This is a fucking proper nu XCom but good lord it also got shitload of problems. Feels unfinished, like most of them KS games...
-Bugs everywhere, seriously. One of my best soldiers got disseapeared while on plane.
-Game looks ugly and non-aesthetic in style, UI is even uglier and a mess.
-No time units :/
I really want to play this but gonna wait for some patches first.
There are bugs yes. Aesthetics are not great, especially that PP heavy, UI lacks important stuff.
But no time units is not true. It is just presented more intelligently. I am getting tired explaining this.
In UFO all weapon attacks didn't cost 45 TU or 55 TU or whatever. They cost 40% of max TU or 75% of max TU. PP has separated this 100% TU into 4 points, each represents 25% of max TU. Amount of movement you can do is still free form. Your speed attribute says how much squares you can move in one turn by spending 100% TU and you are free to move one square at a time if you want to.
They also changed all actions to cost 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of your max TU. That is only true difference vs UFO. And it is a good one. Old school players get almost same system while new players and nuXcom players get easier to understand system.
Biggest change compared to UFO is addition of perks but them and free multiclassing lets you make interesting character builds, I like it so far. And soldiers don't feel as superhuman as in Firaxis's Xcom. Dash is probably the biggest outlier from perks and should probably be limited to once per turn.
I think this is actually what I believe Tim Cain meant, when he said that stats could be represented as graphs instead of numbers. The presentation fools casuals into accepting more complex system because their bird brains can only process simplified information. PPs system works almost exactly like the UFOs. The visual aids make the information pop out more easily, but it has very little effects on the depth of the system. The real mystery is how it can fool hardcore gamers into believing that they are playing a simpler game than they are. The one casualization is that weapons have only one attack type, whereas in UFO you could in some cases choose more than one. However this is balanced by a large increase in the amount of weapons.
For quick reference:
Pistols can only do snap shots, 1-4 depending on how far you move
Assault rifles can only do auto shots, 1-2 depending how far you move
Sniper Rifles and Heavy Weapons can only take 1 aimed shot and move a short distance.
I've been playing this game for a few days and I'm having a blast. Even with the second easiest difficulty level my soldiers get killed, if lose my focus. Even the basic crabman is a tough opponent in the right circumstance. I'm constantly having to trade raw materials and can't manufacture everything I want. I can't capture pandorans effectively yet because apparently only Synedrion has stun weapons, but I allied New Jericho for their AP tech. The Pandorans actually took out my first base, because I put off attacking their citadel so I could research for better weapons. Yeah the art style is uneven, but my first encounter with a Siren left half of my squad dead because I wasn't prepared to face one yet. That's the one thing that matters in a X-com game, not how a specific monster looks. I reiterate: UFO had anime graphics.
The game is a flawed diamond. So what it has bugs on release? So did Fallout. They cut some features, what game hasn't and backers get the DLCs for free anyway? As for the epic money. Isn't it odd to laugh at the devs for releasing an incomplete game and criticizing them for taking the dough at the same time. It seems obvious that without the Epic money they could not have even finished the game. Now they have, and the result is solid turn-based tactics game.