Frontier: Path of Shadows

Nearly an interesting game with the hints of good game mechanics. Unfortunately while the devs clearly have grand ideas, they have failed to communicate them with the players. First up let players be under no misconceptions as to what this game is. It is a Visual Novel with a combat mini game. This is not a new XCOM where you manage your squad through nail bitting turn base combat and feel like using a loved one when a combat goes pear shaped. The combat is... different. It is node based. You move from node to node and try and complete the victory conditions. It could be really interesting but there seems to be no consiquences for having a team member dropped, and since this is actually a Visual Novel, not a team management game, it quickly becomes clear that your characters have plot armour because killing any of them off would break the story line. The node map is, as I said, interesting. Or at least different. The problem is the nodes are basically all or nothing. If you get into a node that gives cover, you get cover from all directions. So there is no tactical need to move to a new node to outflank and break that cover. There is some variation where you can loot boxes during the combat, but even that is flawed in that you don't get immediate feedback on what you actually found, or even if you are affecting the end battle loot. Sometimes you seem to get a lot of loot, somethings not, so is it worth to run across the map just to drop two action points or not? Dunno. Also a bit glitchy. I had a character start movement and then freeze. Other times the turn sequence seemed to jump characters and the AI occasionally has enemy run back and forward from the same node until they run out of action points. Also no overwatch. So the combat mini game is... okay I guess. The game also drip feeds game concepts. At least I assume I will eventually be told what these science points and prisoners I have been collecting do. A good 3 hours into the campaign and they are just things I have been collecting. The skill tree isn't unlocked until about 90 minutes in. You can clearly see that you gain XP from battle one, but do you get to apply them to your characters? Not straight away. There is also a mini game where you scan planets to unlock encounters. How does this mini game work? Still no real idea, which is frustrating as in order to continue the story in a few parts you need to win this mini game. Every attempt costs you money so no idea what happens if you cash out before your random clicking succeeds. Between the novel parts and the combat mini game there is a star map you can muddle around in. There is not time limit on events or fuel to watch so I guess you can just go around spamming combat encounters for that XP the game won't let you spend yet. No ship to ship combat. If you meet a ship you go to the ground combat mini game, so I guess there are no ship upgrades in the game I haven't seen yet. Markets are sparce. Equipment decays and I can't see any repair mechanics. Since you also can't find the markets that means unless you get some good loot drops your melee build character no longer has a sword. Or something. Characters are... okay. I don't play a lot of the Visual Novel type games so have no real benchmark. Personally I find the lead character, Jay, annoying and have his 1st person narriation offputting. Am I meant to be Jay? Am I watching Jay recall a story about his adventure? Dunno. I don't play the Visual Novel so maybe this is a Me Thing. (also Jay throwing his bloody napkin over his shoulder after his first nose bleed makes him seem like a bit of a ♥♥♥♥. This is NOT your ship, bro. Put it in the bin!) I also find some of the mood swings with the characters and the plot choices jarring. There are conversations that seem to randomly turn into shouting matches. Dunno. I don't play the Visual Novels so again, maybe a Me Thing. Overall I am finding this a bit of a let down. There are so many game mechanics that seem to be just a mouse click away but 4 hours in I am still not 100% sure what I am doing or even if I am controlling my own story. Hopefully the devs will patch out some of the confusion as I want to like this game a lot more. Also a Crystal. It does stuff. I don't care that much. I give this Three Blakes out of Seven.

Хочу разобрать тактическую часть подробно, потому что для меня это тут главное. Первое, что бросается в глаза - здесь нет привычного ощущения «рандом решает всё». Шанс попадания есть, но он работает предсказуемо: если игра говорит, что у тебя высокий шанс попасть, ты почти гарантированно попадёшь, и наоборот. Звучит как мелочь, но она полностью меняет то, как думаешь во время боя. Решения основаны на позиции и укрытии, а не на надежде, что кубик выпадет нужной стороной. Второе - процедурная генерация карт реально работает не для галочки. Я специально переигрывал одну и ту же миссию несколько раз, просто из любопытства, и каждый раз получал разную планировку, разное расположение укрытий, иногда даже другие точки появления противников. Это заставляет реально импровизировать, а не разучивать один и тот же оптимальный маршрут. Третье - снаряжение. Оно изнашивается, и поначалу это казалось раздражающей мелочью, но чем дальше, тем больше это превращается в настоящий стратегический слой: приходится решать, что брать в первую очередь, что продать, а что оставить про запас. К середине игры у меня уже был целый ритуал перед каждой вылазкой: проверить состояние экипировки, распределить ресурсы, и только потом выходить в бой. Отдельно скажу про баланс сложности. Она растёт не резкими скачками, а плавно, и всегда есть время адаптироваться, если следить за развитием команды. Пара моментов всё же ощущались чуть более суровыми, чем остальная игра, но это, кажется, было следствием того, что я плохо подготовился, а не проблема баланса как такового. В общем, если вы любите тактику ради тактики - эта игра сделана для вас. Рекомендую без всяких оговорок.

Well, I was enjoying this game quite a bit until I got to planet scanning. Hoo-boy is this a poor game mechanic. Here's what I wrote in the forums to the developers: [i]Ok, after doing more planet scans, I have come to the conclusion that the scanning "mini-game" is not enjoyable at all. It is beyond tedious. You have to move the mouse teensy tiny bits, then wait a few seconds for the signal to move up, then inevitably go back down. Then move the mouse a teensy tiny bit again, and wait for the signal to move up again, then back down. Repeat over and over until you hopefully find the exact pixel where the signal stays up and doesn't go back down. This is not fun. It requires WAY too exact of a mouse location amongst thousands of pixels. I hope this gets redone to make it much more forgiving. Otherwise this will drive me away from this game in a hurry.[/i] So, we'll see if the developers fix this in the next few days. Otherwise I'm trying for a refund with my 2.3 hours played. Be compassionate, Steam, please.

There are a lot of tactical RPGs that give you a squad and a grid, then assume the combat will do all the heavy lifting. This one feels more interested in the journey around those battles. You’re flying around the Frontier, finding opportunities, making decisions, upgrading your crew, dealing with damaged equipment and trying to understand what exactly happened to Jay. The story starts with what looks like a fairly straightforward courier job and quickly turns into something much bigger. I particularly like Alice because I never completely know what she is thinking. She’s competent, sometimes frustratingly secretive, and clearly carrying her own history. Rob is a nice contrast. He’s much more grounded, practical and mechanically minded. Together they give the ship a believable sense of having a crew rather than just three character portraits. The tactical combat then benefits from all of that because you actually care about getting these people through the next encounter.

What got me was the dialogue choices actually branching things later, not just flavor text. There's a scene with a corporate guy named Johnson trying to talk you into handing over the crystal "for the good of the sector," and I genuinely wasn't sure if he was lying or not. Ended up siding with my crew instead and I have no idea if that was the smart move. Combat's the main draw for a lot of people I'm guessing, but honestly I'm here for the crew now. Alice and Rob feel like actual people, not just stat blocks with dialogue attached.

Bought in expecting a solid but forgettable tactics game to fill time before bigger releases this fall. Instead I've been thinking about the crystal mystery all week and I'm not even done with the story yet. Mechanically it does what it needs to. Turn-based combat with real stakes, no coin-flip nonsense, gear and squad management that actually matters. But it's the writing and the crew that are going to stick with me. For an indie release, this is doing more with its characters than a lot of bigger-budget tactics games manage. Easy recommend, especially if you've been waiting for something to fill the XCOM-shaped hole in your backlog.

Made a choice early on I thought was minor. It was not minor. Found out four hours later. Reloaded an old save like a coward. No regrets, would cower again.

Needs some QoL. There are tons of times that you have no idea what's really going on. Also the combat system is a bit janky. Sometimes it auto ends your turn other times not. So you go to click end your turn and the GuI hasn't caught up and you end up missing a turn. The AI for the ground combat is also wonky. I had a couple of maps where the mobs just huddled up in one spot. They would move back and forth and never attack. Finally and this is the big one. The mechanic regaring scanning the planet needs to be reworked. Either make it less flaky, or greatly reduce the cost. Got a random event that took all my cash and couldn't scan anywhere to land. So went off and fought some rando stuff, see above, and got a whopping 250 credits.. which allowed me to try twice on a planet and of course failed. It has potential but needs more love before it's playable.

Sci-fi + turn-based tactics + crew management. Pretty much my weakness. The story's mystery is enough to keep me curious. I like that the Frontier itself feels dangerous instead of just being a backdrop.