Recent reviews by Disciple.

I got this game as part of a bundle. The graphics looked kind of cool.

Now, having only played 22 minutes, it feels like a bare-bones experience. The dialog is not voiced, so its almost like playing a text-based RPG from the old days.

The combat itself felt rather dull. There is little animation to speak of, you might as well be reading it from a log.

I just knew very quickly it is not my cup of tea. It looks nice in pictures, but once you get into the game, you're confronted with the lack of voiced dialog, the bland music, the lacking animations, it is simply not there. I am not sure with what kind of budget this game was made, but I feel some aspects could have used some more attention.

I would NOT recommend buying this game without consulting gameplay footage first.

*** Introductory remarks:

Ah, the banner saga! I saw some screenshots, realized it looked similar to my beloved tactics ogre: LUCT for the SNES, and decided to buy it ASAP. How does it play out?

Well, the first thing I must tell you, is that the banner saga takes me back. It takes me back to a time with unskippable credits, no manual saving besides "checkpoints", and maps where units in a square can't attack diagonally. Why, oh, why have you decided to do this!?

With this obligatory snarky remark aside, let's talk business: The banner saga plays just alright. It has some good things, and some bad things. I make the distinction between alright and good because the bad things take away enough from it that it doesn't make the cut. But don't get me wrong, I still had fun.

For better or worse, the banner saga sets out to be different. They have a system for Armor/Health that I've not seen before, the turns system is markedly different from most other games from this genre, so on, and so forth.

*** The game mechanics and combat:

This game features the following stats for its units: armor, strength, willpower, exertion, break, and both a passive and active ability for each character/class. One interesting thing about this title is the armor/strength duo. Strength doubles as both attack force and health. Armor subtracts from direct damage to strength. Strength cannot directly attack armor; another stat is used (the break stat). Willpower is limited, it doesn't renew during the battle, except by killing or niche actions. It allows for moving further, increasing an attack’s damage, or increasing the break value of an attack, At the expense of the willpower itself.

Now the implications are the following: good breakers are just as needed as good strong troops, otherwise if you cannot break the armor, you cannot inflict damage. Strong units also need to be kept in good shape, otherwise their damage potential sinks lower and lower, until there is no distinction at all between units, if they all have been lowered to 1 strength.

It's a... different system. I'm of the opinion that "It just works” once you adapt to it. I have no complaints about this system.

Now one of the less charming aspects of the title come in the form of its turn system. It uses the individual turn-based combat we've known from forever, but with a twist on it: Each team gets a guaranteed turn, until there is only 1 unit on the field for the losing team.

The implication of this system is that it actively pushes you to wound, and not kill, enemies. If you kill them outright, what you do is speed up all the other units on the enemy team. If you've killed 4 out of 6 enemies, taking wounds in the process, but you left two untouched, you're now in a bad position. Those two become the biggest threat because they get 3 turns before each of your characters moves twice. If their stats are full, whilst your team has taken damage, you could find yourself losing quickly.

I am not a fan of this system. It makes no distinction between massive, slow units, and other units that should in theory be faster. The meta game becomes dropping each enemy to 1 strength, until you've done the same to the entire opposing team, and then start killing. It is nonsensical.

Realistically speaking, those enemies could still distract you, or pick up a sword and kill you; In the context of the game, they can still physically block you, and they can still strip off your armor every turn they get. Some enemies can have a high break stat, so you could be looking at -3 armor per turn, which eventually will become direct damage to strength if you aren't quick enough,

I really cannot justify the guaranteed turn system. The simple, time-proven individual turn based would have worked just fine, and it would result in a less nonsensical meta. The only justification I can think of is that the game wants to scream: "look at me, I'm DIFFERENT", and thus attract people that way.

*** The campaign, game length, replayability and fun factor.

The campaign in the banner saga takes place in two separate story arcs, so you'll have different characters for each. I was disappointed in the fact that, despite your caravan being made up of fighters and Varl, at no point you can pick any of them to become a certain warrior of a certain class. The parties are not precisely balanced or well rounded, so you might find yourself wanting to play with a certain unit, just to find you are unable to for most of the game.

There is nothing besides the campaign itself. There is not a skirmish mode, not a free roam mode, not a custom battle mode, nor a multiplayer mode. The game features a full game map, but you can only click and read descriptions. The lack of skirmish or custom battle is just a huge, wasted opportunity really. You only can simulate a fight within the context of the campaign, in the training tent, but that bounds it to your current party members, their current stats and leveling, and your current items. You cannot play with stats you didn't level, and you cannot play with classes you don't have at that time in the campaign.

The game features a choice and consequence system. With up to 5 choices each event. Sometimes you gain renown, lose caravan members, or even suffer the death of an important character. This last one did leave an impression on me, as I found it rather harsh.

Consider this: A character cannot die in battle, ever. However, they can die in a selection screen with choices from A to E. Sometimes, 3 of these choices can lead to a death, and only 1 of them to them living. The choices aren't as obvious as you might think, either. By the end of my first run, I had lost 4 people, and I was starting to get frustrated at the ease the game just killed my characters.

I must mention that this game runs on a single currency called renown. Renown is gained through battles, and some events, and it exists in a finite amount in the game. You need renown to do anything, from buying supplies for your caravan, to buying artifacts, to leveling your characters.

If a character dies, all the renown spent, and any item equipped also goes away with it.

Finally, game length: I got 12 hours of play from the banner saga, before beating the game on a blind playthrough. Because there is no multiplayer nor skirmish, this is all you get. I did find myself wanting another run, this time on hard difficulty, but with a written guide at hand, to avoid my characters dying on a dice roll. This second playthrough bumped my game time to 25 hours.

I would recommend checking out this game, because in the final equation it still checks out as "alright". I must say, however, that the systems in it might not appeal to everybody. My personal recommendation would be to wait for a sale, because I did find the game to be remarkably short.

I wish this was a better game. Sadly, it is not. Fallout tactics is an OK Fallout game, but an absolutely horrible tactics game.

First, let me get some disclaimers out of the way:

1) Some people took issue with this game not being “fallout” enough or taking some liberties with the lore. I have zero complaints regarding the lore or the Fallout element, so this review is purely a gameplay and mechanical review.

2) As a side note, I want the reader to know that the fallout series is my favorite game-series to ever exist, and I’m also a huge fan of tactical games, I played many of them as a child, and have loved such genre since then. Some of my all-time favorites include Tactics ogre: LUTC for the SNES, and Brigandine. I am also very Fond of XCOM 1 and 2.

3) Finally, this review will contain very minor spoilers, in the form of [Enemy] (Not detailing who, or what) does This [Very vague and general description of a situation]

Having gotten all this out of the way, let me tell you why Fallout Tactics is a bad game.
The problems of this game are many. I believe the problem areas could be categorized as such:

A) Core Gameplay Design and Map and Level Design.
B) Impacts of the design choices and game pacing and progression.
C) Gameplay loop and Fun Element.

Let’s break these down:

A) Core Gameplay Design and Map and Level Design.

The Most Glaring and frustrating flaw of this game is that, there just simply is not much of a tactical element to it, despite what the name suggests.
Most of this game is extremely railroaded. The design is such, that to get from area A to area D, you must use a single entrance to area B, and another single entrance to area C, to finally find a single entrance to area D. 95% of the time, there are no alternate routes.
To add insult to injury, not only do you have to follow this extremely linear design, but you will also find entrenched enemies during your path, with absolutely no way to take them out other than a frontal assault. This scenario repeats over, and over, on every level, until it is the only thing you are doing.

This problem is mild at first, but eventually as the game progresses, this gets increasingly difficult and ever more so irritating to do. The few (and believe me, they are few) alternatives you might have to deal with this situation get smaller and smaller.
Let me describe a common situation on Fallout tactics.

Let’s assume that in this one mission, you have only 10 heavily entrenched enemies that will not move their positions no matter what. What are your options?
One of the most obvious choices is that we could try throwing a grenade. To successfully do this, we will need a character with a throwing skill of 100+, otherwise he might get himself killed, and we would need a grenade, too. It is at this point, though, that a few problems arise;

The most basic of enemies will have an Hp pool of 30, later in the game being more like 80 to 150. The basic fragmentation grenade will do about 20 to 30 damage. So, we would need a dedicated grenadier character, 2 or 3 grenades to properly dispatch those enemies, in the best of cases or in the worst, we would need above 10 hand grenades. There is also the chance of missing, and the chance of our character hurting himself. Our guy needs to get in range too. He’s either going to need some good cover, some sneak (above 100 too), or some great resistances. Finally, we will need a direct line of sight to this enemy. The area of the grenade is not too big, and we cannot angle the shot or count on the grenade bouncing. It needs to be a straight line.

These entrenched enemies will have powerful weapons. Usually capable of killing your guy in one shot if he gets within range. After killing this enemy, there are 9 more.
What about luring this enemy out, or destroying his cover, or even good old flanking?
Well, luring him out or destroying his cover are not possible at all. Cover cannot be destroyed. And enemies with a gun will not ever, ever leave their post. Not if you launch grenades, rockets, not if you set them on fire. As long as he has a gun, he will stay there until death.

What about the flanking? Well, sometimes you do have the option to flank. This works if you have a distance long enough to put a sniper type character so that he can shoot without being hit back (remember, most of this enemies will kill you in very few attacks). Some other times, however, this will not be a possibility. Most of these encounters, happen in close quarters, with only one way in. There aren’t even many windows in the fallout world, so often this is a perfectly sealed square of death, with one way in, and one guy looking at the door ready to shoot you on burst fire.

Our options at this point, are sneaking someone in, or going with the frontal assault. We cannot lure him out, we cannot destroy his cover, and we cannot create a distraction or a tactical advantageous situation in any way. We also, cannot realistically expect to grenade down the 10 entrenched enemies on this mission.
Sneaking one guy in for a direct shot might provide a valid way of dealing with this problem during the early game.

As we advance in the game, we will simply not be able to kill this enemy before he is able to kill us with one shot. In order to kill him, we would need a damage output of at the very least 80, hopefully to 150-200 the further we progress. Resistances do apply, so our weapons will many times deal less damage that we would want. This whole situation is not doable with a single character.

This is both the case for the “real time” mode and the turn-based mode. If you approach on turn based, the enemies still get to hit you with an overwatch shot that trigger as soon as they spot you. There is no way to disable this overwatch, unlike in other games such as XCOM.

But really the problem with this situation is that we will not be facing a single enemy, nor two. It will be three. Or five. Five enemies, In perfect cover, In a perfectly sealed box / situation with one way in, with their overwatch shots, ready to kill anybody who steps in, the moment he does it. Often with burst weapons too.

We ultimately realize we have a single option. And that is a frontal assault. This clearly doesn’t work either. The best armor we can afford will not be nearly enough to save our characters. The only way we can pull this off is to use drugs. Because enough drugs will bring our resistance to normal damage to and above 100%, we will get a character that is invulnerable, and can be sent in to kill whoever is on our way.

Eventually in the game, he might get killed by explosive damage, or other damage that is not “regular damage”. At that point we still use the same tactic, but we mix in a good amount of saving and reloading, a hearty quantity of patience, and a “hope we get lucky” attitude.

This is the infuriating part. When you realize that there were very few options to begin with, and past the early game, only one works. You are no longer playing fallout tactics; you are playing a hack n’ slash / drug management simulator. The incidence of these situations doesn’t get smaller, it gets increased as you play along, until virtually every encounter is this.


Another huge problem is the map, and the angles of vision. The map cannot be rotated. Sometimes your vision is blocked by objects that shouldn’t block it, but in general it is very hard to know whether a character will have line of sight because the map is not grid based. Openings, if any, are small and work in weird ways. Sometimes you cannot even tell whether an enemy is on a second floor or not, due to the general wonkiness of the map and the vision.

**** (Review continues in the comments sections due to the character limit) ****

Sadly I bought this game as part of a bundle a while ago, after playing the pretty good starpoint gemini: warlords, but the issue at hand is, this game does not work for windows 10. Other than the tutorial, trying to start a game will result in a crash to desktop.

Having said that, from the 30 minutes I was able to experience this, the tutorial is horrendous. The instructor, that uses the exact same portrait as the default character (which is the only one available)(i.e: not great for immersion from the get-go) speaks in a barely audible russian-like voice and bombards you with information about the interface way before you need to use it. You have no way to check what he previously said either so you might have to go by trial and error after the information barrage ends and you need to actually do stuff.

This game feels extremely dated. Again, from the 30 minutes I could appreciate it, I had a huge rejection to the tutorial and the way it was presented. The character creation seems like it was done on MS paint! I had no problem getting into old games with shoddy graphics and clunky interfaces, but this was ridiculous. They might as well used a static portrait picture and leave it at that. It would have been much better.

I bought this just in order to get to know the story. Since it doesn't work on windows 10, now I'm stuck with this unuseable piece of software, that even if I wanted to push from my initial aversion and see what it has to offer, I can't.

Steam should not push games that don't run on the de-facto operative system.

When I first acquired The Forest, I did so with little expectations, as I had read about some bugs and whatnot, and I simply wanted the standard survival experience, crafting, base-building and all the other add-ons standard to this genre.

I was extremely and very pleasantly surprised once I got around to playing it. As of now, it'll probably be my most played survival game of 2020, competing only with No man's Sky in the same category and with a total time of 200 hours. Nonetheless, I acquired this game much later than the first title, and I'm not done yet with it.

But since this will be a positive review, I want to get the negative in front and out-of-the-way first:

You must be aware of two things: first, the game has a range of bugs ranging from comical, to game-breaking. I did not come across a wide array of them, but I did cross two particular instances where I was disappointed and frustrated. Nothing terrible, or life ending, yet frustrating enough to make me wonder why didn't they fix that. Now, when I say game-breaking, I mean that you might have one or a few of your structures disappear randomly. If you're in for the base-building aspect, or this is important to you as it is to me, this is very annoying. However this only became noticeable to me on my second playthrough, where I took on a massive building project.

And the second thing that you must be aware of is that the building system is pretty rudimentary. In this game, building is great fun, and there is a wide range of possibilities. Yet, the way on which you build is probably the worst one I've come across as of yet. With practice and possibly some searching you can learn how you can build all manners of bases in a workable way.

I think those are the two things that could potentially put you off from the game. Having said that, those were the only real problems I had with it: Two bugs and the weirdness of the building system, from there onwards, the rest is positive for me.

In my opinion, this game is a diamond in the rough, and it had the potential to be brilliant. It comes damn near close. It has everything I wanted. I have gotten an endless amount of fun out of it, but I am simply dumbfounded as to WHY didn't the developers give it just a little more time to polish off the bugs and systems and that really bring the title from a possible "phenomenal" to a "pretty damn fun, yet lacking the finishing touches".

So when I think of The Forest, I first see a solid foundation and all the right elements there. The gameplay is fun and engaging, the atmosphere of the game is executed properly, The crafting and building options are pretty satisfying, The design choices they made about gameplay are a much welcome break from a genre that has delved a little too deep into items that degrade and break after after using them 3 times and 10 status bars measuring different things. And finally, the story, although somewhat lite, manages to stay compelling and intriguing, something very difficult to do for a free-roam survival game.

I love this game. And it's why I'm absolutely puzzled about why it didn't get its deserved treatment. I can only guess, and hope, that the developers were simply too eager in working on the sequel straight away and that on that eagerness, or lack of resources, they decided to move forward a bit too early.

Thinking of titles similar to this game, in the sense of development cycle and final product received, I think of games like Star Wars KOTOR 2, Fallout 2, and Fallout: New Vegas. Games that were brilliant, but were rushed out the door a little too early. When it was clear that not all the details had been sorted yet. But that despite that, they managed to still be absolutely great regardless.

Now, for any fans of the survival genre, I would recommend checking out The Forest. If in doubt, maybe try it on a sale. I think the chances are that you will find a game that can be played for hours on end without the fun decreasing.

I could not describe the gameplay in a way that makes justice to it: I believe it's something you have to experience, or see (i.e: There's plenty of playthroughs on Youtube to get an idea of what the game is like, just make sure to avoid spoilers or out of date content), to get a good feeling of the game; It's why the review it's lacking such descriptions, but the gameplay loop of the game manages to stay fresh and fun after many hours in. After 200 hours, 195 of them in single player, I can testify to that. 

General comments:

It took me a painstaking 80 hours to finish the story mode, and I only toyed with the survival mode. Altought it was just even more frustrating than the story.

I wanted to like this game. I really wanted to, and I kept pushing forward in the hopes it would get better, but for me, it didn't.
The entire story mode is, at its core, a giant fetch quest. Altought due to how the game plays out, I doubt there is much more you could add in even if you wanted.

EDIT: The story Is *NOT* even finished, it is only at 60%!

I would describe it as a survival game on which you can only survive, and thats it. Your situation cannot ever get better because of design. The best possible situation would seem to be well stocked and to count with good clothes, but no more than that.

There are several design choices that either seem artificial, make the game frustrating, or break inmersion. Including, but not limited to:

* As soon as you aim a wolf, he makes a serpentine move and charges. They never do it under normal circumstances or at random, they just do it the very moment they are aimed at.
* You never get any sort of heat bonus whilst moving or sprinting outside.
* The severe lacks of tools on inhabited areas is pretty inmersion breaking. I had cross an entire region in order to get a hunting knife. On an "Inhabited" area in the Canadian Wilderness.
* The rate at which these tools degrade is also quite high.
* The lack of agency of the main character is pretty inmersion breaking. Why can't my character even use a sharp wooden stick as a weapon? Why can't my character not sleep indoors if there is no bed or bedroll?
* Character cannot craft a bedroll, should he need one.
* No jumping on a game where you have to avoid predators and climate.
* Although I haven't played survival yet, cabin fever is a ridiculous and artificial constraint.
* 30 kilos of carry weight for an adult male character. After discounting clothing, weapons, tools, food, water, medicine, and fire supplies, you're left with almost nothing.
* 2500 Calories a day / Having to eat an entire wolf (i.e: 3 kilos) worth of meat. Rather than the requirement being the problem, it's the yield of the entire animal. Even if accounting for only lean meat, it seems low.
* Why can't the character make fire with his own hands? This is possible. Maybe restrict it to only wind - sheltered areas and have it cost a proper time and calorie consuption.
* Despite my character outrunning bunnies, I cannot grab them by hand or swing melee weapons at them.
* Having the Forward-Time actions render you invulnerable to predators doesn't seem right.
* You can leave cooked meat in the unprotected snow and not only will it not get eaten by predators; it will conserve better.
* Medicines and canned food decay on a scale of days, whereas in reality they could and are designed to last years. Even a food item that explicitly says does not expire, does, in fact, expire, and give you food poisoning along the way.
* It's possible to get stuck if you "step" in the wrong place. Since you cannot jump and also a 3 inch ledge is enough to stop you dead on your tracks.
* Going against the wind slows you down, but going with the wind does nothing.
* If you thought wolves are bad, just wait till you meet timberwolves.

Tool degradation:

Let's assume you found a tool at 80% condition. Each use will take off 2 to 3% condition out of the tool. The equipment needed to repair them can be pretty rare depending on the tool itself. This problem is also amplified by the fact that below 30%, the tool might instantly break in a single use. Not only that, the repair equipment might also break below 30% condition.
Repairing will net you a 3 to 5% increase in condition, for a maximum of 20 uses if it does not break prematurely.

Considering tools have many uses including fending off wolves, if you are unwise about their use, it might take you traversing many regions before finding or crafting a replacement,

The lingering thought on my head of how much uses my tools had before breaking never went away. This made for miserable gameplay. Given how hard is to replace them and how essential they can be.

Crafting:

The whole crafting in this game is pretty limited. On the story mode, all recipes seem to be locked behind story progression or quests, even basic stuff that should not be locked off.

Then on the normal mode, is again very limited.
First off, tools. You don't craft those unless you have the right fuel, the right materials, find yourself an actual forge, and count with the hammer for the forge. There are a counted number of forges on the entire world, so to make a replacement for a tool, you might need to travel entire regions.

Second is clothing. All animal clothing will require a lot of time and harvesting of parts, furthermore; this clothing is extremely heavy and might not be that great at all in comparison to normal clothes. Repairing this clothing will also require more animal parts for each repair.

Third is common sense stuff. No craftable regular bedrolls. Found a sheltered area and its nightime? well, you cannot sleep without those. No improvised weapons or tools besides the ones bound to the forge. Using a sharp stick as defense, or a sharp piece of metal to cut does not cross the character's mind.

Housing and living:

You can only squat at a certain location at a given time but that's it. You cannot, say, add containers, or modify your home in any way. which brings me to the living part.

A BIG part of the time is going to be spent just hoarding firewood, food and supplies. You'll want to store your cooked food outside in a container or just drop it in the snow. It doesn't attract predators and that way it will conserve much better. It will also never dissapear. It's completely safe.

Canned food or medicines do not have the same luck. They decay at a pretty fast rate despite that not being consistent.
For your wood, you'll want to use sticks, coal, or renewable sources really. What you really don't want to do is use the hatchet for actual firewood because you'll damage its condition. Don't use too much coal either because that's for forging and altought renewable, hard to get.

Might have to spend entire days just waiting out the climate. It's generally a good idea to not go outside during a blizzard. So you'll want some supplies in case it happens. But be careful with spending too much time inside. Because you might contract cabin fever and you won't be able to sleep inside. You know what they say. Don't let your survival get in the way of your feelings.

This leads to stupid tactics like having a snow shelter right beside the home just to manage cabin fever.

During nightime, it is pitch black indoors. You cannot see a thing. Meaning if you are not careful, you will need to use your precious and limited matches just to find your damn bed. The game will also wake you up once you are "rested". Which can happen also in the middle of the night. So now you gotta waste 100 calories an hour passing time, or use another light source to find your way out, should your house count with an intrincate design.

The carry weight is very limited specially when you get decent clothing and a weapon. So you will be doing a lot of juggling around with the inventory and your 30 kg of capacity. You can carry a bit more, but you'll move slower and evnetually not be able to sprint or move at all.

If you fall 3 feet into the snow you might literally tear your clothing and sprain your ankle and wrist. If you climb a little hill or step wrongly into the railway lines, you might also sprain yourself because the player character seems to be an incompetent chump.

Despite all of this, the game is fine, it has its moments, but its a pretty niche adquired taste and should be treated as such. It should not be blindly recommended to anyone, even for people that like the survival genre, this one has many caveats to consider.

I enjoyed the new faction and the added difficulty. It can be pretty harsh at the start.

ALTOUGH, the scripting is pretty bad and some events might not trigger, depending on your actions or sometimes not your actions, with the result of bugging out the entire campaign.

I lost a total of 6 hours of progress in 2 occasions. It's important to save and save on different files.