Combining ustwo games's striking visual design with dodgeball with XCOM seems like a winning strategy, and it certainly at least in part does succeed, but there are some confusing game design decisions which hinder this game from fully winning me over. The core turn-based tactics gameplay is satisfying and fun, but the roguelite elements are completely pointless. It's a purely story focused game, meaning each run will trigger the same story cutscenes and dialogue, giving no purpose to repeated runs. The attributes also aren't different enough to make different loadouts feel materially different aside from small tweaks to playstyle. To top it all off, the one time I died it just let me take a shortcut to the chapter I died in... so why even have the roguelite elements? It seems like these elements may have constrained the stage design, and that ustwo games would have been better served to focus on creating more interesting and bespoke stage-specific challenges. Additionally, the game is quite short, running at only about two and a half hours. There's a good amount to love here, but these things do hold back the game from greatness.