Miasma Chronicles - post-apocalyptic tactical RPG from Mutant Year Zero devs

[Nortar]

Maybe I fucked up my skills progression

If I'm not mistaken, you should be able to change your skills any time out of combat.

 

[toro]

Maybe I fucked up my skills progression

If I'm not mistaken, you should be able to change your skills any time out of combat.

I will check it tomorrow.

 

[Darkwind]

enemies being too tough for the head-on approach

i recall their previous game being extremely tedious in their sneaking/positioning mechanics

You are going to love this game then because it is the exact same tactical engine. Including the sneak / ambush mechanic. I am in the tutorial and it IS Mutant Year Zero for all intents & purposes. The story will have to carry the game basically because the combat is an exact clone. But you do get a ghetto nig robot companion complete with the 'Awww sheeeeeeiiiit' dialog options, so there is that at least...

 

[toro]

Maybe I fucked up my skills progression

If I'm not mistaken, you should be able to change your skills any time out of combat.

I will check it tomorrow.

Yes. You can reshuffle your cards skills which means you can respec on the spot.

Also there is one Miasma power which basically means 100% heal for all party members.

It's MYZ but with extra bells: the Miasma powers are insane and there are many skill combinations.

The game is between mediocre and good because for some reason the progress is mostly linear even after 10h+. I'm still waiting for the world to open up.

 

[Fedora Master]

I took ONE look, not even watched the videos, just saw the thumbnail and could tell this was a shoddy copy/paste job.
Meanwhile, the Codex:

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Meanwhile, the Codex:

we are very optimist people, so always hopeful and positive we put magic johnson to shame.

 

[Serious_Business]

I took ONE look, not even watched the videos, just saw the thumbnail and could tell this was a shoddy copy/paste job.
Meanwhile, the Codex:

20K+ posts in 6 years, I don't know how you people do it. Every of them is low effort nonsense, but hey, there you go. You expressed yourself. Good boy. You exist. You have been recognised. Doesn't that feel nice, you piece of shit?

 

[Fedora Master]

I took ONE look, not even watched the videos, just saw the thumbnail and could tell this was a shoddy copy/paste job.
Meanwhile, the Codex:

20K+ posts in 6 years, I don't know how you people do it. Every of them is low effort nonsense, but hey, there you go. You expressed yourself. Good boy. You exist. You have been recognised. Doesn't that feel nice, you piece of shit?

Sorry I have standards

 

[toro]

Just finished it. 35 hours. All side quests. Max level.

Spoiler

Short review: The game is not bad but it's not great either. It's a combination between XCOM2 and MYZ but it's more MYZ with a twist than XCOM2.

Visual design is good (clearly inspired by Chappie and Neil Blomkamp). The story is mediocre at best but it's not annoying. The characters are ((diverse)) but the game is not woke.

The meat of the game is the combat. I've played on Full Tactical and to be honest it doesn't hold togheter very well at that difficulty. One fucked up attack from your enemy and the fight is botched. The game is probably much more fun on Normal difficulty.

Each character can be respec before fights and there are OP combinations between skills and weapons but overall the selection is limited. Basically there are many combos to choose from at first glance but there are few solid combos and some skills/miasma powers are simply OP.

Spoiler

I don't think the game can be finished on Full Tactical without the mind control power. The last fight is against 10 Controllers and the team output damage is limited. You are forced to spawn or control mobs in order to divert damage from the main characters.

The problem with this card system is that once you figure out the best skills combination there is practically not reason to level up and the subsequent skill points are simply wasted. There was no significant damage output for my team between lvl 20 and lvl 25.

The games wants to be open world but it's schizophrenic because the real XP comes from main story quests therefore the progression is quite linear. I did like that my best weapon - a shotgun - was acquired early in the game because at lvl 14 I've managed to beat mobs lvl 20. That was sweet.

I think I've paid 35euros for the game. It was too much. The game is a solid AA game - 2 bugs in the entire run - but it's not close to a AAA game. Also it's finished as the story is complete. I recommend it for less than 20 potatoes. Who enjoyed MYZ will enjoy this.

 

[toro]

I finished the game and now I find out about this:

If you use offensive chip on a summoning mob the mob gets the benefits.
So he will stun enemies on hit or make them smaller etc.
It is ♥♥♥♥♥ great to be ohnest.

You can for example use Jacker on a summon and he will steal money with every hit.

this will be patched into oblivion

Thanks for letting us know folks. I can confirm that the team are looking at addressing some balancing issues that the community have bought up in some upcoming updates that will be rolling out from next week.

We really do appreciate all the comments here, as without you guys we wouldn't be making the game we are now.

 

[Tyranicon]

It's a combination between XCOM2 and MYZ

The story is mediocre at best but it's not annoying.

Woof, that's not encouraging at all.

Tactical narrative RPGs require either an intensely well-designed combat/progression system or excellent story. People will buy it for one or the other, and if both are good then it's a unicorn.

But both being mediocre means it got no legs to run. I wonder if they're gonna take a loss on this game.

 

[Nortar]

It's a combination between XCOM2 and MYZ

The story is mediocre at best but it's not annoying.

Woof, that's not encouraging at all.

Tactical narrative RPGs require either an intensely well-designed combat/progression system or excellent story. People will buy it for one or the other, and if both are good then it's a unicorn.

But both being mediocre means it got no legs to run. I wonder if they're gonna take a loss on this game.

Including MYZ into description makes it recursive - it's not a mix of MYZ with X, it is MYZ in different skin.
And Comparison to NuXCOM is only needed for the people not realy familiar with the genre to recognize the 2-action system.

Here on Codex a better comparison would be to a blend of Commandos/Blade of Shogun/Desperados for the stealth action part and,
say, Showgunners/Expeditions:Vikings/HardWest2 for TB combat.

And both parts work very well together.
I just started (hardest mode, full tactician) and really enjoy unraveling encounters by taking off stragglers and then dealing with consequences when shit goes wrong.
Using different ways to lure away enemies one by one, by using enviromental effect can be pretty creative.
The tactical combat itself has a lot of thing to consider, from cover and elevation, to angle of attack, character builds and synergies between skills, mobs and weapons.

All in all, it's a pretty fun game, so far.
The only downside is limited roster and tiny size of the field team - mere 3 characters.

 

[Nikanuur]

View attachment 36535

I went through the Steam forums a bit because of this. I didn't mean to challenge you or something; it's just that I didn't believe my own eyes. I don't know which is true for real, I haven't played it myself, but I've read around six statements saying that magazines are always full in new fights. However, resetting cooldowns doesn't happen according to every statement. I could see myself tolerating this if the game is good at heart, but still, this seems like a red flag

 

[Tyranicon]

View attachment 36535

I went through the Steam forums a bit because of this. I didn't mean to challenge you or something; it's just that I didn't believe my own eyes. I don't know which is true for real, I haven't played it myself, but I've read around six statements saying that magazines are always full in new fights. However, resetting cooldowns doesn't happen according to every statement. I could see myself tolerating this if the game is good at heart, but still, this seems like a red flag

I dunno, I got that from a steam review. Maybe it was a bug that got patched or someone here mentioned in might be a higher difficulty thing.

Which is very strange, since not being able to reload/cooldown is not generally what fans of tactical games want. It makes you do that thing where you leave one weak enemy alive and reload/cooldown all your stuff before offing them.

That's not difficult, that's just tedious.

 

[toro]

View attachment 36535

I went through the Steam forums a bit because of this. I didn't mean to challenge you or something; it's just that I didn't believe my own eyes. I don't know which is true for real, I haven't played it myself, but I've read around six statements saying that magazines are always full in new fights. However, resetting cooldowns doesn't happen according to every statement. I could see myself tolerating this if the game is good at heart, but still, this seems like a red flag

I dunno, I got that from a steam review. Maybe it was a bug that got patched or someone here mentioned in might be a higher difficulty thing.

Which is very strange, since not being able to reload/cooldown is not generally what fans of tactical games want. It makes you do that thing where you leave one weak enemy alive and reload/cooldown all your stuff before offing them.

That's not difficult, that's just tedious.

It's not a bug. I will quote what I've already posted on Steam:

This game will frustrate a lot of people because it implements some changes which go against the established genre rules:
- players expect to be able to heal for free outside of combat,
- players don't expect skill cooldowns to transfer from fight to fight,
- players expect to be able to enter a fight with their party in the best state.

The devs thought that the combat will be more tactical by adding the constraints above but the reality is that this design is just another example of artificial difficulty. It doesn't add any tactical layer to the game, veteran players will find ways to bypass these constraints and normal players will rage quit.

Misguided design decisions but the game can be finished even with the tedious shit above.

 

[Nortar]

I haven't played it myself, but I've read around six statements saying that magazines are always full in new fights. However, resetting cooldowns doesn't happen according to every statement. I could see myself tolerating this if the game is good at heart, but still, this seems like a red flag

I dunno, I got that from a steam review. Maybe it was a bug that got patched or someone here mentioned in might be a higher difficulty thing.

Lets clear it out then.
On the hardest difficulty the weapons do reload automatically after each battle, skill cooldowns do not reset between battles.

But all cooldown timers tick away for all skills, even the ones not selected for your current build.
So maybe it's an extra incentive for players to try different skill loadouts, instead of sticking to the "best one".
But only enemy turns count though, so cooldowns won't be ticking away on stealth takedowns.

Btw Tyranicon , maybe you should play this game for inspiration, if for nothing else, haha.

Spoiler

This is in the same "dungeon" where they poke fun at Grimrock.

Spoiler

 

[AndrewCC]

Eurogamer's review is 1/5 stars. Reads like a 3,5/5 then launches into full blown accusations of racist stereotypes and transphobia. Author is, of course, a blue haired, landwhale troon.
Might need to play this.

 

[flushfire]

And here I was thinking the lead character was a lesbian.

 

[Jermu]

 

[Nortar]

And so it's done.

Redux, because

Spoiler

Took me a while, but I was doing lots of stuff most people will find boring - I kept constantly juggling weapons, mods and skills to get the most out of the stealth part.
Sometimes I looked for easier encouters in different zones to let important skills reset before a difficult one.
I also combed each area at least twice for extra encounters and loot, so I was always well stocked on "heath and mana pots".

But by the end you become so powerful there's no need for such autism and you can go full rambo.
Still the most difficult encounters were the optional ones, especially those were shit like botching a 90% hit-chance attack happened and I had to adapt on the fly.

The most funny moment in my playthrough:
The bro-bot has a skill that makes him strike back after being hit in melee.
And there's also a doppelganger kind of an enemy who took the form of my bot and copied all of his skills.
When the robo-copy tried to tackle my bot, he stroke back, and the copy did the same and so on recursively.
So the two bots traded blows till one of the blowed up. Too bad it was mine, haha.

 

[Yosharian]

Eurogamer's review is 1/5 stars. Reads like a 3,5/5 then launches into full blown accusations of racist stereotypes and transphobia. Author is, of course, a blue haired, landwhale troon.
Might need to play this.

Well shit, now I have to buy it

 

[toro]

She did not play the entire game. There is one town ruled by bots in which humans are the slaves. The anti-Human racism is quite funny.

Also anti-Bot racism is not the same with anti-Black racism unless all Blacks are Bots. Spoiler alert: they are not. False equivalence fallacy.

 

[toro]

The most funny moment in my playthrough:
The bro-bot has a skill that makes him strike back after being hit in melee.
And there's also a doppelganger kind of an enemy who took the form of my bot and copied all of his skills.
When the robo-copy tried to tackle my bot, he stroke back, and the copy did the same and so on recursively.
So the two bots traded blows till one of the blowed up. Too bad it was mine, haha.

There is an achievement when Diggs wins that fight

Spoiler

There Can Be Only One!

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Abu Antar]

Seems like a bomba. Already 40% off.