Launches tomorrow at 11 AM. Anyone getting it? It's the first "big" (1.7Mil budget) kickstarter RPG, with Wasteland 2 due sometime this Winter and Project Eternity sometime Fall/Winter 2014 or later.

I already backed it way back, I'm excited to see if it's good.

Reviewers with review copies have suggested the first campaign is about 20 hours long. The gameplay is similar to the new Xcom, though I can't find information in how it differs from it. There's an editor that's pretty extensive, allowing players to create whole campaigns and share them.

 

I reckon I could manage another RPG if it means getting to try out an entirely new system. I'd prefer to be a player for this one though. If anyone wants to set up a group for a Skype game or whatever, I'd be up for it.

 

anyone know what the price will be in? also I'm in for a skypegroup if I end up getting it

 

It'll be in moneys.

 

Right now it's $20.0 USD, which is certainly fair for it being so "new" and considering its length.

I've already beaten the single player campaign. On normal difficulty, it's not all that challenging (although there are a few rough spots), I'm curious to see how it plays on the hardest difficulty, I definitely think I'll run through the campaign again. I only played it on normal because I was a doofus and couldn't find the difficulty option (it's on the options in the main title screen only I think).

I did a classless character, focusing on pistols and intelligence. It was pretty effective, but I think shotguns/SMGs are better to focus on if you're going guns. I'd also recommend Shaman (because charisma is great for "stealthing" various missions). The game is very flexible and accomodating, especially to hybrid characters. Don't feel the need like you have to build a certain way.

There isn't a wide variety of items to choose from, the campaign is linear and it's not open-world, but it's not a bad sRPG by any stretch of the imagination.

My recommendation is to wait for a sale of at least -50% off, but, you guys knew that already, right? I certainly enjoyed it, but you're not missing anything by waiting a month or more, by then, the community content will be there and likely more official DLC missions.

The game's strongest asset is its atmosphere/style. Only minus is that spell effects and melee animations aren't up to snuff, but everything else looks great. There's a lot of strategy involved, though positioning isn't as important as it is in something like the new Xcom.

 

Just curious Chime, but does it give off the first shadowrun vibe? That was a favorite of mine, and while it isn't the same play, if it feels like that old classic, I will probably pick it up.

 

The game oozes atmosphere, it's definitely what it does best. Great soundtrack, great visuals, and a decent story for the first campaign. It makes a lot of homages to the SNES/Genesis games, notably in the cameos, but also in the choice of setting (the second place you visit in the game is the morgue, similar to the SNES game). The setting is entirely urban:

Morgue
Streets / Market / Apartments
Mansion
Tavern (which is the mission hub for most of the game)
Lots of corporation infilitration
And a little more I can't really say without exploring

The characters are also well-handled, though, you'll be getting 'generic' hirelings for most of the missions, there are a few recurring characters that can join your party too, but they aren't available the whole game long. The minor characters, especially in the quest hubs, are given enough depth to feel meaningful. They're set-up for the next campaign too, I imagine.

The matrix stuff is well-handled and fairly challenging if you don't bring along a competent decker, which you'll need on at least two of the missions. It's something I hope they refine in the next campaign they release - it's really interesting to protect a decker while he hacks into the matrix. But, most of the time, you can prevent encounters and hack security turrets and such before a fight breaks out. But it would be interesting if you had to do it mid-fight...

And it does the RPG aspects fairly well. The "reactivity" is low for this game (notably, I played the 'charitable good guy', making sure not to execute the prisoners I took, not to steal from the poor and lame, et cetera - I did not notice any long-term effects from these choices, other than the fact I was generally depriving myself of money), though there is a lot of "immediate" reactivity to some of the puzzles (especially if you try to "espionage" your way through things. At one point in the game, you have a choice between starting a fire in a building and doing a series of puzzles to get a disguise to sneak your way through, I didn't do the fire way, but I assume it nets you less free items and you can't get a lot of interesting conversations... but I think it would reduce the guard detail you fight later on; there are a lot of situations like these, especially if your charisma is high enough to fool guards into thinking you're one of them). There's no reward for just killing people, so it does that much right, you want to conserve your resources for fights that matter, especially on the harder difficulties.

Don't get me wrong though, it's not bad and it's not amazing. If I had to rank it, as a strategy RPG, I'd put it alongside Expeditions Conquistador and the new Xcom. If you find yourself enjoying this kind of game, you definitely need to find time for FFT, Tactics Ogre, and Disgaea. If you don't have a thing for fantasy, the original Xcom and Jagged Alliance 2 (with 1.07) are on a whole tier their own, standing like giants yet to be surpassed.

Purely as a Shadowrun experience, it's just as good as the Genesis/SNES games, if not better.

 

God damn it. You guys actually got my hopes up. I thought this was going to be a PnP RPG rather than a computer game.

 

When the OP mentioned Wasteland 2, Project Eternity, new X-Com, and an extensive campaign editor, I thought it was obvious that it was a PC RPG.

 

Well, I looked on the steam forums and apparently multiplayer support is "Possibly somewhere down the road but not planned at this stage."


So that's kind of disappointing, I mean I might be a cynic but I pretty much interpret that as "nope, not happening, but no one wants to hear that so we won't say it."

 

Just beat the Campaign for this. I both enjoyed it and was massively disappointed. While the combat in it was fine, it wasn't much of a showcase for the potential of the engine as far as role playing goes. There was way less use of the dialogue than I expected when I started. At least three of the charisma 'etiquettes' are never used in any dialogue at any point in the game, and the rest are just used to either circumvent an extremely minor obstacle or gain a small bonus to monetary rewards that you don't really need, maybe twice in the entire game.

On top of that it was extremely linear, with no ability to travel between the locations (which are all very small) except when moving forward in a mission, despite it being incredibly easy to do in the editor. There is one full side mission right near the end of the game, everything else is the main missions (which all just follow along after one another with you teleporting directly to their area bar when you're teleporting to the hub to shop before teleporting to their area) and a couple of maybe 10-30 second 'quests' in each area.

As a standalone experience it's an alright 10-12 hours, but for anyone looking to get it I'd wait for a sale. By then someone might have created a campaign that actually uses the full potential of the engine.

EDIT : Thought I should at least mention something nice about it. It does look very pretty, and the music's good.

 

I think the game has all the core mechanics down, but it's missing a lot of essential "fluff" that would make it a great game, instead of a simply good or adequate one. Multiplayer would be one of those features. Mount and Blade: Warband introduced full multiplayer to that indie game, so it's not a stretch we might see it if the game continues to make money...

I do agree that I don't understand why certain levels were so short. Like, the insane asylum? There was only one patient in there you could chat with. All they needed to do was make a few halls and rooms to explore to pad the place out just a little more and it would have been good enough, but they had you immediately fight the security there instead...

 

Also something that's not huge but I just don't understand. There's no decent unarmed animations. Just a weak looking punch that has a really shitty hitting sound. I would understand that if it was just a tacked on thing you would do if you had no weapon equipped, but not only is unarmed a viable build with it's own skill set and an entire class that suggests its use, it has the single highest reliable damage in the game (since with high strength and Killing Hands it does more damage per hit than any gun and the 10 point bonus from KH is higher than the damage of the strongest melee weapon in the game), and is powerful right from the start.