Dreadlands

It's very tough for me not to recommend this game. For an indie title the scope of what has been accomplished here is absolutely amazing and there's absolutely a lot to like about this game. However, sadly games that out-compete this game are all over Steam and produced with higher budgets. Particularly Mordheim, which looks better, has more mechanics, and more features. That sucks, because this game doesn't feel like it needs all that much more to really stand out, but it's a little hard to point to what needs to be improved. It's a tactical turn based RPG in the style of XCOM, with some open world elements and a unique apocalypse-punk environment. There's 3 factions, and each faction has a variety of units to pick. You go through the story or do random battles to improve your gang, level up, get new items and tactics cards (basically abilities you can use once per battle). However the biggest problem is quite frankly, it's kind of boring. It's a little hard to pin down what exactly makes the game feel a bit boring compared to other tactical turn based RPGs though. The animations in battle are a bit lackluster compared to say, XCOM, but they have nice execution animations and they feel like they are generally better looking than similar indie games. I feel like some of the problem is the game just feels like there's a lack of options sometimes. The units have slight stat differences but otherwise feel fairly interchangable. The skill trees are tiny and often don't feel impactful. Your'e usually just either abusing overwatch, taking potshots at the enemy until you can rush into melee, and occasionally using one of the few items in the game. The support units add a few extra abilities, but again, they don't feel all that impactful. The weapons have stastisical variations, occasionally have special traits, and have different accuracies at different ranges, but otherwise don't feel like they perform all that differently from one another. Because of that, tactical complexity is surprisingly low. That said... I feel like there's other problems that are hard to point to holding this game back. However I also feel like somewhere in here is a great game that only needs one really big update to come out. There's various towns, each offering sidequests and relations values, there's weapon upgrade mechanics, special dungeons areas, 3 factions, a storyline, multiplayer, etc. There's a lot to work with here and there feels like more work was put into this than a lot of game's I'd otherwise say are better, but something here just isn't clicking enough for me to recommend it. Maybe everything just needs one big update.

I wanted to like this game but its got too many things against it. The game is just too grindy for a casual play game. And its too basic to be able to deep dive it to deal with the grind. Coupled with how often it just crashes, meh. Not really worth the effort. Now taking the 95% sale it has at the time of this review... ok Its a $1.24 good. But at full price? Nah, it surely isn't. I actually enjoy the mumbling you cant understand as the 'voice acting' of the chars. It fits. Anyway once the game leaves the huge sale, I'd give it a miss.

Dreadlands has a lot of ideas, none of which are quite as original or executed as well as you'd hope for.

This game is basically playing the same level over and over and over....no kidding. The turn based battle is almost always the same handful of maps and the battle is pretty simple and boring. There is an uninteresting story behind it all and you get things like some equipment upgrades, character upgrades which grow old after a while. In all good faith, I cant really recommend this game as it gets repetitive and boring fast. But if you like playing turn based games where you will keep repeating battles over and over then this title will be for you.

I love the setting and combat, but the game is so buggy its borderline uplayable.

https://youtu.be/ArC_ry_Vl9w Only a few years after release this title no longer appears to work.

I'm always attracted to tactics games with co-op which is a really rare thing so I must applaud the devs for adding it... That said the game feels incredibly unfinished. Pretty much every random battle on the overworld uses the same map, I'm sure it's different for different areas but you move back and forth across the same area when completing objectives and it gets extremely old fighting next to the same barn over and over and over.

I like Dreadlands. I recorded some of my progress in Dreadlands. [b]Please take a look if you value a more Audio / Visual experience, as I discuss the game as I overwatch, melee smash, and blast my way through it; in some semblance of style perhaps![/b] https://youtu.be/d8UkAW9dr1s Dreadlands is an Indie, Isometric Turn Based Tactics RPG, a sort of Xcom like / lite set in a Post Apocalyptic hellscape of a world; cool! [h1]Three Freaking Factions! [/h1] Pick 1 of three factions, and lead your merry band of freedom fighters, eager to carve a piece out of their ruined world for themselves. There are The Scrappers: hothead max max, tinker types. The Tribe-kin: nature freaks with a magic totem fetish. Or The Skarbacks: freakin formerly enslaved Cybernetic warriors eager for revenge on the world that wronged them!✊ Guess who I picked?! Then, you wander around on the worldmap, entering into locations to fight in turn-based, tactics battles for your share of the past, and build a future with your Post Apocalyptic posse. [h1]The Combat⚔️ [/h1] The combat in Dreadlands is very influenced by XCOM, with an ap system, an ability to double move, and an Overwatch system present, enabling you to lock down fields of fire with your squad. Differing from XCOM, Melee is a major focus for your team in Dreadlands, as you can “Melee Lock” your opponent when either you or them enter into melee range, causing an attack of opportunity if any try to get away, and preventing either from using a ranged attack, as they are locked into a mano-mano / monster battle for their life! [h1]Of Cover, Morale and Inspiration![/h1] Like XCOM, cover in Dreadlands is important, and greatly helps keeping your units alive and effective, as taking any ranged attack causes you to become pinned, and only get 1ap next turn, instead of your much nicer 2. Half cover grants -25 vs. ranged attacks, while Full cover grants 35 and -1 damage taken; it’s very good. [B]Cover is Important; Use It![/b] Beyond how it is and isn’t like XCOM, Dreadlands does its own thing too, adding its own ideas to the XCOM like arena. In every battle, each side has their morale, which is represented as a sort of tug of war in the morale bar, and if one side of the bar reaches to the other line, that side takes a -1 to move, melee, and range for all their units, which is a painful hit; try to avoid that! Flanking is present as well, providing bonuses to hit, so flank, but don’t get flanked; unless you’re into that sort of thing. Also, there is an inspiration system in Dreadlands, where 2 successful attacks grants Inspired to the unit, which means their next attack is a crit, but if hit, you lose it. It’s a nice thing to look forward to if it happens. Plus, there are challenges to attempt in the battles too, to score some bonus exp for one of your lucky guys; great! Challenges like: do 15 or more melee damage, make 3 enemies bleed, only use 1 tactics card; providing boosts for your guys if they push it and make it happen. [h1]Let’s Get Tactical![/h1] Tactics options are present in the battles, presented in the form of tactics cards to play once per battle. Stuff like forcing an enemy’s gun to jam, clearing all your guys gun jams, stripping 1 ap off an enemy for 2 turns, a 2 turn +1 buff to move, melee, and ranged, but -1ap on their 3rd turn, impactful stuff that can turn the tide at a critical moment; some very tactical choices to make in the battles here. [h1]Crappy, Crappy Old Guns![/h1] It’s the Post Apocalypse and everything’s crappy ok; it’s not the guns fault! I mentioned guns jamming above, and it happens often! There is a 70% base chance of a gun jamming when fired twice in a turn; ouch! Don’t push it to the limit here! Once jammed, the Gun is jammed for the combat, unless repaired with a repair kit, or if you use one of those super handy tactics above (I guess your commander just knew who was likely to have some issues, and spent some time with them shoring up the basics before the battle). All Guns are un-jammed after combat, so you don’t have to worry about not having ranged fighters, and every unit with a gun, also has a melee option, almost as if they know their guns are not going to win their battle for them alone, and come prepared to deliver cold steel to their foes! [h1] Bandaids for Bo-Boos! 🩹 [/h1] If one of your fighters goes down, you can use a bandage to revive them; you have 3 turns to help them or they are removed from battle. After combat, your units heal to full after a battle, if you win, and they didn’t bleed out. Any light wounds on units heal if you don’t use the unit for 2 battles, while lasting injuries need medical supplies. [b]Bring and use Bandages, they work! [/b] [h1] Da Base! [/h1] You can manage your base too: healing injured troops at home, buying items at the shop to gear up your crew, and recruiting new fighters at the barracks. You can also upgrade the base with resources found scavenging locations on the worldmap as well. You have a stash at base too, and you can eventually unlock new tactics cards to use in your battles. Online Co-op is present in Dreadlands too, in case you want a human to play with, or against, as there is a pvp mode present as well, toggled on / off from within the campaign as you wish. A good option for those so inclined. [b]Suggestions: [/b] While I do like Dreadlands, I did come across some places where it could be even better. Please let me know if anyone thinks I’m off base with any of this. The first 2 are relatively minor, but easy to fix, and would greatly improve the gameplay for many. The 3rd and 4th would really bring more life to the worldmap, and travel, making it more dangerous, more interesting, and more rewarding, making the setting feel more believable and real. [h1]1. Speed Up my Soldiers! [/h1] I really wish you could speed up unit movements. They are a bit slow to move during combat; granting players the ability to kick that up a notch would really improve the flow of the game. [h1] I Talk, Not You Talk! [/h1] Please add the ability to turn off unit acknowledgements. Many players do not like them; especially players that might stream the game! [h1] 3: Wandering Monsters on The World Please![/h1] There is a World map to explore, old school fallout style! With excellent and fitting music, especially on the world map! Sadly, there don’t seem to be wandering, random encounters on said world map :(. Adding them would help the world feel more alive, and more contested, as well as allowing the possibility of the player trying to avoid them; think how vital it is knowing when to fall back is in Mount and Blade, when you see that big, bad lord rolling around with their huge band! Showing other entities on the world map as you travel across it would help with the feeling of emptiness of the world map, that feeling that all that really matters is your band, your base, and which location you’re heading too. [h1] 4: Add Some Post Apocalyptic Survival in this Post Apocalyptic World! [/h1] There is no resource consumption, like water, or rations, on the world map; which seems odd, given how wasted and ruined the world looks. Your units would have to prepare to survive in such an environment, or maybe go on extended hunts to locate rations, bullets, safe water sources, and mutant beasts to battle for their sweet, tainted meat. You could discover these locations by exploring the world map, scouting out these goodies while mapping your surroundings, or perhaps happening across a band while traveling, perhaps being caught in an ambush, or even set one up yourself. Anyway, Dreadlands is a fun Indie Tactics RPG in an interesting Post Apocalyptic setting. Watch and see the Post Apocalyptic Adventure Party?

Jako fan strategi turowych w rzucie izometrycznym mogę polecić Dreadlands. Moja ocena to 5+/10. Plusy podobne do tego typu gier, dość duża swoboda w grze, spory obszar do eksploracji, oczywiście pustkowia z losowymi spotkaniami. Jeśli komuś podejdzie pod gust, zabawa nie jest krótka, grać jeśli się chce można długo. Minusy dość sporo, wymienię parę z nich. Brak fabuły, słaba oprawa audio, modernizacja bazy i postaci dość uboga. Balans pomiędzy walką z bliska i na odległość. Grafika dość słaba. Warto wypróbować na konkretnej wyprzedaży.

I've been having a great time with this so far. It's got the perfect amount of simplicity and flow to the combat, enough features to keep it interesting and it's not overly complicated. You're basically just a gang in the wasteland, doing gang things. The dialogue and story do a good enough job to facilitate the atmosphere. I loved the fact that they didn't try fully voicing the characters, that almost never works out in my opinion and generally ruins things for me. What you do get are little, mostly unintelligible and suitably gas-mask muffled vocal queues here and there, perfect. The overworld map travel is perhaps the part which needs more polish, but it's absolutely fine as it is. It could also do with some more variety in the battle maps but again, it's good enough for my tastes. If unpretentious turn-based combat is your bag then I would give this a chance, I've been hooked for a few days.