Volta-X

The best i can describe Volta-X, it's an Rpg version of Faster Than Light. Unlocking new weapons, building together your mech and your team is engaging throughout. The campaign is entertaining, but has its weaknesses with sometimes grindy parts(get to mmr 325). Artstyle and music are both outstanding. Menus are clunky especially in your base, but you get the hang of it after a while. If you're a fan of Faster Than Light and like over the top cartoony mech fights, it's definitely worth a look.

Overall, I like it, but it's held back by clunkiness in regards to it's UI and specific mechanics. So far the clutter it's tolerable, especially if you already a fan of the strategy/"RTS" genre, but I can see as a turn off for a lot of people. + Nice, eye catching aesthetic + Combat is simple to pick up, but engaging enough to keep you on your toes (you literally click and drag in order to attack and maneuver your crew to make repairs). + Story has the potential to be interesting. - Lot of menus to dig through. - The headquarters interface is clunky (took me a bit to realize I had to scroll to a room so I could build a new room adjacent to it). - Lack of indicators for critical information. For instance, once in battle there doesn't seem to be a way to tell how health much a crew member has. Also, when a member levels up, there's no indication reminding on the main screen-you have to go through inventory-crew menus, and from there you can see a member has a ^ icon. - Combat early on seems a little too straight forward. You win if you destroy the enemy robot's head or score the most points by the time timer runs out, so combat becomes a DPS race since the AI never seems to aim for the head, but instead your weapons (which slows your DPS but is no biggie). - Maintaining your base and crew members well being feels like a lot of busywork, particularly because there's a day/night cycle that dictates when your crew is able to do things.

Gamepad review Really cool concept paired with the cutest art style. My issues are with the controls and balancing. Controls The controls feel clunky all the time, however controls when against specific types of Voltas can feel worse than others. This is because whenever launching an attack, you begin by aiming at the neck and moving your cursor from there. Since you're aiming at the neck, you end up snapping to the head when aiming for a shoulder. Some Voltas have this and some don't, making it a pain to aim. Balancing There's no point in playing online unless you have 4 drills going head, and there's no counter to it. Will revisit this in a week to see if there's been any changes as I really want the game to succeed, but I just can't enjoy it in its current state.

Get this game! Fun, easy to learn, battles are fun and strategic, fun story telling and some RPG elements for base building. HIGHLY SUGGEST PLAYING!

I just don't understand this game's glowing positive review rating. It's such a disappointing shell of a potential game. Ok, maybe I'm not the target audience here (I might be 25 years to old to play something this cute) but Super Marios vs. Rabbids is cutesy and playful, without sacrificing tactical substance. In short there is no tactics, or indeed strategy to be find here. The strategy, if you can call it that, is as follows - if the target has shield, destroy it then target head, if not, target head with everything you got. Upgrades and crew skills are inconsequential and bland, base building just a padding. The UI is godawful and everything takes 2-3 clicks too many. I uninstalled it with disgust and I after almost hour of play I still don't know how to assign crew members to start battles in specific Volta parts. Hard Pass. Too bad, I think there was a potential here. It would need substantial rework of pretty much every gameplay element though.

It's a fun game, but you have to be connect to their servers to play even against AI. This would be less of a problem if the servers weren't on fire. Yay for forced online, making yet another good game unplayable. EDIT: The issue is while in game I will frequently get a reconnecting error, sometimes it will resolve itself after a few seconds. However, after multiple reconnecting errors in succession the game will continue without my being able to input commands. After that I have to wait for the match to conclude and restart the game. The match will conclude while the game is off so I can just turn it off and wait a few minutes. I'm changing my review to be positive on the good faith that the game will be updated. I do think an offline mode would be good for this game, as while I enjoy it I have little interest in the multiplayer aspect.

Volta-X is a charming strategy game with a unique presentation. While the main campaign does a great job of respecting your time (I finished it in 6~ hours, which I consider fantastic in an age where every game wants to be the only thing you play, forever), the "end game" does not. Once the credits roll, there is a long grind ahead of you as you are tasked with playing through dozens of matches back to back in order to rank up and get the next unlock or story bit. It's tough to tell whether or not this grind will pay off; it largely depends on whether "Season 2" (the next story patch with a yet to be determined release date) will be balanced around an assumption of completing the "Season 1" end game, or simply require a credits roll of season 1 to start playing. This game technically has multiplayer, but matchmaking is pretty dead as far as I can tell. Steamcharts verifies few people are playing this. I feel like the "end game" grind would be a lot more tolerable if you could do it against human opponents, but the playerbase just doesn't seem to be there. I would still give this a solid recommendation in spite of that. It's plenty entertaining enough for a solid story playthrough, and if you can resist the urge to rub yourself against every ounce of content it has to offer, it's worth your time. Be aware that this is an online only game, even if you play single player.

Found this game by accident and glad I did! First off the art and music is really good and I love the different characters you can recruit. The gameplay took me a bit to fully grasp but once you understand it, it becomes more fun. The headquarters can be a little overwhelming especially with menus but gets better as you progress. I haven't done any pvp, just AI battles and I like how the game doesn't force you to play others if you don't want to. There seems to be an issue where the game crashes but only when I'm upgrading a node in a character's skill tree or when it does the cutscene after unlocking a crew member. It has happened at least 6 times so far. Other than that, this game has a lot of charm and seems to be one of those games where you have to play it to understand it, not by watching. I highly recommend this game and hope the devs keep supporting this and adding on to it.

[h3]Volta-X was an ambitious real-time strategy game featuring cute animals piloting giant robots. Layers of customization offered unique crew, frame, and weapon combinations, on top of a mini base-building mechanic similar to Fallout Shelter. Unfortunately, it fell prey to the live-service structure of so many games today, having locked its story mode entirely online. As of yesterday, all that remains of it is a rogue-lite offline mode, stripped of much of what made the full game great.[/h3] [i]Since Steam forces a rating, choosing not recommended on the basis of having its online service shutdown, cutting off the campaign and any ability to earn its achievements. If you're looking to acquire it, it isn't worth the purchase anymore.[/i] What exactly was [i]Volta-X[/i]? Not quite RTS, not quite RPG, but something in-between. It followed the adventures of a plucky animal trio aspiring to become renown mecha pilots. While expanding their headquarters and upgrading their arsenal, they'd uncover a nefarious plot and save the world from gigantic aliens. This culminated in a cliffhanger for a second season, which sadly never materialized. Progression came by way of completing missions, or "minisodes" as it called them, presented as skits, couched between 1V1 battles VS AI and human opponents. The PVP element was framed as part of its robot league ranking, depicted as the competitive journey to becoming world champs. Winning matches unlocked new crew, parts, and robos, as well as new facilities. That is to say, in addition to combat, you needed to design and manage your underground bunker, balancing utilities, crew happiness, and R&D. There was a wealth of customization. Including: - Crew - Each character had skill trees with two unique perks, favoring melee, ranged, or status builds - Weapons - Not just sword or lasers, but force fields, drones, status, and buff / debuff variants as well - Mechs - Varied by number and type of compatible parts (shoulder / chest / arm) and had unique special abilities, such as transformation, speed boost, armor, or status effect damage - Base - Facilities for research (unlocks), lab (upgrades), training (leveling up mechs & characters not used in battle). Efficiency was based on crew friendship (schedule them to work together) and happiness (balance their needs). Crew needs included hunger, rest, social, and stress There is so much more to explain about these but time and space does not allow. Suffice to say, you could build anything. A melee smasher, complete with defense-lowering acid shooters and paralyzing electric fists. A fully ranged sniper, with cannons, turrets, and automated drones. An impenetrable fortress, with force field, shield, repair bots and crew, relying on lasers and satellite strikes to burn your enemy down. Or a crew-disabling specialist, with radar to see their locations, frost rays to slow them down, and pile drivers to cut their HP to shreds. Of course, every build choice has its own weaknesses, too: Melee can't hit if the enemy is flying, Ranged won't connect if the enemy has force fields, status can be shut down with resistant perks, repair bots, and sprinklers, and crew targeting loses to early radar destruction, swift enemies, heal bots, and shielded builds. The combat was similar to the popular JRPG "active time battle" system. Each part has a timer, which when charged, can launch an attack. Priority goes to whomever locks in a target first, and you can combo attacks by locking in as many as possible back to back. You had three ways to win: Destroy the head, disable all three crew members, or survive with the most points. 50 points for head, 2 points per crew, and 1 point per part destroyed. As it goes with all PVP games, [i]Volta[/i] struggled with balance. If you could destroy the head, you could instantly win, so the meta leaned heavily in this direction. Defense was discarded in favor of offense, rushing as quickly as possible to pound the opponent into submission. The A.I. specifically struggled to deal with this, even in the highest of rankings. The only real challenge was felt in its consecutive 4-stage fight, the penultimate optional challenge of warrior league, which carries over your crew and part HP without any recovery between battles. What remains of the game today is its "metaverse" mode, a rogue-lite which forces you to pick between randomized parts, upgrades, and crew members. It has a bit of meta progression in between plays, such as unlocking stronger crew, perks, and weapons in the selection pool, but it's heavily RNG dependent and may frustrate more casual players who would have preferred the full control of the story campaign. Why the story wasn't made available offline is anyone's guess. [i]Volta[/i] was by no means a perfect game, but it held a great deal of promise. It's a shame it chose a service path and as such, is now pulled from sale and support. If you own it, it's worth a spin. If you don't, I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to acquire a copy, especially if the price is inflated. [u]Achievement Hunters[/u]: No longer possible to complete. All achievements were tied to online mode, and were bugged - you had to change language to get them to unlock (reasons unknown). If you didn't get them by 11/9, RIP.