I liked Wesnoth at first, but it tended to end up being a game of “take no risks whatsoever and inch your units along”. There’s surprisingly few options available, so every stage tends to end up being the same tedious micromanagement. The game would probably be more fun if you always had specific units and got to develop them more.
Oh hey, timely bump. I’ve had an itch for some sort of turn-based tactical gameplay that I haven’t been able to scratch, and there’s an end-of-summer sale at the Humble Store… Just picked up Shadowrun (Returns, Dragonfall, and Hong Kong) for $10.
I tried Massive Chalice, since it has been described like a combination of some of my favorite games (Xcom plus Crusader Kings eugenics!) but somehow it just didn’t grab me. The setting wasn’t even a little compelling (defend FANTASY REALM ruled by RANDOMLY GENERATED CHARACTERS from MONSTERS), and the gameplay in the first few matches was tedious. I suppose it might get interesting once you’ve got a breeding program capable of producing powerful and versatile heroes, but at the beginning you’ve got a random grab-bag of weak heroes, creeping across a map to pick off weak enemies.
Valkyria Chronicles is very cool and unique, but I find it better to think of as a sort of puzzle game. I started playing it like a grognard’s hex-based WW2 tactical game, since it had a tank and everything. But it simply doesn’t let you do that! Each turn, you get a limited number of moves that you can distribute among all the characters however you want, including giving them all to one character (though there are IIRC there are movement penalties after the first or second move). You just don’t get enough points to move everyone up a cohesive formation. Besides, a lot of maps have insta-death ambushes, and aren’t winnable once you lose one or two critical characters (like the only anti-tank character you have on one side of the map).
The game also gives you a grade which is practically begging you to save-scum and exploit the hell out of the mechanics. Moderately aggressive approach with a few cannon-fodder casualties? That’s a D-. Super cautious, slow approach with no casualties? Eh, C-. Permanent death of one of the major characters? Start the mission over now, there are future missions that can’t be won without them. To get an A on some missions, you have to avoid every single enemy ambush, and get to the goal in a short time.
For example, in the mid-game there’s a big open-desert tank battle. The optimal strategy, as in the only way to get an A and some special equipment rewards, basically requires taking a single scout along the edge of the map in a single turn, so they can spend the next turn killing all the tanks by walking up behind them and shooting them in a vulnerable spot with an ordinary rifle. There is supporting infantry, but if you know where they are you can drop grenades on their trench, or simply avoid or steer the 45 degree cone where they can shoot during your turn.
Given the gamey tactics that are necessary, I find it easier to think of each scenario as a puzzle. There is one right way to beat each one, with very small tolerance for mistakes or bad luck, and finding it requires multiple tries and savescumming (since you technically get only one try at the story missions). It’s still a lot of fun though, particularly once you find the way to untie a knot of enemies in a fortified position that have been slaughtering you in the first few attempts…
Way confused by these two comments.
Wesnoth has a HUGE random component to it - namely, whether your units hit or not. I’ve heard LOTS of people complain that this game is TOO MUCH about the random numbers, because you can miss and 90% ATK or get hit three times when each attack only had a 30% chance to hit, and that can screw you over. But you can totally save scum it if you want.
Also, I’m confused by smiling bandit’s comment - I distinctly remember that during most of the campaigns in Wesnoth, you totally got to carry all your units forward, so you could definitely develop them?
Technically true, but not especially meaningful. Units are just generic classes. Promotions are mostly just “get mechanically better,” with an occasional opportunity to do a sidegrade with some minor change. In the end, however, units are generic and carrying them over is often a waste of time anyway, since they cost more and are it’s often easier to promote units in battle. Additionally, units have fairly boring abilities - just melee attack, ranged attack, and maybe a heal. Anything with interesting depth is pretty rare.
I would have preferred that it take a step towards having well-developed, individualized characters with interesting abilities. That doesn’t mean you can’t like it, but it does mean that I didn’t enjoy it for that reason. The reason this is an issue for me is that it makes every battle play out the same. Yes, you may have a more advanced unit or two in a battle, but once somebody has been leveled once or twice, you want to rotate other units in to level them anyway. Additionally, it doesn’t matter that much. A few starter units can overwhelm a high-level one, and when you throw in the additional cost of high-level units, you get a design with few challenges. It’s one of the blandest and least interesting tactical games I’ve seen yet; far short of the original Tactics Ogre, for instance.
Update from OP:
First of all, thanks again everyone – probably half of my free time since I started this thread was taken care of by this thread.
Shadowrun Returns: really, really liked. Hong Kong version, not so much. Not sure why. Not as into the story, maybe.
XCOM 2 IS THE BEST GAME. Oh man. I figured out some of the basic tactics that are required, and just a general notion of how the different missions played out, and I was super into it before long. I may have also opened the console at some point.
Wesnoth I bounced off of very soon. I need to go back to it, probably. I’m thinking, given what I’ve liked so far and what I haven’t immediately, that I need a good narrative premise for why I’m learning the system, and then I learn the system, and then I like it because of the system. Wesnoth didn’t grab my interest right away because of the genericisity that you mention, smiling bandit. I also really like the idea that this is my spearman Jorge, who I developed to be a first strike massive damage type, this is my area of effect person, etc., and that all those people have identities. XCOM was so good at that. So good. The best. XCOM was really the best, believe me.
[QUOTE=Wolverine]
Massive Chalice for the PC was released around the time of Banner Saga and is also quite good. I liked the overall game of Banner Saga better, but I prefered the gameplay of Massive Chalice.
[/QUOTE]
Completely agreed. Massive Chalice was super fun for a while, and then at some point I realized I hadn’t loaded it up for a couple weeks, and that was it. The same narrative issues, maybe. But the battles and the ability to tweak your heroes was really cool until the overall experience got stale.