It plays like a branching Fire Emblem game. The roguelite elements (level up choices a la Nuclear Throne, branching map structure that allows you to pick battles strategically or go full farm mode, permadeath with revive options) all fit the genre well. There are 3 clans with different classes, and 2 game modes. Story mode is your bread and butter for learning and enjoying the game, while Abyss mode is the endless run mode for, presumably, the hardcore players. I'm a sucker for Fire Emblem/ srpg game play so I'm loving it so far, but I will note that the game is full of translation errors and unintuitive language. This makes the tooltips for learning mechanics pretty confusing. and definitely breaks immersion in the story. But I mean, $10 is a pretty damn nice price and there is definitely enough here to warrant at least a demo download..

Unfortunately, the English translation is not as good as many Steam reviews would have you believe. Typo mistakes aside, its clear that what's here is at best edited machine translation, and many mechanics boil down to "try it in combat, find out which of the 2+ possible interpretations of a tooltip is correct"...which after a couple dozen or so times in a few hours got to be too tiring for me to want to keep playing. And this is excluding the mechanics of various map locations which aren't explained well either. I've played a fair amount of foreign/non-native English games in my time, so dealing with shoddy translations isn't new to me...but this isn't a genre where translation trial and error is very fun.

From what I do see out of one full run and a few abandoned ones where I'm testing mechanics...balance is also pretty bad in the sense that there are many ways to break the game alongside many underpowered tools. There's rarely an interesting decision point in the sense that one option tends to be so much better than its alternatives.

In isolation, neither of these complaints would be total deal breakers on their own, but in combination, I can't recommend a purchase until/unless these issues are resolved.

This game is essentially a roguelike tactics game with 2 modes with 1 having a progression system and chapters and the other a more classical punishing roguelike mode. There are also 3 different factions with their own units, faction buff, faction unique mechanics (one group uses animals and can become mounted warriors, while the other can fuse units to make armored mecha units), and different variants of the same class. With the ability to add more passives onto your characters when they level up. By the end you should ideally have some broken synergies like any good roguelike.

The only few criticisms that I have so far is that it is hard to tell what direction enemies are facing (can mess up back stabs), the combat preview can be deceiving as it does not take any passives into account, and the translation can be rough at times. Though hopefully this will be resolved with time.

I can still see myself playing this game for some time still as I am currently only on the 3rd chapter with the first faction (currently 6 chapters/difficulties per faction). It's nice to see how much content their already is for an early access release. I can't wait to see what the game will be like at full release :D

Honestly a very fun game please consider trying the demo if you are interested in tactics games (tactical rpgs), turn based roguelikes, or games like fire emblem.

Great style. I hope to enjoy more of it in the future.
However, I can't recommend this game at the moment due to a few issues.

The English translation is poor, to the point where certain tooltips are confusing or even misleading.

Also, the game can be very unbalanced in certain battles when you unlock runs where enemies get random buffs;
they can be too easy one battle all the way to neigh impossible the next battle; perhaps a % stats boost +/- extra skills will work better.

Lastly, I don't feel any progression between runs, especially in runs where you're forced to abandon due to the point stated above. The permanent 'upgrades' you get at base camp apparently are very RNG dependent, may be useful or not (treasures), or may show up or not (stats). Again, perhaps changing it to giving permanent stats boost, no RNG, will be better, as you always feel a sense of progression between runs and have a goal to work towards.

I very rarely rate or comment on games on Steam, but I really want to like this one.
Nothing better in gaming than tactics, roguelite, and waifus. So, I look better to future updates and changes; especially more roguelite/sense of progression.

A very fun game once you get a hang of the mechanics. Played in Chinese so not sure about the translation quality, but the Chinese version looks fine. There are soome QoL improvements I'd suggest tho:

1. Allow us to check on our members at anytime (i.e. by pressing esc and shows an extra option like Member List). This is for when we get a new relic/member and we want to see how to synergize/combo with the team better. Sometimes we don't remember all the details so a quick check like looking at our deck like in Slay the Spire would be awesome.
2. Some encounters shouldn't spawn that late. I got the "send injured member away for 3 battles and then they 'd return with full upgrade/level" event... great, right? The problem is that it's literally the LAST CHECKPOINT BEFORE the LAST BOSS. I have cleared all battles up until that point, so it's basically a very powerful event that I got no benefit from. Devs pls look at your event generation condition and make sure events like these don't spawn too late.
3. The tutorial needs to explain where to see character/member exp. Yes, I know where it is now but it took me a while to find where to look.
4. Similarly, please explain what does sending our members away for jobs mean, and where to find them once they are done! Yes, now I know they at the upper right corner, but naturally I was looking at the map itself and wonder why the areas are grayed-out but the members hadn't return yet. Better still, why not just make the return event automatic? There's no reason to not accept the sent-away members since they bring back upgrade materials!
5. This is very important: pls make it easier to see which tiles we can move to and which ones we can't! Sometimes there are elevations on the ground, or things you thought it'd a normal tile but it is a barrier - like the flower looking plant in stage 1, I really thought those flowers are just part of the vegetation , but turns out we can't move through them but bees can. Other times like the ice stages there are water that we can't get close to, but we need to step on ice-platforms to get through. The problem is there are ghost enemies that can float and move away, making it very difficult to chase them. It's hard to judge which path to take when some paths leads to a deadend.

That's about it. I like the recruitment system and the mix of abilities. The bonfire event is kinda useless until you upgrade it because it's easy to get a full team, but once you unlock the mechanic a bonfire can be useful. I see myself coming back to this again and again.

The game's current state has so much potential, and even then its still a solid play. The demo right off the bat to me was a good sign as I easily sank 5 hours into it and after buying it for only 12 bucks was able to add another 30 hours on top of that. The Fire Emblem style of combat mixed with a roguelite style of progression through stages gives way to a fun gameplay loop with potential for a multitude of strategies and playstyles. The nodes in each of the maps are randomised giving the ability to evaluate risk and reward based on your situation whether you want to clear an elite battle for the ability to get the resources to instant level a unit or go straight to the boss and avoid the risk of losing vital pieces to your gameplan. So far I have played the beastfolk and cleared Chapter 7 with a warband of all the 5 classes each with a different set of challenges for me to overcome. Especially in the Guard run where my tankiness was instantly rendered redundant by both a boss who is on a ranged only stage and one that has an instant kill gimmick but both of which were solvable with the resources available to me. The main problem that you may run into is skill translation and interpretation, some skills and their interactions may be unclear but after some experimentation I have come to better understand their conditions and functions. But overall for the package and the pricing I honestly think its worth and if you are still unsure just play the demo (although it plays on an older version).

A decent addition to the realm of tactical roguelikes. Interestingly the individual characters don't appear to level up, but instead the party itself has an experience level which, I think, influences how many characters can be in the party. Also interesting is that your surviving characters seem to be back to full health by your next battle and the various "Healing Pools" aren't there to heal damage but resurrect fallen comrades you might have lost previously in the campaign.

English translation is pretty terrible but the game is fun

Its good! The tactics are good, the challenge seems to scale from effectively story mode to a brutal and engaging permadeath mode, and the characters are diverse and interesting. This was all true when I didn't realize that there were three factions to play as!

Each of the three factions has very different and interesting mechanics for their units. They all have units split between the same 5 classes, but "warriors" from all three factions play *very* differently, with unique mechanics, upgrades, and pressures that make them feel very different. Its hard to have such engaging and diverse mechanics in a game with tight tactics, so I want to applaud the devs for that,

Translation is a little rough at time, but nothing I couldn't figure out. Everything IS translated, its just with chunky, slightly broken, or a little weird with phrasing. Definitely recommend.

Fun turn based tactics game, the main draw is that there is an absolute ton of characters to pick from across 3 factions and you find/unlock them as you play through missions. Each faction's characters are quite different from each other with different mechanics they are themed around. As characters level up you get a random selection of skills from their class in addition to their specific unique skill. Many characters have synergy with others so it's great fun building teams around certain mechanics. There's also gear, artifacts and in game events that let you flesh out your team. Combat and team building really is the entire focus of the game, there is a story sort of but it's forgettable and the "ok" translations doesn't help. That said, the gameplay itself is quite fun and I had a lot of fun discovering new team combinations to play with on each playthrough.