e-z mode" option to enable healing your daughters to lessen your cycle count, and I wish I had chosen to play that way because I really didn't get much out of "full early game catchup #7 but this time u start with 25% more hp" or w/e! The joy is in the style and the strategy, the slog not so much. I'm still not convinced that a genre with such a languid gameplay pace really benefits from roguelike trappings, especially something so narratively driven and lengthy. Still a very cool little game and I'm rooting for this corny emo studio!