Recent reviews by Fing Blastly

If you got into tactical strategy games because you're drawn to the satisfying number crunch of micro-managing character inventories and your eyes are trained to see grid-based attack patterns everywhere you look, this game is HIGH OCTANE DOPAMINE FOR YOU.

It's super challenging in its default state, which I recommend, but it also has independently scalable self-buffs and enemy buffs that allow you to ramp up the action a bit, but also give yourself a break if you suffer a particularly nasty defeat in a run.

The tactical combat is really well-conceived. Some of the more fun stats I'd never seen before:

Momentum - some abilities get a multiplier the further your character has run.

Propagation - some abilities, rather than having a defined shape, instead they spread randomly through adjacent squares like chain lightning, losing some power along the way. You can both extend the range on these, and reduce the damage penalty with each bounce. There's even a perk that lets these bounce *diagonally*, which totally changes how it can spread through the horde.

Isolation and Opportunism- Enemies that have no adjacent allies take bonus damage based on your isolation stat, and enemies that are suffering one of the four status effects (debuff, poison, stun, and contagion) take bonus damage based on your opportunism stat. Some weapon abilities multiply that bonus even further, allowing you to really stack them high.


If you enjoy the process of exploring the space, there's tons to learn-- 20+ weapons, each with 3-4 unique abilities, 20+ unique stats and how they work / scale, perks, synergies, all that good stuff. The customization is rich, just-deep-enough, and there is TONS of it to be had.

The base-building aspect is engaging, but it's also sort of a light touch. There are at least a few different ways to approach it, but none are too radically different-- still need workers and gold to get going. But are we building a stone castle, or are we littering the battlefield with mines?

Lastly something that can often go wrong in these tactical games is that, at least for me, if I don't find the aesthetic compelling, I just can't get into it, no matter how clever the tactical gameplay is...

This one *works for me*. The soundtrack shreds, and it pairs extremely well with the key art. The sprite art is simple and borderline cute at times for the human characters, but they stand in strong contrast to the enemy designs, which appear monstrous and upsetting compared to your smirking swordslinger with an undercut.

I loved it. I nearly 200+ hours loved it. If you've ever lost yourself in the flow of a tactical rpg before, this game delivers more of that flavor per hour than any game I've played in YEARS. Give it a go.

If Fire Emblem-- and more importantly the nearly dead Ogre Battle squad-building-- are your thing, then buy this. There's mechanical depth here that I wasn't expecting when I first picked it up. Managing your armies brings that old joy, scratching an itch a lot of us have just gone without for a couple of decades.

Addictive and excellent. Closest thing I've ever gotten to the the rewarding experience of role-playing without a human Dungeon Master. Every meaningful action is coded for real-time exploration and turn-based strategy battles, and the dialogue arguments with yourself are delicious.

Go off-site to the nexus and get the FourPlay mod to make it a really worthwhile for 4-player multiplayer.