Recent reviews by Milky

Couldn't make it more than 37 minutes because it was basically a perfect recreation of the time I had a psychotic episode lmfao.

Don't really enjoy the combat at all, but the rest of the game more than makes up for it. I bought it on the strength of the soundtrack alone and have enjoyed every second of the game itself. The actual in-combat gameplay is, eh, less than ideal. When it comes together it feels great, and the total party counters are really wonderful in particular, but I don't at all feel bad about shunting it down to story mode as I just could not get the rhythms down.

As someone who played the original and watched Advent Children but wasn't a massive fan or knew the various spin-offs and the intricate lore, I think Final Fantasy 7 Remake is pretty great. I think extending out Midgar into its own game works fairly well, and the writing generally carries the game. The gameplay is... not horrible, not great, and the game has a fair amount of padding. But the overall story carries it. Solid recommendation.

I like this a lot, but it's a tentative recommendation. It feels like a fun twist on the turn-based Heroes of Might and Magic formula, but a bit of the shine has worn off after about ten hours. That's not to say it's bad or I regret my purchase, but I feel there are issues that let the concept down.

First, the good. The world is interesting and the art style brings it to life. I really enjoy the card-based concept, both in battles and on the campaign map. The campaign storyline is fine, if not particularly intriguing. But that's about where the problems begin.

I've found the combat gameplay to be difficult to parse. It feels like it should be more strategic than it is. Units just kind of blob up, or hop around the battlefield, and it starts to feel almost random or too chaotic for much to really matter. The cards are fine, but you just kind of spam them when they're off cooldown. I feel like slower battles with a focus on positioning, and then using cards to break through lines or reinforce your units would've been better. As it is, it feels like they were going for that, and decided to make it too fast to really work how they wanted.

My real problem is with the difficulty spike from the fourth mission of the campaign onwards. I'd been doing pretty well on Balanced, which is the 'medium' difficulty, until that mission. It is exacerbated by it being your first mission with the Eyeless faction, whose spells and units aren't as intuitive with the Starborn. I feel like there's something of a trap in how the Starborn leader has a heal-and-resurrection spell, too, when the Eyeless abilities are less straightforward.

The story is fine, but not nearly interesting enough for the world they've built. The characters are fairly bland, and the bad guys feel generic. But it's okay. It does the job. Still, in a world of primordial constructs, the first sentient race being born without eyes, and a bizarre intra-dimensional death cult, it feels like there should've been something better here. The voice acting and music is likewise fine. Doesn't elevate the material but doesn't let it down, either.

Overall, I recommend ZEPHON, although it is a bit too combat-centric for my tastes. This wouldn't be such a bad thing, but the lore and worldbuilding (and overall presentation) of ZEPHON is so strong that the focus on combat feels like a disservice to the setting. It gives me Alpha Centauri vibes, in a good way. The NPC factions are interesting, and the titanic climax that the game builds to is exciting -- but, at the same time, the pacing of the game feels off.

One third of the game (Connor) is great, and two thirds of it (Kara, Markus) are okay-to-good. The socio-political commentary is utterly ham-fisted, and the plot borders on nonsensical, but the police procedural aspect and Connor's interactions with his partner, Hark, are very solid. There is also some pretty interesting uses of branching narrative and reactivity. Think of it like an interactive TV miniseries and you can't go far wrong. I bought it at a a discount and was very satisfied, although I'm not sure if it'd hold up for the full price.

Millennia has a lot of great ideas, but feels a little rough around the edges. I personally like things like the Age system and the National Spirit system, but the supply chain mechanic took a while to get used to (it isn't complex, just not really explained.) The combat is rough, too, which is exacerbated by how aggressive the AI is. I've really enjoyed the free weekend, and I keep coming back to Millennia and I'll probably buy it on discount, but there are minor things here and there that make you wish Millennia wasn't quite so micro-focused. The Age mechanic is a real highlight, whether that's taking the timeline down a darker path or reaching higher than humanity ever did. Great concepts, mixed execution, but worth a shot.

edit: With about twenty hours in on it, I've finally managed to understand what's going on, and I'm really liking it. It feels like it has a really big learning curve, which is a bit annoying, but overall I think I prefer this to Civ 5 and 6.

edit: I can't recommend this until they do something about the difficulty.

It's a fun game but, my God, they need to do something about the cutscenes. They're too slow and just seem to be vehicles for (bland) jokes instead of any kind of story or narrative? That's not to say they're not entertaining, but they're like five minutes long and they feel even longer. They're a real blemish on the game.

That said, I'm enjoying the game play a lot, even if it's not perfect. It'd be nice if there were a few QOL things implemented, such as reminding the player that they're not researching anything, and maybe even allowing you to auto-rebuild buildings.

edit: There are some extreme spikes in difficulty, and even as an RTS veteran playing on the *lowest difficulty setting*, some of the missions require you to play perfectly with aggressive, expansionist play and pinpoint timings. This is the biggest mark against the game, I think.

Solid recommendation. About the only negative I can really say is that it's over too soon. While I did not have an issue with the writing (I think it treats the concepts of tactical breach wizards with just the right tone), I do think it was coming right up to the very edge of what I'd start to find annoying at times. But all in all, I adored my time I spent with Tactical Breach Wizards, especially when compared to the previous tactical/puzzle game I played, Into the Breach, which I felt did not marry concept and gameplay sufficiently well enough.

Everything about this game makes it sound better than it is. While it appears to be a game about using temporal shenanigans to defeat alien monsters with mechs, that's really of a framing device than a theme, plot, or setting. The music is great, the graphics are nice, and the gameplay isn't bad... but it's also extremely limited. Pilots have a max of two (count 'em, 2) levels and mech customisation is extremely limited. The idea of sending a pilot back in time from each losing run doesn't feel much more than a band-aid on the fact that losing isn't fun. For every battle where I pulled off something clever, there were two where I was in an unwinnable situation.

The simplicity is, in many ways, its charm. But the game is so limited that just playing the default team feels like the best choice. Like most turn-based strategy games, the action economy is still key here, and for all the wild and wacky teams you can unlock and play, ultimately the basic team is very good at killing enemies and reducing their total number of actions. I really liked FTL and expected something with a similar feel, but Into the Breach is frustrating more than fun and is much more of a puzzle game than a turn-based tactics game about mech pilots hopping through doomed realities trying to find the golden timeline. FTL has to be a game about spaceships and their crew and an enemy fleet, Into the Breach isn't nearly similar at marrying gameplay and setting.

The moment-to-moment gameplay can be fun and gripping, but everything around it just feels unrealized. Unlocking new squads is tedious. Mech customization barely exists (and your best options are basically additional hp and movement), replay value is low unless you have a real drive to try out another team, pilots are unbalanced and also lack much in the way of making the player feel connected to them, there's absolutely no story, and given the scaling there's basically no incentive to push through the final two islands because you're basically an underdog from the start getting through the skin on your teeth -- why would you ever give the enemies even more tools to screw you over?

After enjoying FTL, I thought this game would have a bigger scope and the sci-fi elements would be more than set dressing. Had this game had the capability for greater pilot and mech customization, I think it could've been great. As it is, it's just a random puzzle generator that, honestly, felt more like a mobile game than something from the guys who made FTL.

Soundtrack is great, however, and the character dialogue is fun.