STAR WARS Zero Company™

It's actually way more than zero companies

Big fan, love turn-based tactics and while the game has some issues. I think it does it well. What I like: The game does the atmosphere and feel of star wars very well. I like the destructible environments, and state hazards, though I do wish they could be more impactful. The gameplay is really addictive and the mechanics and specializations make it fun to try and new squads out. some gripes: I wish there was less of a focus on the preset initial team and perhaps has more dynamic story quests for new hires. That way each run would feel different. I also feel like melee is completely useless for the most part. Perhaps if you could hit people on the other side of cover or make the range you can move afterwards better. I would be more in cline to use it. Otherwise it just puts you in a bad position 9/10 times. also please let me skip the introductory missions, or perhaps just release a sandbox mode.

While the game I think noticeably needs A TON of optimizations and rebalancing, I can say I had a lot of fun with this game. If you can get past the frequent hangs/freezes (and the very infrequent potential crashes; YMMV depending on the hardware), you may find yourself really enjoying what I considered very positive/solid aspects of the game: * Gameplay (fights were super fun accompanied by good animations/models) * Soundtrack * Side characters with their own personalities/backstories/motivations * Immersive environments (I found the details back in the base especially nice) * Fun dialogs/good voice acting * Quite a few references to those that have seen other Star Wars media/stories * Useful/rewarding management of the team in between missions (I never once felt it was useless time) * Decisions you make ( [spoiler] primarily impacting the gameplay such as the Coil units' passives. This is fun and the game doesn't try to be a Mass Effect-light in this area so it felt well in the scope of what they were shooting for I think [/spoiler] ), and * What I considered an interesting story for a 40ish-hour game that felt very much comfortable in the Star Wars timeline this is in * Its current state might've been bad for a base $60-70 price point but at $50 for the base price was I think a necessary but good choice nonetheless. Right now its value was worth it for me. I've never played XCOM so I can't speak to the parallels drawn ever since its announcement and now release, but I have played a few tactics before and this one felt very rewarding in finding a good combination of skillsets/synergies across the team I built over time. Progression felt great in how you start expanding/improving what you start with and then start adding to it without feeling limited and that you cannot do anything when you first start. The game very much felt designed to encourage you to experiment and try new things without any sort of punishment/penalties for investing points on certain skills since you can refund them and relocate them differently. The one scenario I can think of "punishing" would be you trying something really risky in terms of your team combination with no synergy for a fight that's painted as difficult beforehand, setting yourself up for failure depending on your difficulty level. But even then, I think it's not something that'd happen easily. Overall, for me, this was a fantastic game that I beat after almost 60 hours and I'd be happy to maybe try some of the more difficult levels for a second playthrough (although not sure I'll finish it a second time). Given the news about the studio shortly after release, you can kind of notice how they just didn't have enough runway to polish it and had to release it in its current state. To me, the weak areas being: * Performance optimizations (e.g. I could not run it on a Steam Deck which was a big wish of mine), * Hangs/freezes (I had to redo 4 fights from the very start as it autosaves only once when a fight starts; save every few turns if you run into this) * UI/UX was a little all over the place in what worked with MKB vs gamepad and sometimes confusing (use the shoulders--LB/RB--for most of the targeting, it'll avoid accidental targeting) * Character customization for your main character does feel a little lacking in just some areas but overall it felt great (especially for your companions). * Limited up-close third-person navigation of worlds I think helped with the immersion but may feel somewhat unnecessary sometimes. It's helpful when there are cinematics but I wish you could've done a little more walking around to find intel/advantage rather than having them readily available in a very linear path. It felt it could've been fleshed out a little more. The only way to miss them I think it may be intentionally ignoring them. I may come around this later and feel that anything more would've gotten in the way of the fights and this might've been the best approach. * I could be wrong, but [spoiler] at times it felt like some of Meevo's and Runa's interactions with Hawks were going to be much deeper/longer beyond just pre-Mission banter or Story-required interactions. This may be due to lack of runway for the studio--who knows. Still fun! [/spoiler] * Connected to the lack-of-runway point, I think the base might've had like one or two corners that might've been reserved for future work and were never really used/fleshed out and that's a shame. I would be super happy if the publisher were to see this is as a great foundation to build upon and hopefully fund the studio with the staff that worked on this for a sequel. I'd be at a minimum very intrigued and would follow studio updates up to release to at least get a sense of a repeat. This was

Just play it.

Very enjoyable game. If you enjoy tactical squad turn based strategy games, there's a lot to love here. If you're not sure about the genre, it's a solid place to start. The combat was fun and provided me with plenty of tense moments. On the flip side, it is definitely one of the more forgiving games of the genre I've played. I was on Hard difficulty (2nd highest), and I VERY rarely felt like I was ever in any real danger. I can get into a horrible chainsaw accident and still count on one hand the number of operators who actually got injured in a battle. If things played out right, I could single or double-turn big bosses, including the final bosses. Overall, the game hits a nice sweet spot. Like I said, the missions and combat were fun. The combat found a nice middle ground between the hyper-defensive missions of XCOM and something more aggressive like Chaosgate: Daemonhunters. Cover and overwatch were still big parts of the strategy. But the game rewarded you for pushing forward into enemy lines, and there were mechanics that actively pushed you to keep moving forward (timers for some objectives, endless reinforcements, etc). I enjoyed going back to base and having a Mass Effect-esque area where I could run around and converse with all of my operators and allies. It added a nice degree of personality that a lot of other games of the genre lack. There are definitely some technical issues that still need to get worked out. The first 3/4 of the game was pretty stable for me with only 1 or 2 crashes total. But the last quarter was going down hard and often. I actually had 4 or 5 crashes right after the final mission and almost couldn't do the epilogue until I repaired the Microsoft Visual C++ v14 redistributables on my computer. I also had one weird softlock during the final mission that required a reload of my last save. Throughout the game, the camera would sometimes do weird stuff, distant enemy or character animations would get weird and jerky, and overwatch would not behave properly (either teleporting through your overwatch or the game would sometimes just not display anything happening for some or all of overwatch, and random amounts of damage would just occur). Hopefully some of this is stuff that can get sorted pretty easy. At the end of the day, I say this game is well worth checking out. For Bit Reactor's first game, I think they hit a home run that I enjoyed thoroughly and I do intend to revisit the game after some patches and after getting through the gauntlet of new games currently releasing. I know BR ran out of money just before release and had to furlough almost all of their staff (not fired, more or less on unpaid leave), but they had hopes the game did well enough they could bring everybody back. At a minimum, here's hoping that ZCOM did well enough that these guys can come back and keep making great strategy games. In an ideal world, I'd LOVE to see it have done so well that we see some DLC/expansions in the future for this game

outstanding

GOTY

CLONE squad 10/10