RED DAWN

Red Dawn is a game I would describe as a game the developers had clear interest to guns and anime girls, combined both into a game, then realized they needed to figure out the gameplay mechanics since it's a game. It's pretty evident in the amount of weapons available in this game, attachment systems, and the character customizations. Even the overall theme of the game feels like the anime "Sabage-bu!" where it's just a bunch of cute anime girls shooting airsoft guns at each other while they spew fake blood when being shot at because it's a slife-of-life anime. Although this game's main plot is about fending off a neighbouring school's invasion, so technically the game does take itself seriously, albeit slightly. The hit percentage mechanic bears similarity to XCOM's hit chance mechanic, except the hit percentages are rather static. Each gun has their own accuracy stat, so whatever accuracy the gun has is what the hit chances will show all the time. That means no proximity bonus (gain more accuracy when being closer to the enemy) or aiming angles (gain accuracy based on how close you are to flanking the enemy). Either you get the hit chances of a target not in cover/flanked, or a target behind cover, no in-between. So a lot of the time you'll be seeing 30% or 70% hit chances rather than hit chances that can vary between 10% to 100% based on various factors. You can upgrade your guns to give it more accuracy and range, but the fact remains your guns will still switch between two hit chances depending on whether the target is behind cover or not. Speaking of cover, they did a good job at replicating the importance of cover removal like in XCOM. Most cover can be destroyed by explosives, so you have to keep that in mind when trying to group up two units together or taking out more enemies effectively this turn. One issue I find is units don't change their position relative to cover based on the angle of the shooter versus the target. This is a problem because the game has damage bonus if you attack an enemy from the side or the back, so a unit taking cover from the wrong side means they'll take more damage despite being behind cover should the shot passes the hit chance check. Technically this can be advantageous to the player, but having better consistency is appreciated. I would feel cheated if my unit decides to sandwich herself between two cars, chose the side where there are no enemies, then dies to a shot that took advantage of the bonus damage against the back of a unit. There are plenty of gun types in this game. Like, a lot. There's assault rifles, carbines, sniper rifles, anti-materiel rifles, shotguns, light machine guns, heavy machine guns, handguns, machine pistols, revolvers, submachine guns, and anti-tank. Even looking at this list is plenty, and each category has some guns in them, so you have a lot to choose from to equip to your units. But you may have asked, what is the role for each weapon category? Aaand... there's the problem. A lot of these weapon categories don't feel like they're worth using because stat-wise they are just so weak - prime examples being handguns and their similar counterparts. They do very little damage, have poor accuracy, and weak range. Even if your shots hits the enemy, it's unlikely that their weak damage will kill the enemy outright, so the enemy will still be able to shoot at your units on their turn. The only advantage to these weapons are their weight limit - you can store a handgun in your backpack alongside other throwables while still being able to hold a bigger gun in your hand. But here's another issue: each unit can only perform reload up to 8 times, and that reload count shares between all weapons that unit is carrying. And this isn't even considering switching weapons consume 1 action point, so unless your units carrying heavy weapons need to move long distances so you switch to lighter weapons, switching weapons are basically a waste of action. But, if there's one thing I have to say something positive about this game, like I mentioned in the beginning that the devs are clearly into guns, the weapons are portrayed accurately. Guns have correct reload animations (although some are still missing like the M1 Garand), the attachment system makes sense (there's no cursed gun builds), and the weapon variety is appreciated, even if a lot of them end up being glossed over because other guns have superior stats. This review might sound negative, but I have no problems with this game in general. I enjoy this game because it isn't taking itself seriously, but if you are someone who values gameplay a lot, it's best you look elsewhere.