I grew to love XCOM because of XCOM 2. I genuinely had a hard time believing Chimera Squad came AFTER XCOM 2, until I played it.
Why don't I recommend it?
Preface:
XCOM 2 was more or less perfect, with my only real gripe being the sheer amount of repeated cutscenes interrupting play, and it was always a enemy reinforcement cutscene.
Chimera Squad, takes the perspective of what follows XCOM 2 as a sequel, functioning more like a specialized SWAT team than a military remnant resisting occupation. This takes a fascinating angle, that I grew to really like, breach mechanics and detaining are a nice touch.
Chimera Squad cures my gripe of the same cutscene playing on repeat for each individual reinforcement of enemies to make it more fluid and natural, less disruptive.
HOWEVER... This came with a massive unignorable caveat that really had me convinced this was not a sequel of XCOM 2, that being customization having been totally and utterly ripped out, the ability to personalize your agents, tailor them to a play style you prefer and provides a measure of excitement in being able to progress your unit technologically.
This is not me whining "THIS ISN'T XCOM 2" this is a feeling of content that felt so uniquely XCOM to feeling nothing like it. I SWAT-like play, I love it. Breach entries, fantastic. Overall, this feels like a core element has been completely ripped clean of the game. It's most unwelcome when you see you no longer have the options you once did which no longer respects player agency like it once did.
The customization has gone from:
- build your soldiers from the ground up, give their nationality, personality, voice choice, camouflage choices, loadout choices, equipment, appearance, facial features like camo paint/scars/facial hair, Tops, Pants, headgear, hairstyle, biography, national flag patches,
- Who you recruit is from a massive roster, that you yourself can add custom characters to, btw upwards of up to 30+ characters.
- upgradeable classes for said soldiers.
To:
- you pick one from 3-4 people to recruit
- All characters are pre-made
- You get to choose A colour tint. A colour tint....from 15-ish pre-selected colours.
Do you see how much of a bloody downgrade the game appears in comparison?
This hardly feels like a sequel, it was hard to believe that the same studio produced this!!
Honestly, the slightly better gameplay doesn't feel anywhere nearly as convincing for me to get hooked as it was to have all of that customization. The cool new game mechanics too.
