Codex Review RPG Codex Review: Into the Breach

[sser]

Dunno about ITB being easier than FTL. I'd say its harder if anything. Played first run on Hard and lost on last mission of first island by that fucking hornet triple striking all the buildings...

In FTL I basically (on the first run) parked the ship with a shield in an asteroid field to grind evasion of the crew and then the grinding goes towards the invis field which lets you alpha strike enemy guns or engines. The rest of the game you grind for uber guns for the endboss... Its not hard or smart, its tedious...

ITB on the other hand needs some time to figure out the most useful tactics.
It does resemble Chess tactics exercises. I even had a blunder once. The 'Repeat turn' feature does not help if you already pressed 'End turn'...

Right now playing on Normal and it is too easy. I did lose a pilot of the arty piece but got a much better one in the pod on the second island.

I mean, I accidentally hit end turn before I had even moved anyone on the last mission of the game and still won no problem

It's remarkably easier than FTL which a lot of people never beat on Normal.

 

[Pequod]

I just quickly did a 2 islands Normal run to see the ending and it is indeed rather easy. No long thinking involved.

On Hard though, the last island was fucking brutal, with the starting squad. Worst terrain and the worst type of enemies to boot. 2 Burrowers with 5 health and regen can easily end your run in a single turn by tripple striking buildings all over the place...

Only on Hard does the game have these Eureka moments when you finally, after 10 minutes of starring at the screen, figure out the sequence of action to save a building. Feels like Chess tactics.
Invis Inc does not provide this kinds of entertainment. FTL is not the same genre even.

So, imo, on Normal ITB is easier than FTL but only because FTL is more random and requires meta.
On Hard though, ITB is tougher because recovering grid power while on the island is so hard and losing top pilots so painful.
Though I played 2 different squads until now, maybe customs trivialize it later on.

 

[veevoir]

That's actually good point - a lot of FTL difficulty comes from RNG and meta knowledge. Which is decline

I'd say ITB is much better in that regard - everything that happens is in large your own fault.

 

[skyst]

ITB is a fun little game if you're into turn-based strategy. The game isn't super deep and each run takes maybe 2 hours or so. If you like experimenting with different units and strategies, you can get a lot of hours out of the game and it's very worthwhile at ~$15. If you're the kind of guy to beat a game once on hard and not dick around on subsequent playthroughs, you probably want to give ITB a skip.

 

[Jestai]

I played some hours last night... and finished the game on Hard (not with 4 islands though). That wouldn't have happened with FTL, that's for sure. I intend to play more, but my experience is already worth the asking prince anyway. It's simple but clever and there is a lot of replayability.

With my limited experience, I agree with most things said.
You always have hard decisions to make, whether in fight or between them, which is always the sign of a good strategic game. Most of the time, it won't matter much in the short run, but since it's a "get to the last fight in the best shape you can" game like FTL, you can't overlook anything.
Even though the missions have a samey look, they play differently depending on your squad. I tried 3 and i can tell you that the "smoke team" feels way, way more efficient than the judoka team for exemple. But all playstyles were fun so far.
100% deterministic + no time limit = you're not losing anything unless the enemy turn is really good or you blunder/overextend. Sometimes the best decision isn't obvious, but since there is no time limit, you make it out of bad situations 9 times out of 10 with no or minimal damage.
However, attack patterns of enemies look 100% random. It feels like the AI is "attack something in range". A real hard mode would have either a time limit or "clever" enemies.

There is room for improvement : Pilots, rewards and upgrades feel a little uninspiring compared to FTL so far. Same goes for the "story". Boss enemies could have been made more special. Last mission was fun, but not as memorable as the battleship fight maybe. It's a tad bit too generic all around.

I feel the game needs one more layer of complexity to be a true classic.

If you're remotely interested in the genre, you should buy it anyway. $15 isn't much for a solid 5ish hours experience and you might play for a lot more if you dig it.

 

[cvv]

Beat the game a few times now and the whole point is definitely the metagame - dicking around with the achievements and challenges. Fuck me if I know how to get some of them on anything higher than Easy, then again I'm not exactly a strategic genius. A fun little game but it's definitely not FTL. Maybe two years from now when they wheel out the Advanced Edition.

 

[hivemind]

ftil is boring because it takes forever to get access to like interesting shit

honestly roguelikes were a mistake

 

[cvv]

However, attack patterns of enemies look 100% random. It feels like the AI is "attack something in range". A real hard mode would have either a time limit or "clever" enemies.

The watsonian answer is that it's a classic SF genre trope that giant insect alien monsters are dumb creatures of pure instinct that can be baited and tricked by clever humans.

The doylist answer is that it's very hard to design good AI. This is a mobile roguelike we are talking about, not Google DeepMind.

Yeah I usually don't bitch about AI and in this game it's generally ok. The only thing that pisses me off so far are the mine infested maps where mobs just blindly bumrush the mine tiles and blow themselves up. That's BS.

 

[Hobo Elf]

fti

roguelikes

???

 

[tindrli]

i tried it.. i tried to like it. but its just not for me

 

[Black]

After DOS 2 bored me to tears it's nice to play a game that was actually designed and not randomly put together.

 

[Pequod]

i tried it.. i tried to like it. but its just not for me

And yet you played Bedlam with plays almost like this only in dumber?

 

[tindrli]

i tried it.. i tried to like it. but its just not for me

And yet you played Bedlam with plays almost like this only in dumber?

so what.. i still play it from time to time.. like the setting and ambient. but this.. just not my thing... its not a bad game its just not for me

 

[LibertyRansom]

Pretty good. Not as good as FTL, but pretty good.

 

[Arulan]

Okay, I finished it on my first run on normal while completing all objectives on the four islands. Prosperus was very useful. I just started with another squad on hard. So far I've been enjoying it quite a bit, despite my first campaign not being terribly challenging. More so on hard, but it's very satisfying finding the optimal solution to each round of combat.

 

[Durandal]

What's the difference between a strategy game and a puzzle game like this one anyways?

 

[Silva]

What's the difference between a strategy game and a puzzle game like this one anyways?

Scale? Strategy games have more complexity and granularity, while puzzlers like this distilates gameplay to it's barebones essence?

 

[baud]

What's the difference between a strategy game and a puzzle game like this one anyways?

Scale? Strategy games have more complexity and granularity, while puzzlers like this distilates gameplay to it's barebones essence?

Perhaps scale in the sense of the number of system that take part in the game? Strategy games will have buildings, ressources, search trees, more unit types, some of which will not be fighting, multiple victory conditions...

 

[Silva]

Perhaps scale in the sense of the number of system that take part in the game? Strategy games will have buildings, ressources, search trees, more unit types, some of which will not be fighting, multiple victory conditions...

Yep, that's what I meant. And even with all complexity, once you identify a strat game essentials, it kinda turns into a puzzle game anyway. Like when SMAC turns into "who gets to crawlers and tree farm first wins" or how RTS games are about amassing the bigger army first, or how nu xcom is all about high elevation etc. At first most strat games seem to be rich in possibilities but once you dissect it you see there are always a couple or so clearly optimum ways to victory and everything else is chaff or food for LARPing.

Against the CPU it's even more obvious , as when you identify the CPU patterns you then play to counteract it and the game gets really simple and puzzle-like.

Edit: don't know if 2hat I'm saying makes sense. I'm in bed and almost sleeping so take that with a grain of salt

 

[sser]

What's the difference between a strategy game and a puzzle game like this one anyways?

Depth of decision making.

 

[Silva]

Yeah, that's a nice definition.

(with the caveat that "depth" not necessarily relates to "quality")

 

[baud]

It was also way shorter than mine