Baffling, boring, & disappointing. I’m not a particularly big fan of roguelikes anyway, but this tastes to me like the extra-salty bottom of the roguelike barrel.
Just as an example, Into The Breach’s small, chess-like levels seem like an obvious point of inspiration here, but the key thing that makes Into The Breach sing is your perfect, prophet-like foreknowledge of what the enemies will do each turn. Overland’s aliens, on the other hand, are inscrutable and random, revealing nothing. Other than just letting them kill my dudes over and over, I have no idea how I’m even meant to suss out their basic behaviors. How am I supposed to manuever through these tiny enemy-filled maps then? Unclear.
Invisible Inc’s emphasis on stealth over combat seems like the game’s other major touchstone, but likewise Invisible Inc has a super-clear visual language that tells you what actions are stealthy and which will raise alarm bells, while Overland’s stealth system amounts to a vague and inconsistent noise indicator that blips after you’ve already effed up. What actions cause noise? Seemingly goddamn everything.
In their attempt to make a minimalistic tactics game, it seems like Finji stripped out everything that would actually make the game… you know, fun? Fun to do? Instead it presents players with a dull, impenetrable wasteland slog that seems to punish you for taking anything other than the dullest, most risk-averse path through every level. And then, hours down the road, it then punishes you for not taking more risks. No carrots anywhere, just small sticks now or big sticks later. But maybe you’ll get more lucky on your next run!
Nope. No thanks. I’m good, actually.
\ [Apple Arcade ranked \]
Just as an example, Into The Breach’s small, chess-like levels seem like an obvious point of inspiration here, but the key thing that makes Into The Breach sing is your perfect, prophet-like foreknowledge of what the enemies will do each turn. Overland’s aliens, on the other hand, are inscrutable and random, revealing nothing. Other than just letting them kill my dudes over and over, I have no idea how I’m even meant to suss out their basic behaviors. How am I supposed to manuever through these tiny enemy-filled maps then? Unclear.
Invisible Inc’s emphasis on stealth over combat seems like the game’s other major touchstone, but likewise Invisible Inc has a super-clear visual language that tells you what actions are stealthy and which will raise alarm bells, while Overland’s stealth system amounts to a vague and inconsistent noise indicator that blips after you’ve already effed up. What actions cause noise? Seemingly goddamn everything.
In their attempt to make a minimalistic tactics game, it seems like Finji stripped out everything that would actually make the game… you know, fun? Fun to do? Instead it presents players with a dull, impenetrable wasteland slog that seems to punish you for taking anything other than the dullest, most risk-averse path through every level. And then, hours down the road, it then punishes you for not taking more risks. No carrots anywhere, just small sticks now or big sticks later. But maybe you’ll get more lucky on your next run!
Nope. No thanks. I’m good, actually.
\ [Apple Arcade ranked \]