Tactical Breach Wizards

Based on a very silly premise, this game shows a surprising amount of depth. The writing is refreshingly great. Quirky, but in a good way, witty, sharp and surprisingly insightful. Some might consider this to be too on the nose with the recent uptick in Marvel writing - but for me it worked, because it's not making silly things too serious and serious things too silly. I can't explain it, but I think these guys know how to balance the humor with serious plot stuff, and they also have their own style that differentiates itself from the wannabe Marvel clones. The gameplay is also a very strong part of this game. Carefully crafted skillsets, levels that are both puzzles and battlegrounds, simple but deep action economy offer a ton of various possibilties. And man how I love the rewind feature. It is so fun to actually try things before committing, being able to optimize your turn and push the comboing to it's limits. For those that find the levels too easy, the game features optional objectives - that provide with purely cosmetic upgrades for the characters. On that note - the game really respects the player's time and comfort. It is extremely good at making sure you're enjoying the game and not missing out, without forcibly handholding you. These guys take their design seriously, and I think that the industry has a lot to learn from them on how to do QOL, inclusive features, and providing options. It's all relatively small things that some would disregard but they damn sure do add up. This might be my personal GOTY - and it's a silly game about wizards with guns. Go figure.

Personally, rather than a standard tactical game, this game plays more like a puzzle game (especially if attempting the side objectives called Confidences) and that made the game more enjoyable as I try figure them out for each level. To add to that puzzle-tactical feeling is our team of quirky wizards that play very differently from one another and the layer of perks used to augment their abilities to do this or that. The writing is witty and I like our quirky ragtag group of wizards. However, there are certain points in the story that happen that feels kinda random and ruined the pacing of the story. If you played, I think you'll know what I mean. Overall, I recommend this game and giving it a shot.

While this looks like a strategy game on the surface, this game is really more of a puzzle game. There is no random generation at all in this game; if you do the exact same moves multiple times, the exact same things will happen. The game also has minimal resource management between each map and you can freely rewind each turn, so it's more about finding the right combination of moves for each specific turn rather than managing a whole campaign. That being said, as a fan of both puzzle and strategy games, this game is absolutely incredible. While most maps have clearly-intended "solutions", the way you go about getting to them depends on what abilities you've unlocked for each of your characters. All of the abilities are fun to play around with, and they can play off of each other in some really interesting ways. Some strategies can feel a bit overpowered, but not every strategy will work on every map since the game limits what characters you can use on your first time playing each map. The game also has plenty of difficulty options and optional objectives, so even when I've replayed this game it's still been adequately challenging (And if the built-in difficulty options aren't enough, finding ways to clear a map in as few turns as possible is also very engaging For some maps you really have to think in order to squeeze all the value out of your turn). You also have options to lower the difficulty in several different ways, so you can fine-tune the difficulty however you like (For example, you can independently adjust enemy health, how many resources you get each turn, or what turns enemy reinforcements show up on, among other things). You can also skip most maps with no penalty, so if there's one in particular that you don't like then you can just move on to the next one. The story definitely isn't for everyone, but I personally enjoyed it. It has a pretty "millennial" sense of humor, which not everyone will enjoy, but if you're into that sort of thing then you'll probably like the story. The trailer gives a pretty good impression of the game's overall tone without any major spoilers, so if the story will make or break a game for you then you should definitely watch that first to see if you like it. Just like how you can skip most maps, you can also skip basically every story scene, so if you're not a fan of the game's writing or you're just here for the gameplay then the story won't get in your way. Even if you dislike the story, I still think that the gameplay on its own makes this game worth checking out. Overall, this has to be one of my favorite games that's come out in recent years. It combines strategy and puzzles in an incredibly satisfying way, and provides plenty of options to get around parts of the game you don't enjoy while preserving the parts that you do. For anyone who's a fan of strategy and puzzle games, this is a must-play.