chess with bugs and robots
Subset Games, once again, kills it with a grueling but great roguelike. To me, it felt more challenging than FTL, but the playstyle definitely is VERY strategy-heavy, less random, and feels almost like playing chess all over again.
A trade-off has been made to make a more tactical at the expense of less RNG and interesting build choices, so while I have played this less than FTL, I am more content with my time spent.
Mecha-Bug-Killing Chess, oh yes
Hard and excelent. The difficulty of the later islands, and the lenght of an avarage run makes it less replayable than other roguelikes but the design as a whole is perfect
I am now good at Into The Breach and this is a practically perfect mix of puzzle game and roguelite. I really only wish that it had a little more flavor to the world
Easily one of best the roguelikes (roguelites?). On top of platinuming the game on Steam, I have also beaten the game with every squad, on every number of islands, all on hard mode.
It's so incredible at reducing the impact of any rng, it makes almost every other tactics game unplayble. Whenever I pick up Xcom or Wildermyth, I can't help but want to switch to Into the Breach when the rng in those games seems like it's lying to my face (e.g. repeatedly missing ~90% attack). It's exactly because of the reduced impact of rng elements that IoB can allow for really organic puzzles and creative solutions. I.e it's as if the best moments of Hearthstone happened all the time instead of once a full-moon if you're lucky.
However, rng can still completely destroy ~1% of runs on hard mode. You can never know which Vek will spawn from burrows, and you can never know how those newly spawned vek will move in the next turn. It's also much easier for runs to be ruined if you pick one of the weakest squads (Blitzkrieg, Secret Squad). Sometimes, a scenario that looks impossible at first glance is still impossible.
Into the Breach could have also benefited from some more narrative context like in Hades, or Enter the Gungeon. It's so hard to not wish for the squad select screen to also be a hub area where you can talk and interact with the pilots and co. Just some opportunity for the pilots to show off some more chemistry and personality than just the interspersed bits during battles.
I also wish this game had an easy squad/vek/level editor like Baba is You and One Step from Eden. Some of the mods I've tried from github are fantastic, but it's github so it's not very accessible.
Bonus:
This is very rare in games, but the some of the achievements in IoB can clue you in into how you can play the squads better. Usually, achievements just spoil moments for you.
It's so incredible at reducing the impact of any rng, it makes almost every other tactics game unplayble. Whenever I pick up Xcom or Wildermyth, I can't help but want to switch to Into the Breach when the rng in those games seems like it's lying to my face (e.g. repeatedly missing ~90% attack). It's exactly because of the reduced impact of rng elements that IoB can allow for really organic puzzles and creative solutions. I.e it's as if the best moments of Hearthstone happened all the time instead of once a full-moon if you're lucky.
However, rng can still completely destroy ~1% of runs on hard mode. You can never know which Vek will spawn from burrows, and you can never know how those newly spawned vek will move in the next turn. It's also much easier for runs to be ruined if you pick one of the weakest squads (Blitzkrieg, Secret Squad). Sometimes, a scenario that looks impossible at first glance is still impossible.
Into the Breach could have also benefited from some more narrative context like in Hades, or Enter the Gungeon. It's so hard to not wish for the squad select screen to also be a hub area where you can talk and interact with the pilots and co. Just some opportunity for the pilots to show off some more chemistry and personality than just the interspersed bits during battles.
I also wish this game had an easy squad/vek/level editor like Baba is You and One Step from Eden. Some of the mods I've tried from github are fantastic, but it's github so it's not very accessible.
Bonus:
This is very rare in games, but the some of the achievements in IoB can clue you in into how you can play the squads better. Usually, achievements just spoil moments for you.
Into the Breach, you beautiful bastard, you got me through jury duty in 2019
i love 2 kill bug with big robot
big robot awesome smile :)
Throw a bug in a lake! This is somehow simultaneously the best strategy game and best puzzle game ever. It strips strategy games down to their bare essentials, yet miraculously is never as dry or boring as that sounds. The variety in mech squads, stages and enemies is consistently clever and imaginative, and the random elements that are present were perfectly crafted to keep the game feeling fresh to me over 100 hours later. It was a stroke of genius to realize that creating the best strategy game experience is not about eliminating luck entirely, but about directing luck in the right way. One thing I really like about this game is that it feels timeless, like it could have been released in 1996, 2005, or 2020. This game probably could've been released on SNES and it would be just as much of an all time classic.
6,5/10
Maybe the best tactical strategy game ever. The narrative/flavor isn't necessary and yet the writers still killed it. You could put hundreds of hours into the game and not even gain a full mastery of easy.
Absolutely addictive and bite-sized
This game is interesting in almost every moment.
The game design is more interesting than that of most other games. In nearly every encounter/level, a unique and interesting situation occurs. These situations just keeps happening, in early game as well as in the late game. There's something magical with that. So magical that it doesn't matter too much that the music and the esthetic feels a bit generic/uninspired.
The narrative setup has a strong synergy with the gameplay, while being weighed in a good way not to distract from the core of the game, while at the same time being a bit generic.
But what if the esthetic wasn't this generic?
What if the writing was as simple but not as boring?
That really would be something else...
The game design is more interesting than that of most other games. In nearly every encounter/level, a unique and interesting situation occurs. These situations just keeps happening, in early game as well as in the late game. There's something magical with that. So magical that it doesn't matter too much that the music and the esthetic feels a bit generic/uninspired.
The narrative setup has a strong synergy with the gameplay, while being weighed in a good way not to distract from the core of the game, while at the same time being a bit generic.
But what if the esthetic wasn't this generic?
What if the writing was as simple but not as boring?
That really would be something else...
Incredibly addicting gameplay loop, like Chess 2.0. This has become a classic airplane game for me.
Easier and breezier than Subset's first masterpiece, the cruel and crushing FTL, Into the Breach is nonetheless a challenging and intense game of tactics. It strips away many of the rough edges of randomness and unpredictability that made FTL so immersive, but isn't any worse off for it thanks to its commitment to informed, tactical choice making.
My only wish is that it had PC-Switch cross saves so I could play it twice as much.
My only wish is that it had PC-Switch cross saves so I could play it twice as much.
Very fun strategy game with a huge variety of options and massive replayability. The achievements were also done in such a good way, it's really nice if that's the kind of thing you appreciate.
the entire game is just a bunch of chess puzzles. It's even on an 8x8 grid. so if you like chess puzzles...
...in all seriousness, i may just be bad, but it seems that the game puts you in lose-lose situations rather excessively whether by accident or design. this would be fine, and even ludothematically resonant with the utilitarian greater good and self-sacrifice themes often found in mecha and kaiju media, but a lose situation in this game means losing one of your three units (don't have them for the rest of a level and lose a pilot, who give critical benefits) or losing power (HP, you lose if it's 0). in other words minimizing losses in lose-lose situations is often just delaying a game over. and this is a permadeath roguelite.
i wish the defense grid mechanic was deterministic and just acted as a once-per-level (or multiple-per-level, if you upgrade it as you already can) shield/damage nullification for buildings rather than pure RNG. that seems like it would solve the problem completely, actually, and make the mechanic more in line with the determinism of the rest of the game.
...in all seriousness, i may just be bad, but it seems that the game puts you in lose-lose situations rather excessively whether by accident or design. this would be fine, and even ludothematically resonant with the utilitarian greater good and self-sacrifice themes often found in mecha and kaiju media, but a lose situation in this game means losing one of your three units (don't have them for the rest of a level and lose a pilot, who give critical benefits) or losing power (HP, you lose if it's 0). in other words minimizing losses in lose-lose situations is often just delaying a game over. and this is a permadeath roguelite.
i wish the defense grid mechanic was deterministic and just acted as a once-per-level (or multiple-per-level, if you upgrade it as you already can) shield/damage nullification for buildings rather than pure RNG. that seems like it would solve the problem completely, actually, and make the mechanic more in line with the determinism of the rest of the game.
the progression in this game isnt really for me, and thats fine!! the systems are so tight that ill prob come back to this a bunch anyway
A masterstroke of game design. It's a well-paced, well-polished puzzle tactics game about protecting buildings from telegraphed attacks in a grid. Various mechs have various abilities, including but not limited to knockbacks, pulls, freezes, teleports and reflects. All of these combined provide a rich gameplay experience, in which the player is incentivized to conjure up creative ways to block, disrupt, cancel or evade enemy attacks.
El mejor juego de estrategia de tablero de la historia
Sick addicting tactical roguelite, wish there was more.
Strong visual design, cracking soundtrack - but the tactical gameplay very quickly felt like a puzzle game and after a decent few hours I felt like Into the Breach wasn't offering me a lot more. Unlocking new unit types was a fun bit of feedback, but ultimately they never felt hugely different to play.
damn never-ending masterpiece
A masterclass in paring down tactics/strategy games to a core mechanic of repositioning units on a board. One of the most elegantly designed games ever.
I love tactical combat games, and this one is good. I didn't get to play it to much but I enjoyed it a lot.
Amazing strategy title.
Sadly, needed a lot of post-launch support to stay great.
Sadly, needed a lot of post-launch support to stay great.
I wish this game wasn't a roguelike and if you know my usual opinion on roguelikes (i like them) you know that's pretty rare
Very unique game. While I like it for the good gameplay, I'm not a big fan of turn based combat and this can be slightly infuriating. Additionally, it is more like a rogue, and it could be improved with constant progression as opposed to setting back to zero basically every time.