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Best Newish Tacticool Games

POOPERSCOOPER

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Kind of looking for the best tactical games of the maybe the last 5-6 years? I liked the X-com 2012 okay but couldn't quite get into the second one I think because I got burnt out on the style or something. I bought Battle Brothers because I heard it's somewhat codex approved? Any other suggestions for someone out of touch and trying to rekindle that video game spirit?
 

agris

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For squad-based tactics:
Dungeon Rats (highly recommend, can be played solo or with party)
Xenonauts
Expeditions: Conquistador
Blackguards
Dead State
Colony Ship (early access, can be played solo or with party. great game so far)
OpenXcom mods: XPiratez and the X-com Files

Shadowrun Returns / Dragonfall / Hong-Kong are “SBT-lite” games.


Single character turn based tactics games:
Underrail (another highly recommended)
Neo Scavenger (unique game and dwarf-fortress style text combat)
Age of Decadence

I’m sure there’s a lot more of the single MC type, but those are the ones I liked that won’t make your eyes bleed.

edit: shifted colony ship and DR to squad based, since both are party by default - although you can play them solo for greater challenge.
 
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Ghulgothas

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The Door Kickers games fit a nice niche of SWAT-style tacticool squad gameplay, if you can wrap your head around their RTWP modus that is. First game suffers from being designed for tablets first, but the sequel sheds a lot of that mobile-game nonsense and is already heads-and-shoulders over the first even though it's currently in early access.


And opinions on it are likely polarizing, but I found Hard West to be enjoyable both because-of and in-spite-of it's wierd design quirks.
 

POOPERSCOOPER

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I bought Xenonaughts and Door Kickers 2 because those looked cool. Troubleshooter looked a bit too anime for me but I appreciate it.

is Battle Brothers supposed to be pretty good? I tried a bit out but the battles and movement in them don’t seem like much but maybe I have to invest more time in it.
 

Raghar

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Bottle Brothers don't simulate armor well, no spells, and they added guns, which cheapens combat. Also they allow only 11 perks per character max + level limits. They don't simulate weapon damage, it's ad hoc numbers... And then there is that problem with scaling danger to your party level.

So nice for few days, but they should spend more effort.
 

Shaki

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Troubleshooter looked a bit too anime for me but I appreciate it.

It looked far too JRPG-ish to me too, I hate anime shit. But it's really worth trying. Story and characters are retarded, but in terms of gameplay, it's easily the best tacticool game made in the last decade. Especially if you're into buildporn, when it comes to thinking up new builds and optimizing your characters, it has one of the best and deepest systems ever made, it's truly an autistic project of pure passion. If you ever find yourself without cool looking games to play, bored enough to get over the anime art design, try giving it a chance.

is Battle Brothers supposed to be pretty good? I tried a bit out but the battles and movement in them don’t seem like much but maybe I have to invest more time in it.

BB isn't really a mechanically deep game, combat is pretty simple and vanilla doesn't offer much choices in building your characters (though some mods completely change that aspect). After getting the basics, you'll mostly use the same cookie-cutter builds and play 99,99% of fights in the same way. I think what most people like about it, is it's atmosphere and brutal RNG, ultimately it's a game about making the best out of a bad situation, and the deepest and most engaging parts of it aren't the fights themselves, but choosing the right ones, preparing for them, and making hard decisions when your plans fail and things start going to shit.
 

Nortar

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Pathfinder: Wrath
Troubleshooter looked a bit too anime for me but I appreciate it.
Sadly, this is true.
Troubleshooter and Dungeon of Naheulbeuk - the two best tactical games of the last couple of years.
But both of them have visual style that would dissuade players looking for more complex tactical gameplay, despite providing exactly that.

Other than that, Gears Tactics turned out surprisingly decent, although it still can't hold a candle to Naheulbeuk.
Urtuk the Desolation is also worth taking a look.
And if you're not against having a strategic layer, - Phoenix Point.
 

Nutria

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Strap Yourselves In
Troubleshooter is really good, hell I've played it most days for the last couple months. The gameplay is very deep but everything is easy to understand just from reading the tooltips. But yeah, you gotta tune out the anime art style and skip the boring anime cut scenes.
 

Zboj Lamignat

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Assuming you're fine with game being a strategy with (great) tactical combat layer - AoW3. Although, at this point, it's older than "5-6" years.

Can someone explain what the deal with Troubleshooter is? I see a lot of praise for it, but I've refrained from buying it so far not only because of animu, but mostly because it definitely looks nu-xcomish.
 

JarlFrank

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Assuming you're fine with game being a strategy with (great) tactical combat layer - AoW3. Although, at this point, it's older than "5-6" years.

Can someone explain what the deal with Troubleshooter is? I see a lot of praise for it, but I've refrained from buying it so far not only because of animu, but mostly because it definitely looks nu-xcomish.

It has nu-xcomish movement but that's pretty much it with the similarities. I played it a while ago, really need to get back into it since the devs keep patching and adding content.
The combat is really fun, there's a lot of variety in the missions, there's a lot of variety in the character skills and how they play, and the game keeps introducing new mechanics even 10 hours in.

If you can get past the animu artstyle and JRPG storytelling, it's just a really fun game.
And I say that as someone who utterly despises JRPGs.
 

POOPERSCOOPER

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I'm sure anime games might be good but at my age I feel sick just looking at it, like I feel like throwing up. No offense to those that like it.
 
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Nutria

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Strap Yourselves In
it definitely looks nu-xcomish

For every bad idea in Nu Xcom, Troubleshooter does the opposite. The biggest difference really is that when you lose in Xcom it's because of bad luck. You just activated a pod of enemies on the wrong turn. In Troubleshooter when you lose it's because you made a mistake and the AI fought better than you.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
Some good tactical games not yet mentioned in this thread:
Warbanners -medieval fantasy with sieges.
Vigilantes -crime fighting, modern setting.
Templar Battleforce -pretty much WH40k-ish setting.

That said XPiratez and Troubleshooter would be my highest recommendations.
 

dacencora

Guest
Fire Emblem Three Houses
This game is great tactically and you can customize the classes of your units, which is pretty cool. It is very anime and has a lot of VN elements (Persona-esque). The other entries in the series can be less anime, but sometimes don't have as much customization. There's also Vestaria Saga which is made by the original guy behind Fire Emblem. It's on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/694770/Vestaria_Saga_I_War_of_the_Scions/

EDIT:

Depending on what exactly you're looking for, there are a bunch of tactical turn-based games on a square grid all made on the same engine. Field of Glory II and Field of Glory II: Medieval receive a lot of praise. There are a number of games on the same engine, but most with middling/mediocre reviews:
  • Warhammer 40,000: Sanctus Reach
  • Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector
  • Pike and Shot
  • Hell
  • Sengoku Jidai
  • Battle Academy
Sanctus Reach's Sons of Cadia DLC was probably the one I found most interesting, but YMMV. I'm a big sucker for 40k, even the poor video games.
 
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Zed Duke of Banville

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Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children (2020) is a squad-based tactics game with intricate character customization and progression, excellent encounter design, and engaging mechanics; one of the greatest games released in the last decade in any genre.

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Dungeon of Naheulbeuk (2020) can credibly claim to be an RPG, but the exploration elements are light enough that it could be considered a tactical game with character customization and progression. Just don't mind the French humor too much.

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Urtuk: The Desolation (2021) is a grimdark squad-based tactics game where you control up to six characters in combat, with some interesting class-based skills, customization via ability scores and traits, and use of terrain.

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Consider also XPiratez, an extensive mod for OpenXCom that completely overhauls the game; XCom 2 (2016), the sequel to nuXCom, despite its deficiencies; and Dungeon Rats (2016), which is based on the combat engine from Age of Decadence.
 
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Zed Duke of Banville

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Technically, this is the first one, since it reads TACTICS IS STILL THE NEW RPG, but really also for Troubleshooter and Naheulbeuk:

Tactics-Is-The-New-RPG.png


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And this all started with No Truce with the Commies Disco Elysium in relation to the Codex's best RPG of 2019 poll:

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