Been playing a lot of this. It’s lacking in polish in places but the core game loop is fantastic. The combat has a lot in common with Into The Breach (in almost all cases, you have all the information about what’s about to happen and how your moves will play out before you commit) and Slay The Spire (deck building and the way you play your cards). There’s no cover but movement and positioning are really important because you spend a lot of time punting one enemy into another or into walls, explosives or portals to hell. The characters all work very differently and they’re all fun to play.
The outside combat stuff falls into a routine fairly quickly. After each battle, you can analyse your loot to get new cards, research base or equipment upgrades, train against one of the other characters, send someone on a solo mission or do some of the social stuff. This basically boils down to a short cutscene where you choose from a couple of dialogue options and your “friendship” level goes up or down as a result. Characters gain new passive abilities as their friendship level goes up. Once you’ve done that stuff, you go to bed and it all starts again the next day.
I didn’t much like the characters or the writing at the start, but they’ve really grown on me. There’s been a couple of genuinely funny moments, much to my surprise.
It’s a really addictive loop once it clicks. The encounters are quite short and get straight into the action, there’s none of the scouting about from XCOM, so it’s very tempting to keep doing just one more day. Unless something goes drastically wrong in the later stages, this’ll be easily one of my favourite games of the year.
Dr. Strange still sounds like Mr. Burns, btw.