Gem Wizards Tactics

Good game, I wish it got more love from the greater gaming community

Oddly enough my main gripe with this game is the difficultity and randomness. Overall i don't think being a roguelike makes this game any better.

Wait for a sale. "Into The Breach" if it were far more ambitious but still it is an overall worse game. Did not go far enough to give a game like this a fair thumbs down though I don't expect it gets better. It generally gives you what is advertised and what you expect but none of it was fun to me. Didn't crash or have any issues launching the game or jumping into the action. Also comes with replay value but that would only matter if your first playthrough was fun.

This is a short and sweet tactical game. The synergies between the different factions and wonky combinations are the main selling point. That and how short matches are. It is only single player, and not concerning itself with balance. I wouldn't expect much of a challenge either. $15 USD seems pretty steep, as it won't engage tactical junkies for more than a few hours. I'd say get it on sale.

The story and theme is about as subtle as a brick but it has a lot of charm and the occasional line did make me laugh. The gameplay is a very interesting mix of traditional hex based unit combat, unit special abilitys and terrain manipulation. Unit placement and ability usage tend to be much more important than unit stats in this game, which tends to lend a more strategic style of play rather than just "Bigger number wins". Also each faction is meaningfully different in both theme and play. The mix of graphic styles is a bit odd, about 2/3's of the game is very well designed pixel art and the rest is mostly high fidelty minimalism. It clashes.

https://youtu.be/KTzy_uu6FdU Weirdness and complexity go hand in hand for this hex based tactics game. It'll take some time to learn the unique units but the quality makes it worth it.

Worth recommending?.... Yeah why not? I'd argue "there's potential" in this game - Seems to have interesting ideas regarding battle mechanics - The UI still needs work because it literally feels all over the place. Wargroove or Advanced Wars are more comfortable to use. - There are inconsistencies in what constitutes an "Action" (moving is, but meele attack isn't) and the game would probably be deeper if abilities and movement had different "Action Point" cost - The half-baked and shallow politics/economics embeded in the story is truly the greatest defect of the game