STAR WARS Zero Company™

(Written by a former Star Wars fan and decently heavy Xcom player) Tldr: This game had beautiful bones but fell short in every aspect. Gameplay: The mechanics while weren't super engaging had a good amount of depth. Unfortunately even at the hardest difficulty it didn't require much strategizing and none of the mechanics ever really came together in a very coherent way. Characters: Everyone was super fun including the main character Hawks and the interactions were great. They just didn't feel completely fleshed out, maybe too big of an ask but more cutscenes and dialogues with the side characters would of gone so far. I liked everyone of them but never really got to know them or feel like Hawks really got to connect with them.(Aside from one) Overall Story: I personally felt this was the strongest aspect of the game from start to finish. It didn't outstay its welcome, it was engaging and interesting, and though a big question was left somewhat unanswered I didn't leave feeling unsatisfied with the plot itself. I 100% recommend the game to Star Wars fans but not so much Xcom ones. There wasn't anything gameplay wise would convince me to give this more than one playthrough unlike Xcom.(Though maybe mods would someday change my mind) I also heard there are some bad performance issues but didn't experience it on very strong components. Overall enjoyed it but god I felt like it could have been so much greater then it was.

The game has optimization issues and they need to be fixed. With that said the gameplay, story, and every other aspect of the game are great.

If you like x-com you'll like this. Good design, story has some surprises, all around a fun time. I'd recommend Hard diff, it provides some challenge along the way. //my time is inflated from leaving the game running while afk.

Good gameplay paired with a good story. Easy recommendation for turn based, Xcom and/or Star Wars enjoyers!

A wonderful marriage of the tactical layers of XCom, and a rich story from the Star Wars universe. It tries to do what XCom wasn't particularly interested in doing from a story perspective - which is to say it tells something well acted and written through cutscenes and team development storylines during one of the more interesting periods of the prequel era of Star Wars. Having said that, the depth of the tactical layer isn't as well honed or replayable as XCom. The story is part of the issue, as the light storytelling elements of XCom served to keep focus and pacing tight around base building and the tactical fights. Zero Company's story tethers it to something closer to on-rails, and means there are no procedurally generated maps and more limited choices in the base management side of house. The battlefields are varied, beautiful, and tactically interesting, but they are hand-made and therefore don't have that same element of surprise upon replaying that XCom's procedurally generated maps do. Having said that, I enjoyed it more from a story standpoint than Xcom, and feel I got far more than my money's worth from a well acted and well told emotional journey in the Star Wars universe. And from a gameplay standpoint it is very good, but just never quite reaches the highs and tight replayability of XCom due to the direction it chose in its storytelling. I would buy it again in a heartbeat, full price. It's truly that good. There are some optimization issues at time of release - I had one minor crash in 37 hours, but some visual hiccups are more common (camera getting a bit wonky when reinforcements approach or geometry obscures shots, some visual tearing even with VSync enabled, etc.) but nothing that ruined the experience. My rig is decently powerful, though, so your mileage may vary. TLDR: A stellar tactical RPG ala XCom, but with the storytelling chops of a modern Mass Effect. Highly recommended.

Well written story, fun gameplay, and modern graphics. One of my favorite Star Wars games. I would buy a sequel or expansion.

If you like Turn Based Tactical games you can go wrong with ZCom. It is not as punishing as Xcom, even though in Hard difficulty (and beyond) is where it's lack of build limitation shines helping you adapt in different situations. The injury system is fine given the nature of the missions which most of them doesn't require to clear the map. But what the game does great and it is a breath of fresh air is how they implemented the story driven gameplay. All the characters are very well written, the plot twists makes you really care about the setting, the Bond XP system is the reward for caring for your operatives. Aside from the few technical glitches of the launch, the game is almost flawless. If anything, I wanted to keep playing the game and see what comes next after the main story ended. So let's hope for more Zero Company content cause it is sincerarly the best Turn-Based Tactics game and the best Star Wars Game we had in years.