Update 2025-03: 2K TOS + EULA update makes it even worse
[h1]TL;DR[/h1]
Sadly a bland TRPG that is fairly bad for a XCOM title. The turnorder is timeline based instead of being team based. Don't expect this to be XCOM3 or anything close to it because it sets a very very different tone with some contradicting design choices that ruin the first half of the game entirely because of hidden information and some of your units need to learn a lot of abilities before they allow for more than one valid strategy.
[h1]Pros:[/h1]
[list]
[*] Frequent autosaves
[*] Every unit has their own unique abilities
[*] Some abilities are really neat
[*] Turn limits exist in some missions but are very hard to fail
[*] A newly introduced breach concept that is great in theory but poorly implemented into the game design (see below)
[*] Visuals are pretty good
[*] Most dialogues are cringe, one character is kinda funny though
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[h1]Cons:[/h1]
[b]This section has been subdivided due to it's length.[/b]
[h2]Contradicting design for combat[/h2]
Most missions consist of multiple encounters within a tiny area each. They start with a breach sequence during which you get the initiative over the enemies, that have one of three states: Take more damage, either run into cover or return fire after the breach.
While each of the aspects:
[list]
[*] A few of your characters require their more powerful abilities that they learn fairly late as well as proper gear to unleash their potential and become useful
[*] The turnorder is timeline based instead of a squad based
[*] The encounter takes place on a tiny area. Most of the time you don't have to move your characters at all to wipe out the entire room
[*] Until you are able to stun, your enemies or disable their weapons you don't get much of a choice on whom to attack next
[*] Your main tactical influence in the beginning is to breach into a room, see where the enemies are and what their their turnorder is, reload an older save, reassign your squad members into a different order and locations to be able to attack the enemies with high initiative first. After that you follow your predetermined rulebook to complete the mission without casualties
[*] To be honest I am most certain this scum-strategy is not even intended because it doesn't fit the design at all:
[list]
[*] The turnorder is hidden during the breach
[*] You don't get to see the room from a top down perspective during the breach but only first person angles and hence can't deduce the proper location of enemies
[*] Unable to save during the setup phase for the breach or the breach itself so restarting a breach requires the repetition of member assignments
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... is fine for itself, the combination of them all ruin the entire first half of the game.
[h2]Difficulty / Balancing[/h2]
This is very much affected by the previous section.
[list]
[*] Combat:
[list]
[*] The hardest difficulty disables the tutorial.
[*] I played on the 2nd hardest difficulty (since I wanted to see the tutorial) without iron mode - but including the other optional difficulty settings - and apart from the first boss fight this game was way too easy
[*] You don't get XP for defeating an enemy. This is kinda odd and feels little rewarding for defeating all enemies
[*] Most of the time you fight reinforcements rather than the initial wave of enemies and there is no tactical aspect to it, just tedious repetition, because ...
[*] ... the enemy reinforcements are deployed in sizes you can handle easily until the next wave arrives. It would be cool if the reinforcements gradually became stronger and force you to flea the level since they don't provide any XP anyways
[*] Units HP is automatically restored in-between missions. You can disable healing only between encounters (a mission often consists of 3 of those)
[*] A way to make this game somewhat challenging is by embracing every single miss and to not save scum at all. This is especially true for the breach sequences but that erases any tactical meaning of yours during the first half of the game (see above)
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[*] Meta-Game:
[list]
[*] Upgrades, you can research, are mainly useful in the beginning, since you get way better gear along the way and the level of upgrades is very limited. However in the beginning you don't have the resources to buy the gear you unlocked and as soon as you have the resources you don't really need them anymore
[*] XCOM2 had some decent meta management: Which missions to focus with which units, what to research, when to slow down the Avatar Project. All of this is somewhat present in Chimaira Squad ... but not really. Basically you can't do anything wrong and you can't fail
[*] Dark events don't progress the Anarchy (somewhat equivalent to the Avatar Project) and are almost meaningless
[*] I don't see a way to ever struggle if you invest resources early into your map, even when you specifically ignore the districts that produce Anarchy. Maybe this is just me because I like to get rushed on the meta progression while I love to take my time during the turn based combat
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[h2]QoL[/h2]
[list]
[*] Some imprecise/missing information:
[list]
[*] No line of sight indication to simplify your movement decisions for a subsequential attack
[*] Can't check gear of your squad members during the mission, even though it is critical to know which ammo is equipped
[*] There are multiple types of grenades and a member can only hold one of each type. Why the game doesn't clarify which of the 15 grenades are of which type mind boggles me
[*] During the breach you may use special abilities. The UI suggests that this replaces your opportunity to shoot with this character during the breach, but it doesn't
[*] Effects on a unit with a duration of 1 are active only during their overwatch window, but not their turn. Stunning an enemy, that didn't have an overwatch set up, for one turn effectively doing nothing seems kinda misleading
[*] Abilities that effect the turn order may cause the display of abilities of inactive units
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[*] Other things are just annoying:
[list]
[*] Exactly 4 units are required on a mission. It is not possible to take less on a mission to make them harder and progress with other tasks
[*] No quicksave/-load option
[*] Calculation of hit chance is sometimes very unreasonable. An enemy that is twice your size, is not in cover, not in melee range (in which case hitting should be harder due to the barrel length and collision) but 2-5 meters away, should be easier to hit than 60%
[*] Music stops during the loading screen or breach sequences and the song restarts from the beginning after reloading
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[h2]Bugs[/h2]
[list]
[*] 7 crashes in 35h of playtime
[*] Bugs that soft-lock and force the loading of an older save
[*] Training assignment registers the wrong slot and can abort another training that was still in progress
[*] Saving and loading is slowed down depending on saves, loads and deletions you did per session. Restarting the game helps
[*] At a certain point the auto naming of new save files is going to always overwrite the latest save file instead of creating an additional one until you deleted some save files. Steam cloud save files can be deleted efficiently: Open game with Cloud Sync enabled, manually delete files from your disk while the game is running, close the game
[*] Loading a save slot may alter the current game state drastically:
[list]
[*] Current HP of units
[*] The position of units
[*] Reinforcements that should have arrived but didn't
[*] Enemies you were able to shoot before are out of sight all of the sudden
[*] Destroyed terrain that is torn down that much you can walk there proceeds to block all shots
[*] A unit that was supposed to be stunned isn't stunned
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