TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children

I don't typically go for games that have VN elements, but if you look past the anime aesthetic there is a solid TBT guild management life sim with heart in its storytelling and characters that have interesting mechanics and synergies while also looking ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cool. Lots of flavors of badasses to compose a team, and even the generic police forces that help you out have their shining moments and clutch saves. I bounced off the newer X-Com games (huge fan of the originals though), so I thought TBT just wasn't for me anymore. Turns out I just needed the funny one where your characters' friendship is as important as their crit rate. Dandylion has a sequel in the works and it'll be an insta-buy for me when it comes out, and I wish I had known about this one sooner.

Yes for spreadsheet lovers. For me, the unneeded layers of complexity doesn't add fun to core gameplay: tactical combat or RPG immersion. I need less spreadsheet and more vocalized immersion. Tactical battles are ok-ish, except the dodge and resistance mechanics where some normal mobs are almost immune to certain attacks, making them absurdly hard to kill, harder than bosses even.

What a game. Pretty meh/not great story, characters are fine, designs do what they need to. But wow, gameplay loop is peak. So much fun playing the game, winning fights, getting incrementally stronger, just so much fun to play. Translation makes scenes a little more awkward and strange than they probably should be, but if you like xcom/fire emblem gameplay, this game is a 100/10 recommend.

感觉这游戏跟我挺有缘的，战棋+刷天赋，刚准备买转天就降价了，可惜还是退款了。一是因为说很肝受不了，还有线上模式可能没法修改器。二是因为我发现可能我喜欢的不是战棋，是神界原罪2和正义之怒这种。 游戏能明显感觉是韩式画风+翻译，翻译有点怪，画风我觉得还不错，挺合胃口。其实挺喜欢这种刷刷刷的游戏的，不过也不想太肝。不知道会不会出续作并改良这个问题，那是或许还会买

기계가 나오기 전까지는 재밌음 기계가 나온 시점부터 뇌절하더니 흔한 개발자들의 기싸움이 시작됨 누가봐도 잘못된 설계인데 장문으로 답글을 달 시간은 있지만 수치 몇 개 수정할 시간은 절대 없나봄

I was really surprised at just how much attention the devs have given this game. Across the board from the UI, UX to the art direction, story/character details and so on... This game is a true passion project and should inspire much bigger studious to strive to match the level of work that has been put into this game. In a lot of regards, it just comes across as much better than those bigger games. It is a story based tactical rpg with a great number of builds available and a visual novel style story. Only similar to XCOM in it's combat style I'd say. I played through the game start to finish on hard difficulty and did most of the side content. It was quite a decent balance. Only struggled a bit with the violent cases. I should say I only played the non DLC chapter to completion. Will definitely return for the DLC to see it all through after a bit of a break (Probably early next year). I quite enjoyed the combat. The levels had good amount of variety with both enemy types and level layouts. Plus the amount of builds possible for each character meant I never really got sick of it. There were moments during some side quests where it did feel like I was fighting too many enemies, but I never got sick of the main scenario quests or the violent cases. I think most of it stemmed from having to replay certain maps to get side quest objectives complete. I would like side quests to be issued in a more streamlined manner to prevent this but it is not a big issue as it is. Though I will say the devs provide the option for difficulty changing and also a "challenge mode" where enemy builds are more varied. That would keep things fresh for sure, but I just stuck to hard difficulty for now :). The UI/UX also has been very well thought out and gives you a lot of options. From simple being able to control select multiple items in the workbench screens, to easy navigation in the mastery research stations.. Things like this should be present in every game! Then they also give various options to alter in the options menu and even different scales for speeding up friendly or enemy turns. It is insane how bigger studious fail to implement stuff like this in their massive budget games. The story was quite good as well. There was a surprising amount of humanity and groundedness to the characters that made it much more believable. Plus the world they have created is very intriguing with a rich history. I can easily say I found myself more involved with the world than a lot of the other bigger/popular RPGs. The base game only goes upto a certain point so there is a lot more that has been set up, or will be revealed in the DLC or their next game. Since I have not played those, I can say I was very satisfied with the progress that was there in Season 1. Even some of the side stuff with the animal species being affected by humans/other beasts had a bit of story going, which I thought was a great touch. The visuals for the game are great as well and the art pieces for different scenes were amazingly well done and brought the whole thing to life. The soundtrack/voice acting was good as well. I loved the comfy jazz vibes. The track Reminiscene was definitely my favorite. Overall, I have become a Dandylion fan. Keep up the great work lads! I look forward to playing the DLC/Banished children down the line :).

Possibly the best strategy game ever made when it comes to mechanical depth and customization, there's lots of moving parts, and it feels like the content is borderline neverending. Very satisfying to pull off a great build.

This game has a great comic book aesthetic with good graphics and a complex layer of game mechanics. The developers should be commended for having objective based missions and I liked how they eliminated save scumming and added a penalty for dying because the entire gameplay is percentage-based RNG, I feel it was a nice twist on the X-COM formula. However, as you peel away those layered mechanics, you are left with a skeleton, bone-dry gameplay that focuses on finding the safest area of cover to hunker down and defeat enemies one by one like shooting fish in a barrel, that gets quite repetitive and boring. Additionally... 15 hours of gameplay and I still have only 2 characters unlocked and the missions are long and grindy with little variation in gameplay with little to no attention to any type of coherent level design where the challenge is simply to find cover and shoot waves of random respawning enemies. The UI is atrocious. I'm not a fan of the 12-year-old flavor text and lack of voice acting with artwork that is mobile-game quality. The food mechanics and friendship mechanics in between missions are boring, time-wasting filler that don't respect your time. This game feels less like X-COM and more like a bloated Disgaea with its complex mechanics and grind, which I don't mind, but the gameplay underneath is where this game falls apart. There's just not enough gameplay content due to its limited level designs that lack verticality or strategy. The drip-feed of characters and their abilities along with slow base building makes what should have been a 60-hour game into a 200-hour repetitive slogfest. Overall, 6/10.