Recent reviews by Famout

A simple game about following cues for the right reactions! Pretty much if you enjoy Phoenix Wright style of visual novels where actions still matter this is a solid choice.

I would have preferred seeing a little bit more importance to the upgrades you can buy, but for the price and time the game asks for, it's solid!

Only rating no since there is not an option for "meh" and the game is already positive.

It's not bad, creative in a number of ways, and admittedly very nice style to it's artwork, but, well, most everything I enjoy about the story and design are held back by a fairly strong theme of 'sequel baiting' that leaves far too much unresolved.

Pros:
Fun characters, the banter is easily the best part of the game.
Good artwork, very pretty across the board.
Creative World building.
Creative battle ideas.
Knows it's limits and is a short game.

Cons:
Extreme sequel baiting. A lot of plot points are brought up that are never resolved or touched on! I'm OK for not explaining everything, but honestly? I think almost none of my questions are solved.
Game badly wants you to replay it, lots of 'make choices that affect dialog' moments, including some key bits that short of turning off steam saves, backing up files locally, and going back in, you need to replay the entire game for. This includes some critical dialog too for one of few questions semi-answered (and then creates more questions.)
Battle system is a bit rough, bosses almost always easier then random encounters, and likely would have done better as a turn based puzzle battler.

It's by no means offensive, but it does feel like a highly polished flash game in the end. I kinda hope they are successful enough to make a sequal that greatly improves on everything and make the second game everything I had hoped this one would be.

Tencent, Chinese super company funded by the CCP government just took a majority stake in Klei.

It is a shame since the game itself is great, but Tencent has been proven to use its connections to censor the companies it owns and controls. While I do not think Klei will have to worry about such censorship, supporting Tencent in any way supports those evil acts.

In the off chance this changes I will gladly delete this review, for now instead may I suggest looking at Rimworld for the colony survival itch?

TL;DR: If you enjoy the story of X-Com and it's world building along with the gameplay, this is a great choice. But if you only care about the gameplay this might be rough around the edges for you.

Just beat Chimera Squad and I greatly enjoyed it! Not a flawless game by any means though and figured I would give a little bit of a break down.

Before I go to pros/cons lets just get out of the way the type of game this is, Chimera Squad is a "spin off" title with a focus on how the world changed after X-Com 2. A good deal more story focused, but also smaller scale at the same time. I feel they pull it off, but it depends what you are after in a game.

Pros:
Troops have character now: each one has their own lines, leveling path, and creative options. For instance my two gremlin users are radically different, far more then the different support paths in X-Com 2.

Plot: X-Com 2 ends with the need for new rulers because of that massive world change, and the way X-Com fills the void, there is a lot of questions about how such a thing could work, and that's pretty much this game. While it has a story of it's own, the core experience is seeing all the stranded aliens working with humans to effectively rebuild civilization, despite the radical differences.

Lower Stakes: you can only save the world/universe so many times in games. It's nice to have a smaller scope, even if brief.

Less glitches? It's still certainly a Firaxis game, but I never felt the need to hope for patch updates fixing issues or the like. Most everything was cosmetic at worst, with a very select few instances where it wasn't.

Turn order system: no longer bound to moving everyone in one go, adds in a number of ways to adjust characters place in the turn order, and try to squeak out every edge possible.

Cutscene artstyle: The price tag alone is proof this game had a smaller dev team, but they managed to still have a very solid focus on art and story. The still images get things across nicely, and are very clean. It feels like they took a page from visual novels here and it works.

cons:
Too easy: The late game mostly, I played on expert and by the end there is so many methods to get %100 hits, extra turns, and generally just run the enemy over. The Multi-missions try to force you to use some of these tricks early on, but even then with good rationing your team is just a wreaking ball.

Limited team size: You only get recruits at certain milestones, each time you are given a small list from the total pool to select from, and you can't actually get everyone. It's meant to require more then one playthough, but feels a little rough.

Imbalanced Teammates: While most characters are fairly well balanced, there is cases like Verge where they always feel in second place. Why should I take a %70 on his stun, when Patchwork gets a %100 to deal damage and either stun/disorient? And as the late game picks up, characters like Claymore who can take out more then one foe a turn are just god tier.

Death is not an option: I failed a mission with a VIP being taken out by an exploding car. Normally I would say "that sucks" but muscle forward unless my game was ruined. Here that was instantly a game over. Same thing for troops dying. The cost of being story driven to be sure.

Turn order system: I feel it only works here because it's a spin off. I hope it does not return to the main series, sounds silly but it is a little too RPG like for my tastes in a game that's about tactical troop placement. There was something magical about carefully lining up my troops, and preparing 5 shots on a single target in case 3 of them missed.

In the end I do miss my squad of 6, and cursing at the rookie for panicking after another teammate starts to bleed out after a missed %95 shot, but a good bit of that still lives on here, and I am VERY interested how the next X-com game will stackup. After all, earth has some new allies now, who else wants to see the commander running a squad of aliens?

The pacing at the very start feels somewhat sudden, but once it finds its guidelines and you catch up it's wonderful Doom all over again. Most of the systems from 2016 are there with a coat of polish as well. The worst thing I can say for the game is it can be a little rude with some random enemy placements at times, but I easily forgive each time I enter an arena and go full rip and tear.

One warning, ALL the difficulties are unlocked from the start! Be sane, know thy limits.

A insane classic, great to actually understand the menus too. Solid From Software gameplay, crazy story and voice acting. Lets help this succeed so From Software makes something akin to it again.

So checking the other reviews it should be no surprise that this is "short" compared to the main game. That said it is still adorable, and more importantly gave a good way to pay them back for the great game they already made!

Now if more DLC comes out for the same price and length, I might change my tune, but for the time I put into Nekojishi and this pack, the price is perfectly fair to me.

Highly recommended, the game clearly takes inspiration from Star Trek and the Oregon Trail (along with many many others) but does a great job of making its own path as well. If you enjoy the choices in FTL, but wish they where more clear with more outcomes, this game is what you want.

In case you want to see more, have a first impressions video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YzBMmlgVhQ

Amazing voiceacting, amazing gameplay, amazing art, Give it a try!

It takes you back to the old arcade days of gameplay, when simple was better, and the urge to improve and show off was all that mattered. Anyone that wishes to challange themselves as a gamer should give this a try.