Something about this game just isn’t doing it for me like I had hoped. I think it looks great and I haven’t had any bugs or gameplay issues of note, but I have a couple thoughts:
First, the lack of gold is very apparent. It only took me a mission or two before I did not have enough gold to level up, let alone buy new weapons. Now, I’m not expecting to be flush with gold and have enough to buy what I want when I want, but the game quickly prevented me from feeling much of a sense of progression. I know that gold is available randomly for completing a dungeon, but at best, if I’m really lucky, I might get 500 - not enough to level up or buy something worth buying. More typically, I receive 100-200 for grinding out a mission. Of course, I could spend real money for more gold…it is cynical to see the slow in-game income as tied to the ability to make in-app purchases?
Second, I don’t see much in the realm of tactics. There are no penalties at all for waiting, or for slowly moving around for optimal positions, so every single mission I’ve played pretty much boils down to setting up and letting the enemies come to me, preferably through a bottleneck. Positioning means almost nothing in this game. On top of that, I can take as much time as I want between rooms to regroup. In the original, there was a threat of overwhelming odds every time I chose to end my turn, giving me a sense of urgency. In the Tyrranid Invasion, the overwatch ability made movement and positioning far more important. The game plays the exact same for me every time I open a door.
Third, the UI issues. Nowhere that I’ve found is it explained exactly what stats do what and how they effect combat. I also can’t stand that when I’m shopping, I can’t see what I have equipped. How am I supposed to know if the weapon I am looking at is better than one I already have?
There are some positives here. The game runs really smoothly and I like the selection of heroes. Sometimes then don’t seem differentiated enough, but I can chalk some of that up to the way I’ve customized. Still, the system is almost too flexible as I can, for example, give a melee hero a gun that essentially has the same effect as a sorceress spell. When my melee hero can suddenly do ranged 3x3 damage with fire, he kind of loses his identity as as a sword and shield melee hero.
Personally, my biggest enjoyment in a strategy RPG is building my characters. Final Fantasy Tactics is the pinnacle of the genre for me and I can spend dozens of hours leveling through each job in any given character, enjoying their growth and enjoying the effect they have on the battlefield. I feel very little progress in this game; each dungeon run feels the same and character growth is glacially slow, not because of XP, but because of an incredibly high gold requirement.
I’ve probably rambled a bit, but the bottom line is that I probably personally give the game a C. I like it, and I’ll pick it up from time to time, but I don’t really know what the game is trying to be. Is it a board game? It’s moved beyond that a little. Is it an RPG? Yes, but it is fairly light compared to others. Is it a tactical game? Maybe, but I don’t see much depth in that regard. Maybe this isn’t fair, but I’d rather play a game like Final Fantasy Tactics ad nauseum over a game lie this for some great tactical RPG grinding. There are plenty of others that I enjoy more, as well, including possibly the first Warhammer Quest.