The core design of the game is hilariously fun and catchy, turn based strategy with random enemy decisions, which put you in some difficult situations, where you need to choose between saving the power grids, mech pilots or fulfilling the goals. Looks cool on paper, but how does it work?
- Default squads are too straightforward
Problem with default squads is that they designed in a way you will ALMOST NEVER want to buy anything from a shop after defending an island besides Power Cores and Power Grids. For example, during my playthroughs i only picked up weapons in case I was full on Grids and wanted to try something out. I haven’t tried yet “Random Mech Squads” and I think in that case this shop system will actually work.
- Pushing >>> Dealing Damage
If water or any kind of environment (like weather effects) is presented on a randomly generated map it gives you an insane privilege over the enemies. That’s where changing the enemy position becomes more valuable, rather than dealing damage. Absurdity of this can be highly noticed in a “Flame squad”, where the swap unit makes the hardest work and leave no chance for the enemies. At this moment you ask yourselves do I play with a “Flame Mechs” or a “Swap Mechs”?
- Obvious outcome of a run
After finishing 2 first islands you can say for sure will you win or lose the game. I can see it in that way: if you figure out how your composition works you will be able to beat any content left. The only way you can lose is if you are tired and go reckless. That removes the element of a surprise from the game and I dislike that a lot. I think that is caused by my next complain.
- Upgrade system of your squad is not deep enough
For the whole course of a run every unit of yours will use only one weapon, which requires maximum of 4 power cores to be maxed + 1 core for mech movement and 1 core for pilot special ability (if presented). You will easily farm them doing first two islands. Eventually if you have maxed the “right” things you win if not you lose. Later I will point to the fact, that you may not use upgrades at all.
- Health of units doesn’t matter much
I think that is caused by the fact, that battles are not long enough, they end quickly, just in 4 or 5 turns. Simply imagine a mission, which consist of 4 interconnected areas, where you will be required to either pass all of them in a limited amount of turns to reach your goal, or choose in what succession you will be doing them and take losses depending on that (the more time you take to pass first section, more enemies or weather effects spawns in other areas, etc. or you may even see what’s happening there every turn). You will also not recover health of mechs moving from one area to another, making it an actual resource. Because right now you don’t care how much health your mech lose in a mission, you just need it to be alive. So it either should cost you money to repair mechs or missions should be longer.
- Pilots doesn’t have a strong effect
That’s a bright and a dull side of a game same time. You can beat it without leveling your pilots/mechs. That completely nullifies any need to use them. You are not hoping to get a certain pilot during the run, the one which will help you a lot or make some areas easier to complete, simply because you always can complete them without some major losses. Same claim goes to upgrades. You can beat the game on hard without em, so why bother? It removes a thrill from the game, you aren’t anticipating random rewards, you don’t build your tactics ahead on what you want to expect, how will you behave in a certain circumstances and etc. Maybe it simply means that game is not long enough.
- Mission rewards are not diverse
So far they consist only of Power Grids and “Stars Currency”. Why can’t you add some interesting missions with “Pilot” or “Weapon” rewards. Pod system is cool, perfect island runs rewards too, but if each island has some Unique Weapon/Pilot to offer, which can be only obtained completing a certain mission - it will increase the variety of choices and make it more interesting.
I can conclude that the game has a great potential. An extended rounds, a bigger variety of upgrades, weapons and useful pilots will increase the depth. We definitely need some “gamethroughs”, which can be done only with a time traveler, only with a certain weapon setup, so the player need to think about the balance more, cause so far everything is useful in almost every situation, so why bother? Just max out what you have. For example, in FTL you could have played a “Mantis” ship, which relies on teleporting your squad on an enemy ship and encounter a stationary base without an oxygen and if you teleport them there they will just die. Hence, if you didn’t have a decent weapons installed on your ship you would only think how to escape that encounter and make you think in a feature what could you’ve done differently to avoid this turn of events. I was lacking this feeling in “Into The Breach” badly and hope devs will come up with great ideas in near future.