I'd love to love this game. But I can't. Here's why.

The cyberpunk theme is very strong here, and for the first hour or two you can't help but be enthralled by claustrophobic, overcrowded clubs and pumping electronic music. The writing seems pretty good and sometimes even borrows a theme or two from good sci-fi novels (Vurt, for instance). The combat mechanics is not very complicated, but fun nonetheless. And yet...

All Walls Must Fall quickly becomes reptetitive - every mission involves taking part in randomized "choose the right dialogue" minigame (especially frustrating when RNG just leaves you with no options that would allow you to succeed) and, failing to complete this (which you will), a shootout with enemies, some of which enjoy teleporting around like crazy in a non-predictable way. The locations in the game seem to be only iterations of the same gay nightclub, populated only by similiarily looking character models. The campaign is said to be randomized - the only random thing here is, in fact, the order in which you will complete the same four plot arcs, three missions each.

But what enraged me the most was the notion that AWMF is a "tech-noir tactics game" where the most fun stems from engaging in combat - and yet, if you kill a single person during the game (enemies appear randomly in waves, NPCs tend to open fire on you if you mess up your dialogue and once combat starts, there is no way to end it other than killing every adversary), you get a bad ending that's both "bad" in terms of how the plot resolves and in terms of it being just painfully stupid.

The game had a cool premise, but it feels unfinished. Wasted potential.

Let's start with the bad.

It's short. Very short. I beat it in under 4 hours on my first playthrough. Every single map takes place at a club - not that I mind clubs as a venue for this game, but there's not really a change of environment throughout the game. Mission types technically vary, but still not really - it really largely ends up being the same. All of these things keep the game from feeling expansive, varied, and interesting. Though I hate to use the word, there's basically little "content" in this game.

But what is there is amazing. The fights are amazingly fun to play through, and watching them back in real-time is almost always awesome. Enemies provide interesting variation, and there is *NO RANDOMNESS*! I cannot emphasize that enough. If you fail, it's pretty much on you. You can get unlucky still with enemy placement, but you won't ever fail a shot or get hit by bullets from randomness. In fact, there is so much in this game to keep you alive - you can take only 3 shots, but you're warned every time you're about to be hit before you take an action. The result is an incredibly satisfying combat where your choices actually completely matter. This is such a breath of fresh air, I can't say enough good things about it.

If they make a sequel with a more fleshed-out metagame, more missions, more environments, etc., I'll be here to buy it immediately. Even as it is, this is a game worth your time and money. It's interesting, quirky, and an absolute hoot. Procedural generation help keep things interesting and replayable, too.

Mix Invisible Inc with Crypt of the Necrodancer, toss in some time-control powers, and you get this brilliant gem of a game.

You play as an agent hired by time-travelers to perform hit-and-run missions in nightclubs around futuristic Berlin, with the aim to steal stuff, kill people, etc. Every mission is a little different, every building a little different - they're all procedurally generated, with the aim of giving you new puzzle boxes every time you play.

See, everything you do takes time: every move, every gunshot, everything. You have to get in, accomplish your objective, and get out before you run out of time. Which initially seems like a lot, but when you accidentally walk into a bullet and unwind time so you can skip that damage, you burn through it fast. Because it's not just your agent's time your using, it's time as a resource, as a healthbar. I love how it works in motion, where it pushes you to keep moving - but doesn't make it so tight that you get frantic and stop thinking. Like Crypt of the Necrodancer's demand that you stay to the beat or lose the rhythm.

Combat! Combat is turn-based, and if you can't explain your presence to the guards hanging out in these clubs, they'll break out their shotguns and smgs. You can do a light attack that doesn't take much time, or an aimed shot that does. You can dash to another square to evade a bullet, you can worry about cover, you can reload. It's pleasing - just enough XCOM to make it feel crunchy, just enough slick to keep you moving. And oh! When you win, you're asked if you want to drop the combat - finalize it, make it permanent. If you do, you get bonuses...and the game drops down into a super-close replay mode where it shows off your shots and dodges, where you get to watch the nightclub come gloriously alive as you're no longer floating above it thinking in terms of tactics, but just watching your burly agent bust down doors and flip his little cut-out (think paper mario!) avatar around as he meets guards and pushes past club-goers. It's a fantastic little touch that makes you really feel satisfied after combat, and gives you a breather before you get on with the mission.

Gosh, it's slick. But I digress: talking! Talking is simple and hilarious. Guards refuse to let you inside the club, guards demand to know who you are, and you can - as a burly aging man of an agent with a cybernetic arm - be gruff with them, tell them to ♥♥♥♥ themselves, or try to flirt with them. And sometimes the flirting works! I haven't spent enough time with the chatting to tell you how deep the system goes, and there are emotions at play as well as picking logical answers, but it works, it adds a pleasantly human layer to these paper dolls. And if you get a guard mad, you get to swap to combat, which is fun.

So - let's see. There's a campaign structure, with different missions to do around Berlin. There's a shop, where you can trade currency (gained by completing missions with extra time) for upgrades, new weapons, new powers. There are complications like drones and security cameras.

There is, alas, the fact that this game is still in early access. The devs aim to have it done by early next year, which is exciting: what's here in the game is solid already, and any expansion to it would be wonderful. For now there's a handy little feedback button in-game that you can use at any time to send the devs a complaint or comment - the most seamless way I've ever seen to tell a dev what you think.

Let me wrap this up: I think this game is brilliant. The atmospheric is astounding, the political overtones add that edge to this cyberpunk title, and the gameplay hits just right. I really, really like this game and want it to do well!

Wrong trailer. Half the game is about dialogue (seducing game like), and story, not so much full of action and tactical rpg...

Dialogues:
- Seducing a guys by finding appropriate dance to match his dance (that felt completely random, just pressed undo until I found something working).
- Saying two random (correct) sentence, so that a security guard let me pass in a restricted aera. (wtf security what are you paid for?)

Not all dialogue/seducing games are skippable...

I really wanted to give this game a middle ground vote rather than a thumbs up, its just not quite good enough, but its more good than bad id say.

So as you might know its a tactical turn-based game with a little time travelling mixed in, it reminds me a lot like the Shadowrun series but I feel they were much better, this feels a little cheaper made if that makes sense and a little too easy.

The reason i find it too easy is because of the features that make it a little different which is the reverse time/undo, which is pretty cool but removes any kind of difficulty with tactics etc so you can breeze through the levels no problem especially when stuff gets upgraded, that also includes reversing dialogue options so you can never fail, whilst it does come at a cost to reverse/undo each time it doesn't cost enough from my perspective.

The maps and graphics/art style look good but one thing I didn't like was the maps felt far too cluttered, which at times got in the way of gameplay or just general movement, the maps are also fairly small which didn't help.
As for dialogue, well I'm not much of a story guy but some of it was a little weird and a bit OTT at times? I'm not sure but it could be worked on a little methinks.

However, the biggest annoyance that stopped me playing this was the game crashing, at times the game would crash halfway through a mission and you have to start it again, which is fine for smaller missions but when you spend a long time in the more difficult missions it's not very nice to lose your progress in an instant, that one certainly needs fixing.

Aside from that, I do like the idea of the game, it has fun elements to it and certainly room to improve, but because of the above, right now it works out a deal breaker for me, I have to give a 6/10.

ALL WALLS MUST FALL means I have to buy a cyberfist to punch in walls of course, suitable for dramatic entrances and so on.

Diplomacy is an option for dealing with potential hostiles, but really it's when you've got to get violent is when things get silly.

You have the ability to rewind time for everyone, for yourself, or for everyone but yourself. This can lead to stupid situations like you blow up a wall, shoot your way through to the target, then rewind everyone else's time so that everything is fixed again, only you're standing in front of your unsuspecting target with no one the wiser.

Or fill someone with bullets, rewind your personal time so that your gun is full of bullets again, shoot more, rewind time so that you're standing back in the doorway, which is where all the mooks are pouring into the room from, so that you can punch them all in the head with your cyberfist.

Even if you get killed you can rewind back to a point where you're alive again. This all costs time. You get time from exploring, combat, interactions, mission objectives. As long as you have time, you can do pretty much anything. If you have no time left, you're dead permanently.

Then once you're happy with the outcome, you fix the timeline in place and the game replays all of your actions. Walls explode and un-explode while a giant communist cyber-bear blows through a gay nightclub punching his way through heads and furniture while appearing in every corner of the building all at the same time then everyone's dead and he's driving off in his car.

All backed up with moody electronic music and grimy visuals. Having a fun time ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up time so far.

Tip for anyone trying it though, save up for the rifle rather than buying the shotgun or smg. That and the fist will carry you all the way through if you arent trying for a pacifist run.

There’s the seed of a great game in here somewhere. A tactical battler set in near-future Berlin, where the Cold War never ended, time-bending agents dance through hordes of murderous goons on neon-soaked dancefloors, dodging bullets and downing enemies to a techno throb. There’s potential here for The Matrix Lobby Scene: The Game, all set to a retro-futurist 80s aethestic.

All Walls Must Fall, as implemented, is not that game.

The promising setting is barely-realised, and the plot ephemeral. The chunky cell-shaded artwork so prominently displayed in the game’s marketing – and teasing a Darkest Dungeon-esque visual treat – is nowhere to be found in the drab and repetitive 3D levels. The procedural generation is a disaster, creating nonsensical layouts made infuriating to navigate by the lack of a mini-map and poor pathfinding. Hordes of 20-plus enemies will routinely mob you, with ill-signposted attacks and powers essentially drowning you in a turn-based bullet hell. Piles of scenery, debris and enemies make it difficult to parse what’s going on, or even to click on your target. Dull dialogue guessing games give you the option to bypass fights entirely, but recycle the same stilted lines for most encounters. The real-time speedrun through your hard-won tactical tiptoe is more jank than cool. Every nice idea, in short, is let down by poor execution.

A disappointing mess that promises much more than it delivers, I didn’t stick for long with All Walls Must Wall. Klei’s Invisible Inc is a vastly superior turn-based tactics adventure, while Superhot offers a first-person realisation of the ultra-stylish, time-bending action All Walls Must Fall aspires to.

So, first this is a game that charmed me into coming in, but sadly kept me from enjoying it as much as I feel i should have. This doesn't make it a bad game, but also... it leaves me wanting.

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsLzuSS_yaQ

Text:
So lets break this down to 3 segments. Because this is not a bad game, in fact, its a really good game - but its also missing segments that lift it to something I can enjoy longer than an hour or two without becoming bored.

Technically this is a competent title, with no bugs in sight, and a solid set of options and settings. It doesn't take an extra mile with things like color blind mode, but neither does it shrink away from allowing you to customize your visual / audio experience. But the problem that rises is the camera implementation where I've got some problems where it clips through walls making it hard to see and objectives that don't. Its not the biggest issue for sure, but when you've got tension broiling... a camera that annoys is not the least annoying part.

functionally there are two parts: Talking and Shooting. And while both have their strength, they both suffer from issues that bleed into one another.

With the speech system large parts of the game can be played in pacifist mode with dialogue, the ability to turn back time removes any challenge from this segment due to the trial and error nature it allows, instead of a well reasoned approach to interaction.

BUT - this very time turning and shifting mechanic, allows for such a diverse combat interaction that makes it shine above and beyond.

Sadly, the combat system, with all its options and available tactics is shackled by its beyond easy difficulty that results in a lack of any requirements to think beyond a few basic steps. With no harder difficulty available, it remains a simple step forward to keep them beyond the need to consider.

I hope early access continues to add more depth - but for now, its just missing that last step into amazing.

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If you'd play this game for 30 minutes, you'll probably think it's great, but then you'll found out that those initial 30 minutes are actually the complete game experience: in this game you will play the same shallow scenario over and over again.

There are good ideas in the gameplay design; no, there are wonderful ideas! Unfortunately, in the end they don't matter, because they are utterly overshdowed by ridicule design chioices. You get to experience those cool ideas only if you fail, I mean, if you play the dialogues correctly (and that's something very easy to do) you will complete the missions without fighting anyone. But to be honest, even if you fight, you'll see that those cool ideas get old very quickly: they are not fleshed out one bit.

Repetition is the code word here. Even the maps are basically all the same, and they are very plain. The NPC models are even worse, there's basically only one enemy model, a bouncer big guy... and if it's a chick, you'll guess it from the avatar in the dialogue, because the model in the game is always the same dude. And this should say a lot.

So you'll find yourself chosing answers in boring dialogues untill you fail one and play a boring fight. That's the game. And yes, the dialogues are bad. And let me tell you this: the NPC will point out how queer you look, and a lot of dudes will awkwardly flirt with you, and to win the dialogue you'll have to flirt back, the gender fluidity garbage is strong in this mess.

There are very good design choices and very bad ones, for totally obscure reasons the developers decided to give space only to the bad ideas. So this game is basically a Seek The Hidden Object game, were the hidden object is fun and the context is the strong and steaming wish to die more than keep playing this game.

Just a bad mix of too much crap going on, lousy camera angles and rehashing dialogue options until you get the right answer. Just meh.