[h1]XCom in name only, Chimera Squad diverges from the traditional franchise categorically. Those looking for a gritty, military strategy/tactical game with a global scope will find themselves playing a light-hearted, cheery police game, more akin to a visual novel, with some light turnbased combat.[/h1]
[h1]Gameplay:[/h1]
Many mechanics will be familiar to returning fans of the XCOM franchise, including choosing which mission to pursue in order to get which variety of resources, assigning units to different tasks and researching upgrades to be purchased later. There are also Covert Ops missions, a scavenger’s market (gray market) and a mechanic that tracks City Anarchy (analogous to XCOM2’s Avatar Project).
Combat missions (where there is ACTUAL gameplay) typically consists of multiple claustrophobia inducing maps, wherein your team sets up an entry breach, enters during a surprise round, then follows up with actual combat for a few rounds, then repeating up to 3 times a mission.
[h1]KUDOS:[/h1]
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[*][b][u]Breach Mechanics and short-form combat[/u][/b]:
I did like the kinetic-cinematic quality of getting the jump on the enemy team and a free surprise round. Followed by a very, VERY small map and only a handful of enemies in one room. It emphasized the new combat model well: this was a breach and clear sort of combat, not the drawn out, cover hoping of previous entries.
The implementation was meh; The breach point’s listed advantages and risks were often ambiguous, certain ones required abilities or items to use and oftentimes those may not be equipped to right unit, which only mattered because once you leave the base, you couldn’t switch items, even though combat didn’t *technically* start yet.
Having no other combat options whatsoever, made this playstyle become very repetitive - a rapid cycle of breach, a handful of combat rounds, heal, breach, a handful of combat rounds, repeat ad nauseum. All the combat mission types that I played were of this format.
[*][b][u]Truly Unique Units [/u][/b]:
I do like that they leaned into making units unique, particularly getting to play as alien hybrids. Having a static cast of characters was an odd choice, but there are plenty of those in this game.
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[h1]CRITICISMS: [/h1]
[h2]Reduced Strategy Layer [/h2]
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[*][b]Covert Ops and Training[/b]
You quickly get more than 4 units (the maximum squad size) and so these are ways to utilize the extra. They are basically just auto-completing time sinks. You assign any unit to a given mission and it doesn’t matter what their abilities or stats are, they auto succeed after 3 days, gaining either new skills or your chosen resource.
This undercut any sense of strategy or immersion and just felt like the imperative ‘daily quests’ for resources and bonuses that are ubiquitous in mobile games.
[*][b]Uninspired Field Teams and Unrest/Anarchy Management Systems[/b]
Each district in City 31 can be ‘equipped’ with a field team which provides additional bonuses, benefits and rewards. This replaces the base upgrading mechanics of Engineers/Scientists in previous games. Additionally, you get access to Unrest/Anarchy Management abilities once you fulfill certain requirements.
With the miniscule hours I’ve invested, I’ve already unlocked all the abilities and they all have a relatively low cooldown. They cost nothing and prevent whatever badness is associated with raised unrest and city-wide Anarchy, undercutting the threat or interactivity of this mechanic.
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[h2][b]Reduced Tactical Layer [/b][/h2]
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[*][b][u]Overpowered Movement, Abilities and Healing [/u][/b]
The small map sizes diminished the necessity to tactically consider movement since most of your units could usually reach the enemy no matter what their mobility or accuracy might be.
Abilities often have no requirements, range limitation, or cost and can be used every turn, reducing the necessity to tactically consider the timeliness of their use. (Patchwork has an ability that allows you to deal 4 damage to any unit on the map every turn, double to mechanical targets, at no cost).
Healing happens automatically between Breaches. Given how short each combat encounter is and how frequently you breach in a given mission, healing items or powers become substantially less important. However, they are still a significant portion of the variety of equipment you can research and equip. Why bother if it’s not necessary?
This can be adjusted in the settings, but it’s on by default. So the question has to be asked, in this 3rd installation of the series (or arguably 5th, or *arguably* more) which audience is this for?
[*][b][u]Reduced Character Progression and Squad Composition [/u][/b]
Character level progression is reduced to 5 levels and only 3 of them give you the choice of what powers to gain. Add to this, there are only 10 characters in the game (with overlapping competencies) and a maximum of 4 slots in the squad. This seemed to make tactical choice or gameplay style very limited.
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[h2][b] Aesthetic, Narrative Tone and Immersion [/b][/h2]
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[*][b][u]Art, UI and Lack of Animation [/u][/b]
The game looks completely different than its predecessors. Rather than a gritty, semi-realistic 3D, it is a bright, cheerful anime or comic book 2D. Gone are the fully voiced and animated interactions with major NPCs. Major story points are conveyed by stock avatar pictures, comic book style cutaways and cringe-inducing voice acting.
The UI has been flattened to a table of contents and a slightly animated spreadsheet of options where you simply click buttons to start auto-recovering rewards or bonuses.
[*][b][u]Narrative Tone and Immersion [/u][/b]
As multiple reviews state, the game’s tone is far from the gritty, military realism or epic global drama. You’re a team of sassy rookies, who are constantly cracking lame one liners then apologizing because they’re trying not to be too mean. Combat barks are typically light hearted, snide and or playfully ambivalent to the action unfolding behind it.
The banter vacillates between indignant offense, snarky remarks and lunch thieving, guilty apologies and their feelings about their position on the team, or their personal ideologies (which amounts to all the best bits of an HR seminar).
The storytelling seems to *strive* to emulate the battled hardened camaraderie of the previous entries, but doesn’t quite know how to articulate it. It feels forced and without context.
Personally, my suspension of disbelief completely collapsed after your director goes to great lengths to reassure you that the tutorial mission (which you auto-fail) was a success. She confidently and calmly states the team “surpassed [her] expectations” ... ? Baffling.
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[h2][b]General bugginess[/b][/h2]
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[*] While moving in combat, characters will often rubberband to inaccessible areas of the map, only to reappear at their destination.
[*] Kill cam animations during combat often have the agent facing the wrong direction, with the particle effect flying over their shoulder to the target.
[*] The game EATS saves, often corrupting them. This is mostly fine, as it seems like it auto saves every few minutes. I always had at least a dozen auto saves and at least 1 corrupted save.
[*] The “SEND APC” button which initiates the screen where you can finalize a load out and start a combat mission often breaks, forcing you to go back to the main base screen to get it working again.
[*] The game will show a pop up of the new developments and updates for the day, only to have the director announce these developments and updates as soon as you close the dialogue box.
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[h1]Conclusion:[/h1]
This is not what I came here for. I’m here for XCOM and this charlatan is not it. Every system, every menu, every aspect of the game has had its quality reduced or downgraded. It feels like a blatant bait and switch, with XCOM branding on the wrapper.
