Análises recentes de Felix

I have my issues with the DLC, but the amount of people who have taken literally no time at all to do a minimal amount of research and are just spreading misinformation in the reviews is concerning.

In mission saves are available through custom difficulty, and the custom difficulty system is great to tune the game to your liking and skill level. But it's a campaign made to be played in a rogue-like fashion, and the between mission reinforcement opportunities are extremely plentiful and generous.

I think people are still stuck in the mindset of the original campaign where every unit is precious. While that is still true, to a point, one of the first sectors you unlock allows you to buy an Abrams MBT every single round, and the crew to man it.

Losses are expected, and acceptable, but they can still hurt. Veteran units are a precious resource, and there are hard decisions to be made about who you can afford to sacrifice to take a point, and who you can't afford to lose, even if pulling them back means losing a point.

The AI isn't the smartest, but it never was, and it's perfectly serviceable for the gameplay loop. Different mission types require different approaches, some favor turtling, and some you simply cannot afford to stand still for that long.

Variety is good, overall, but the DLC does suffer some of the imperfections of the base game, and some brand new issues.

The enemy spawn has spawn guards, which is a decent idea in theory but can be extremely punishing when obligatory capture points can be located very close to those spawns. But the enemy spawn is also marked with a great big "DANGER" arrow, so you know where to avoid, and which sight-lines are safe for a risky but doable capture. Still not ideal.

Legion airdrops can be frustrating, especially since they can trigger special mission events. One of my first defense scenarios was my main base, which has a special, somewhat scripted (Only loosely, really) defense sequence, which involves the enemy spawning in units in places that are definitely not it's spawn zone to flank you. This includes heavy units, such as tanks, which at that early stage of the campaign I was hardly equiped to deal with.

But despite taking heavy losses, perhaps half my infantry force and many precious vehicles, I did succeed and a few campaign days later my army had recovered.

This isn't the main campaign, you can lose a lot of units, even almost every single unit, and make a strong comeback. Think of it more like a game such a Rimworld, where the setbacks are part of the experience. Doesn't mean they can't be frustrating at times, and there are certainly things that could use improvement, but overall the experience is good, and the devs have been good at communicating with the player base.

The gameplay is somewhere between the base game and the legion DLC, where losing units isn't free, but isn't extremely punishing either. Makes for a fresh gameplay loop, and I'm having a ton of fun with it.

Previous Review below for reference

It's been a bit over a month since release, and a lot has happened. 1.2 just came out, revising the AI and campaign difficulty to offer a much more engaging experience. I've been greatly enjoying my second playthrough so far.

Minor issues still exist. The Icefang I believe is supposed to have a penetration mechanic which is still not implemented, but most of the missing/bugged unique units have been added and fixed.

But the devs have proven that the game is not abandonware, and that they're working hard to bring this product up to standard. Does that excuse the launch state? Not at all.

But value-for-money wise right now, I'd say the game has gotten there, and with more improvements coming fast, it's only going to get better. I now feel comfortable recommending fans of the genre give this game a go, and even if this is your first 'advance wars' like, I'd say it's a good entry point to the genre.

----Previous Review----
Maybe.

In a few days, a few weeks, this will be a recommend.

But despite a day one patch fixing a few completely game breaking bugs, what is here is clearly not what is advertised.
There is no functional multiplayer, no skirmish against AI, only the campaign and an editor that you can make maps with no support for then playing them.

And in the campaign, the one thing that's functional at launch, there are several major issues.
The orange faction has a flame tank, but it looks and functions like a bike, except the damage modifiers are a flame tank.
The ice faction has a railgun tank, except it looks like a normal tank, and doesn't even have battle animations. At least the 'flame tank' has the same battle animation as the bike.

I've experienced units dying, yet still blocking tiles. Two of the blue faction commanders both have the orbital strike ability for some reason, even though the dialouge seems to imply Raven should have an ability that has to do with fog of war or something similar. One can only assume it's like this because the enemy AI like straight up ignores fog of war, so it simply doesn't work in the campaign as an ability.

But even with these bugs and straight up incomplete content fixed, we're still left with the store page making claims that don't seem to currently be even planned to be implemented. No commander passives, no skirmish.

And you know what? It's a shame. Because I just spent 4 hours playing non-stop because the game is FUN. The mechanics are solid, the gameplay is good, the ideas are GREAT. Everything here makes for a perfect package, ASSUMING YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR, which you do not at the moment. Right now, literally 70% of the game is inaccessible either due to bugs or missing content.

It feels like they shipped the wrong version of the game. This is clearly early access, unless they've got a version with all these issues fixed laying on a shelf somewhere forgotten.

I'll keep an eye out, I really will, and in a few days or weeks, maybe I'll get back to it. But for the time being, I'm requesting a refund, and I'm suggesting you wait until the game lives up to it's promises, because believe me, it is an absolute gem, even with these edges yet to be properly shined. I truly hope they iron out the kinks, because it would be a shame to let such a great game fall prone to such horrific issues.

It's an interesting game, and every update I'll play a few hours only to meet some kind of frustration that makes me think "Well, I'll stop playing now so I don't burn out on a version of the game that's less than what I'll be able to play after the next patch." The game is playable, but not the same kind of captivating that other games in the genre can be, and the frustrations can be really minor things that'd be easy to fix with a bit of play-testing and taking feedback from the community.

Here's an example:
Food production. While scavenging is an important part of keeping your community running, you should be able to stop scavenging and support yourself with farming and cooking if the situation requires. But as it stands right now, you need something like 1 cook for every 5 survivors, and maybe 2 in 5 farming to supply the cookhouse, when the weather is good, and even more farming when the winter more than halves your rate of production. That leaves, for example in a community of 100, 40 people to do other odd jobs. Between scavving, kindergarden, medical, wall guards, research (Which you need in the late game to keep up with vaccines), you're left with precious few people, if any, that can go on expeditions and other 'optional' stuff to grow.

Just sustaining what you have is a struggle. And in some aspects it should be, but having scores of your people starve despite having more than half your people working on food is ridiculous.

And that's just a single balance issue. But there are dozens of similar issues that offer the same frustrations. Keeping your community running should feel like a challenge, not a chore.

But the underlying framework and gameplay loop is a lot of fun, and engaging. And then you run out of food, or have a full squad of 4 people armed with shotguns wiped out by a single moose, or suddenly have 200 dogs appearing at the edge of the map with little to no warning and you're left not wanting to keep playing.

I felt the need to write a review, since a lot of the prominent negative reviews seem to hit on the same sort of point: The difficulty curve.
Now, if you've ever played a game like Freelancer, you know what you'll be dealing with coming into this title. This is not a game in which you beeline for the story, nor does the game imply that you should, though you can. At several points the game encourages you subtly to take a break from the main story, grow your fleet, and then come back. If you chose to ignore that, then yes, it will be very difficult.
But it's not grindy. You're able to very quickly assemble a decent fleet using the starting shipyard, if you so wish, and using that shipyard is extremely cheap.

The shipbuilding is super interesting, the story is serviceable, and the combat is pretty good. 80% of the fight is dictated before the battle even starts, but don't underestimate that last 20%, if you play to the strengths of the ships you yourself design, you can punch well above your weight.

If you're yearning for a game that offers the freedom of something like Freelancer with the airship building mechanics of something like Conquer the Skies, and classic ship of the line combat? Honestly, this game is the sweet spot, and the devs are fantastic at listening to the community and improving the quality of life for the players.

I love this game. I do.
But Gaijin needs to get their ♥♥♥♥ together and actually start cooperating with the community properly.
There are games out there with a similar model that don't have to predate on their players to run a profit.

Silver Lion drains are not fun, are not helpful for game balance, and absolutely drive people away.
I don't mind the research grind, I don't mind the premium vehicles, hell, I can even live with some of the most fun vehicles being premium only. But the fact that someone can play a round, and end up with less SL than before they played that match? Unacceptable, simple up. And the fact that it's been like this for years, and that Gaijin are slowly but surely trying to make it worse? Nah, this frog won't boil.

This ♥♥♥♥ has been a problem for years, and their absolutely disrespectful behavior has finally come to bite them, this community is at it's boiling point. Do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ better, you've got an awesome base game which people only despise because of horrible monetization tactics.

I've played for about 3 hours and I've already seen all the content the game has to offer.
Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily, it's a cute little sci-fi mount and blade experience, with a few bugs. But it's very playable, and pretty fun. I hope there's some kind of roadmap, I'd adore to see more content. What's here is good and cute, but between 4 mechs, 12 settlements, and maybe 20 something battle maps, it's a tight package at this time.

There's a good variety of weapons, especially for the mechs. Commander weapons seem to be the same as your soldiers, except amped up. They vary from absolutely worthless (The Stinger, firing 3 rockets that go nowhere near where you point them and do very little splash) to making you a one man army, even without the mech. (Incendiary grenade launcher stands out as an insanely strong weapon.)

I suggest keeping army size around the recommended 25, up to 50. Above that the game gets unstable. I played most of my game on 50, and it ran well. I tried 75 once, and it instantly crashed.

Once you get a mech, a couple good weapons for it, and some of the later call-ins, you're basically free winning every battle. The opponent gets no mechs, no abilities, and no commander. Just soldiers, and in sieges, relatively weak turrets.

It feels like a demo for a larger game, but... In a good way? It's fun, it has some cool concepts, but I wish it had more meat. But hey, if I find myself wanting more, then I can't really say anything but yeah, it was fun. Just know what you're getting into. When you finish the campaign it gives you an objective that sounds like it'll take you to another planet, to see more content, but once you actually activate it, it just ends the game.

With the full release right around the corner, now's as good a time as any to give a crack at recommending this game.
This is Ace Combat but for ships.
That's my recommendation. If you enjoy arcade vehicle action, this is an amazing buy. The ship creator is surprisingly detailed, and you can make some super interesting designs, anywhere from believable modern vessels from the WW2 era, to cold war and beyond, to some truly zany sci fi stuff. And it'll all be effective, you can make anything work with a little clever design.
The story campaign is enjoyable, but light-weight, though with characters I found myself wanting more of. The character writing is excellent, the story writing as a whole is workable. Nothing groundbreaking, but serviceable.
If anything I'm left wanting for more, not because the game is short, especially with more story missions coming with 1.0, but because the ship creator is so fun to toy around with, I find myself replaying the campaign several times just to try out new designs, and it would just be... Nice to have more missions! Here's hoping there'll be more content added via DLC or updates after release, but as a product already now, it's worth picking up and playing, and will give you a couple dozen hours of entertainment for sure.

Game is decidedly not ready for a full release.
In the last half a year they've been rushing out half done features in an attempt to label the game "Feature complete"
While some of the progress is impressive, and the support for the game is still extant, I worry for how long that will last.
The game is not in a playable state right now, it's a tech demo. The loading times are horrendous, you'll be stuck with a game that is either frozen, or feels that way.
When the campaign was just Europe, it was actually decently playable. But then they expanded the map, didn't bother to optimize, and we're now stuck with something akin to Warhammer Total War before the Potion of Speed update.

This is a gem in the rough. And that's important. Below the rough surface is something I truly believe could be, has been, might once more be, amazing. But I can't play the game right now, and I could in the past. And that's unacceptable.
If you're interested, wishlist it, follow the development progress, see what happens. But in it's current state, it's not even worth playing for 2 hours and getting a refund. You will not have fun.

This game is one of the best, if not straight up the best, airport building and management games out right now. And that's as is, in early access. It's getting weekly updates to fix bugs, and content updates pretty regularly too. This is obviously a passion project, and I can't wait to see it improve.
It's pretty buggy, but super playable. It's got tens of hours of content, and I'd say once this nears 1.0 release it'll have hundreds. Big thumbs up from me.

I'm really enjoying the game so far!

Fights are brutal and you die really quickly if you don't play them smart. Controls can be a bit finicky at first but I found that I got used to them after a while, playing mouse and keyboard even.

The developer is super responsive as well, there's a few bugs right now but I doubt they'll stick around for long.