This game was great! If you're coming here from XCOM, know that this game is less about dealing raw damage to people, and more about figuring out how to shuffle them around the room and through a nearby window. I find this puzzle-y approach to be very fun. Planning out your turns is quite satisfying, mostly thanks to the story-contextualized undo button (you're a time wizard who can see the future, which is just plain cool). It works quickly and flawlessly, so you can easily try different tactics until you get something you like. You can pull off some absolutely insane moves that defeat 6 enemies in a single turn, and that really tickles my brain.

But what I really didn't expect to fall in love with was the story. I love the characters and the worldbuilding so much. The dialogue is all at once silly, witty, meta, and powerful. The hunt-and-chase nature of the story combined with the stringboard minigame really kept me engaged. It also has multiple significant twists and turns, with my favorites being when Zan didn't actually save the target, and every button on the UI is changed to something about failure and that Rion is actually a dog. The creativity of everyday objects being crudely mashed together with fantasy artifacts is amazing. My wife says she wants to cosplay every character. The art style is very stylish and appealing. I really can't sing the praises of this game's aesthetic enough.

Back to gameplay, I would say the it leans pretty heavily on the side of being too easy most of the time, but that's not inherently a bad thing. The Confidence bonus objectives do help spice up the challenge. Even though the campaign is finite and there are no procedurally-generated missions, the levels are actually quite replayable because they feel like puzzles with multiple ways to approach them. Plus there are some "endless" missions where you get to see how long you can survive for.

I highly recommend this. It's one of my favorite games I've played this year.

This game was great! If you're coming here from XCOM, know that this game is less about dealing raw damage to people, and more about figuring out how to shuffle them around the room and through a nearby window. I find this puzzle-y approach to be very fun. Planning out your turns is quite satisfying, mostly thanks to the story-contextualized undo button (you're a time wizard who can see the future, which is just plain cool). It works quickly and flawlessly, so you can easily try different tactics until you get something you like. You can pull off some absolutely insane moves that defeat 6 enemies in a single turn, and that really tickles my brain. But what I really didn't expect to fall in love with was the story. I love the characters and the worldbuilding so much. The dialogue is all at once silly, witty, meta, and powerful. The hunt-and-chase nature of the story combined with the stringboard minigame really kept me engaged. It also has multiple significant twists and turns, with my favorites being when [spoiler]Zan didn't actually save the target, and every button on the UI is changed to something about failure[/spoiler] and that [spoiler]Rion is actually a dog.[/spoiler] The creativity of everyday objects being crudely mashed together with fantasy artifacts is amazing. My wife says she wants to cosplay every character. The art style is very stylish and appealing. I really can't sing the praises of this game's aesthetic enough. Back to gameplay, I would say the it leans pretty heavily on the side of being too easy most of the time, but that's not inherently a bad thing. The Confidence bonus objectives do help spice up the challenge. Even though the campaign is finite and there are no procedurally-generated missions, the levels are actually quite replayable because they feel like puzzles with multiple ways to approach them. Plus there are some "endless" missions where you get to see how long you can survive for. I highly recommend this. It's one of my favorite games I've played this year.