Tactical Breach Wizards

When I first heard about this game, I was really excited for it. I had played the two previous games in Suspicious Developments "Defenestration Trilogy", and they were both good, so I was really hyped up for this one. (The story of the three games are unrelated and they take place in different settings as far as I can tell, it's just called that because all three games let you throw people through windows.) I ended up playing the playtest of the game, and I enjoyed it quite a bit! Now that I've finally had the time to play the game, I can safely say that it definitely lived up to the hype! One thing I want to bring up right away is the amount of options the game gives you. Dialogue sections and missions (at least, some of them) can be skipped without penalty, although unless you've already read all the story/dialogue and played through said missions, I'd recommend not doing so, because the writing in the game is funny and charming, and the levels are well-designed! You can also customize the difficulty, choosing between 'Easy', 'Normal', 'Hard', or 'Custom', with the last one letting you choose between options for each thing difficulty affects. Before I go on, I want to mention a few things about how I played the game. For my playthrough, I was on a save carried over from the playtest, which ended up giving me access to [spoiler]Jen's "Broom Breach" ability[/spoiler] a little early. I was also playing on 'Custom' difficulty, with all settings at the hardest. (Which is the same as playing on 'Hard', except my units had half as much HP). I found that the game provided a fair challenge, even with my difficulty cranked up to the max. In fact, I'd recommend giving it a try, especially if you've played other turn-based strategy games (like [i]Into The Breach[/i]) before. With that being said, it's awesome that they give you a lot of options when it comes to tweaking difficulty, so I think it's likely that, regardless of what flavor of difficulty is fun for you, you'll be able to adjust the game to fit it! The music of the game is also pretty good. You hear some of the tracks quite often, but they never got annoying, and they always fit the mood pretty well. The visuals are neat too, and there's a surprising amount of details for what looks to, at a glance, be a very simple art style. I especially liked the designs of the characters, and while I quickly figured out which outfits were my favorites for each one and mostly just used those, I thought all of them were good. The one aspect I have a little bit of mixed feelings on is that some of the levels near the end of the game were barely a challenge (even at my maxxed-out difficulty) because of how strong you get with all the perks you've unlocked, and the amount of things you can do when all of your characters are in play and can interact with each other. On the one hand, it does feel pretty good to be really strong in the endgame, and pull off crazy things that weren't previously possible. On the other hand, the best strategies for a lot of maps are similar, and it both feels a little stale to keep doing the same things to beat every level, and feels bad to purposefully not use the best strategies to keep things fresh when you know you could be doing better. It didn't ruin the final parts of the game for me by any means, and there were levels that were designed in ways that made these strategies more difficult to pull off, but it did make some of those levels feel less challenging than they were built up to be. The optional side-objectives ("Confidence Goals", which give you points to be able to use cosmetic outfits) set this off somewhat, as you often need to go out of your way and use more unusual/suboptimal strategies to accomplish them. All that only applies to a small amount of the levels nearing the end of the game, though, which was still enjoyable! The difficulty was great for the rest of the game, and I loved figuring out how to beat each level. Before I end this review, I also want to mention a neat fun fact: During the playtest period of the game, they let you fill in your ideas, and I mentioned that I thought it'd be neat if [spoiler]there was a way to 'create' windows where there aren't any, to defenestrate people through[/spoiler]. Upon playing the game, I found that [spoiler]not only does a character have that ability, but it plays a pretty important role in the story![/spoiler] Not that I think it was put in because of my suggestion (it almost certainly wasn't!), but I think It's neat that something I wanted in to be in the game was already in it, and it was even better than I'd hoped! Overall, the game has great story, great aesthetics, and awesome gameplay, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes turn-based strategy games and/or wizards. I especially recommend it if you enjoyed either of the previous 'Defenestration Trilogy' games, [i]Gunpoint[/i] and [i]Heat Signature[/i]. Although the gameplay and story and setting in each game is vastly different, if you thought those games were high-quality, then you'll likely think the same of this one, as this one is the best one yet! Extra closing thoughts for those who've beat the game: [spoiler] For my endings, I chose 'Ill think about it' for letting Liv live (but only because I thought it was going to give me the choice again, I'd choose to spare her now). I also had Jen Kellen and Dessa Banks start an investigation agency together, Dall Sabin step back from the front lines and take up a more strategic role, Rion assassinate the head of Reactor (Rick Gadden), and Zan Vesker retire and bake bread with his mother. I may have to check out the other endings, as while they're treated as 'one-or-the-other', I don't see why some would be just based off the ones I picked (why not help find survivors and start the PI agency after, for example?). I especially wonder what's in some of those endings that would prevent them from working the 'Tactical Beach Wizards' photo into canon, as I don't see why they couldn't vacation together after the events of the game, and then do their respective endings after. Even if they had to wait on that until after their endings, I don't see why they couldn't do that later (except that Rion disappeared off the grid after if I remember correctly, but they could just not do that, or have him keep contact with the rest of the team even if everyone else doesn't know where he is.) Not that it ruined the ending or anything for me, I'm just curious as to why it is how it is! ...also, they should've let the two best characters, Jen Kellen and Dessa Banks, get married! But opening a PI Agency together's pretty good too I suppose...[/spoiler]