XCOM: Chimera Squad ruined the story for the series, in my opinion.

[Nitpig]

I started to play XCOM: 2 since the latest December and it's my first exposure to the series and I became huge fan of the series.
(I don't know if XCOM: Chimera Squad is a spin-off or not but I don't care.)

Disclaimer: this game is ain't bad, I thought It was a decent game, it has a some good parts and I also haven't finish the main story yet, I have only one faction remain to investigate.

My problem with the story:
- Most of the aliens and humanity suddenly got reunited without explaining clearly or anything; how and why.
- Humanity aren't mad of the aliens despite what advent did to them.
- I find most character's boring, lacking in dept and most of them are happy go lucky which rubs me in the wrong way because of the theme for this franchise.
- The story does not fit for the XCOM franchise.

All of this is my my opinion.
If you disagree feel free to change my mind.

Sorry for bad grammar, if there is any.

[Nitpig]

And I also find most of the dialog cringe.

[Celestial]

Glad you're enjoying the game. This writing takes a softer approach, so while it does touch on those topics, it doesn't exactly spoon-feed it to you. You do have to pay close attention to details, especially in the HQ banter.

The same is true of the characters. I found a few of them annoying at first, but when you begin to understand their backgrounds and psychology, they can become pretty endearing, even if somewhat unprofessional.

[Messsucher]

I was a huge fan of XCOM1/2, started playing XCOM with Amiga CD32. This Chimera I was able to play 1/2 hours, haven't touched it ever since except a few days back thought that maybe I could force myself playing it, but mercifully the game is bugged and hung in the starting screen, can't play. Will not complain, everything is fine now.

[Nitpig]

Originally posted by Combine Pencil Sharpener:

Glad you're enjoying the game. This writing takes a softer approach, so while it does touch on those topics, it doesn't exactly spoon-feed it to you. You do have to pay close attention to details, especially in the HQ banter.

The same is true of the characters. I found a few of them annoying at first, but when you begin to understand their backgrounds and psychology, they can become pretty endearing, even if somewhat unprofessional.

Understandable, some characters started to grow on and same with the main plot but still not enough.

[TamTroll]

Originally posted by NitPig:

- Humanity aren't mad of the aliens despite what advent did to them.

They kind of were though. a majority of Aliens were kept in basically internment camps or prisons for a good few years after the war, and it took them a long, slow process to eventually figure out how to join all these new populations into society. It took a sudden outbreak of chryssalids and a good chunk of Aliens selflessly helping out to really kickstart things in City 31, not sure about other places. the union in city 31 could be an outlier with most other places still having issues.

Axiom actually earned the respect of Xcom and the position on Chimera squad because he (as a prisoner) helped protect humans from Chrysslids without order, he just did it. At the end of some Sacrid-Coil missions, you can read the count of a Sectoid who used his pisonic abilities to hide himself and a group of humans from the Chrysslids, earning their respect and favour even as he himself initially intended it to be purely self-preservation.

Even still the game clearly shows disparity between the various species. Sectoids and psionic humans are made to wear psionic dampeners to limit their abilities, people often don't trust Hybrids due to many of them being ex-ADVENT, Hybrids are being hit by a hybrid-specific disease and are begging for gene clinics to be re-opened to cure it, pleas that are falling on deaf ears as nobody trusts the gene clinics anymore.

Mutons are a whole other bag of worms, they have a completely different line of thinking then humans, many seeing problems as mechanical issues to be fixed, and getting distressed when they can't be. (See the "It broke" conversation regarding Yarvo's cat. They were all given Cats to take care of basically in an attempt to teach them empathy and how to care for more fragile creatures. And nobody really trusts Andromedons, they kind of just leave them alone and hope for the best.

Humans on the other hand are constantly being mocked or belittled for falling into the Elder's trap so willingly. There are several notes and reports in the game with aliens talking about how easy it was to take over, how all they had to do was say a few kind words to make humanity bend the knee.

The relationship between Humans and the various aliens is functional, but shakey. A majority of humans in city 31 seem willing to at least give the aliens the chance of redeeming themselves now that they're free of the control of the Elders, but there are plenty of points to show that everyone is being cautious about the whole ordeal.

[Nitpig]

Originally posted by TamTroll:

Originally posted by NitPig:

- Humanity aren't mad of the aliens despite what advent did to them.

They kind of were though. a majority of Aliens were kept in basically internment camps or prisons for a good few years after the war, and it took them a long, slow process to eventually figure out how to join all these new populations into society. It took a sudden outbreak of chryssalids and a good chunk of Aliens selflessly helping out to really kickstart things in City 31, not sure about other places. the union in city 31 could be an outlier with most other places still having issues.

Axiom actually earned the respect of Xcom and the position on Chimera squad because he (as a prisoner) helped protect humans from Chrysslids without order, he just did it. At the end of some Sacrid-Coil missions, you can read the count of a Sectoid who used his pisonic abilities to hide himself and a group of humans from the Chrysslids, earning their respect and favour even as he himself initially intended it to be purely self-preservation.

Even still the game clearly shows disparity between the various species. Sectoids and psionic humans are made to wear psionic dampeners to limit their abilities, people often don't trust Hybrids due to many of them being ex-ADVENT, Hybrids are being hit by a hybrid-specific disease and are begging for gene clinics to be re-opened to cure it, pleas that are falling on deaf ears as nobody trusts the gene clinics anymore.

Mutons are a whole other bag of worms, they have a completely different line of thinking then humans, many seeing problems as mechanical issues to be fixed, and getting distressed when they can't be. (See the "It broke" conversation regarding Yarvo's cat. They were all given Cats to take care of basically in an attempt to teach them empathy and how to care for more fragile creatures. And nobody really trusts Andromedons, they kind of just leave them alone and hope for the best.

Humans on the other hand are constantly being mocked or belittled for falling into the Elder's trap so willingly. There are several notes and reports in the game with aliens talking about how easy it was to take over, how all they had to do was say a few kind words to make humanity bend the knee.

The relationship between Humans and the various aliens is functional, but shakey. A majority of humans in city 31 seem willing to at least give the aliens the chance of redeeming themselves now that they're free of the control of the Elders, but there are plenty of points to show that everyone is being cautious about the whole ordeal.

Thanks for taking your time for type all of this, it's interesting to read.

[TamTroll]

no problem :P

[Celestial]

It's also worth noting that while all ex-ADVENT are now free of Elders' psionic network, the aliens on the squad are not representative of average members of their species. They are largely exceptions, and have been integrated into Chimera Squad as an experiment.
I doubt XCOM has more than a handful of nonhuman members, if they even employ any outside of Chimera Squad. 31PD and other authorities seem to be exclusively human since the fall of ADVENT.

Verge began to sympathize with humans after forming psychic bonds with them in his missions, and during XCOM 2 he acted as a double agent, feeding XCOM and the resistance critical intelligence.

Axiom became fascinated with humanity and human cultures during the occupation, and as Tam mentioned, he became an unlikely hero by placing himself in danger to protect human civilians from a massive chryssalid attack.

The team member who most closely represents the average ex-ADVENT alien is Torque, who bargained her way out of internment by volunteering to 'help' XCOM troops (as an enemy combatant in training exercises.) While training those troops, she happened to make a friend in the right place to end up in Chimera Squad.

[Worgen Freeman]

Its because you don't understand how the world works. Look at the civil war here in the states. We didn't just massacre the south, we ended up forming them back into the union. Xcom is like that, there are all these suddenly not mindcontrolled etc aliens around so they kinda have to be integrated into the population unless you want to go super hitler and just exterminate them all and all the people who sided with them. Which could actually make a good game, you play as the aliens having to hide from xcom and try to fight back against their genocidal tendencies, they could call it Acom.

[Black Hammer]

The game is fun, but the dialogue and setting development are awful. The tone is incredibly inconsistent: you have hostage situations, people being shot and killed, and bioweapons being deployed.

On the flip side, you have agents eating plasma shots then complaining about blood on their clothes, yammering aimlessly in the ready room despite these people having nothing in common, and a cartoonish obsession with self-referential humor.

[Woldy]

Originally posted by NitPig:

I started to play XCOM: 2 since the latest December and it's my first exposure to the series and I became huge fan of the series.
(I don't know if XCOM: Chimera Squad is a spin-off or not but I don't care.)

Disclaimer: this game is ain't bad, I thought It was a decent game, it has a some good parts and I also haven't finish the main story yet, I have only one faction remain to investigate.

My problem with the story:
- Most of the aliens and humanity suddenly got reunited without explaining clearly or anything; how and why.
- Humanity aren't mad of the aliens despite what advent did to them.
- I find most character's boring, lacking in dept and most of them are happy go lucky which rubs me in the wrong way because of the theme for this franchise.
- The story does not fit for the XCOM franchise.

All of this is my my opinion.
If you disagree feel free to change my mind.

Sorry for bad grammar, if there is any.

Chimera squad is not part of the main story, it's a side story.
This is not the next big title in the franchise either, it had a very quiet release on purpose, it was made to test out new ideas and game mechanics.

[swordfish]

Originally posted by Messsucher:

I was a huge fan of XCOM1/2, started playing XCOM with Amiga CD32. This Chimera I was able to play 1/2 hours, haven't touched it ever since except a few days back thought that maybe I could force myself playing it, but mercifully the game is bugged and hung in the starting screen, can't play. Will not complain, everything is fine now.

Do not listen to this guy. He never even finished 5 missions in this game and keeps ranting all over the forum.
I think 🤔 he is a robot. Pls insert letters you see in the pic

[Nachtphysik]

Originally posted by swordfish:

Originally posted by Messsucher:

I was a huge fan of XCOM1/2, started playing XCOM with Amiga CD32. This Chimera I was able to play 1/2 hours, haven't touched it ever since except a few days back thought that maybe I could force myself playing it, but mercifully the game is bugged and hung in the starting screen, can't play. Will not complain, everything is fine now.

Do not listen to this guy. He never even finished 5 missions in this game and keeps ranting all over the forum.
I think 🤔 he is a robot. Pls insert letters you see in the pic

Funny as his profile looks way more legit than yours...

[swordfish]

Originally posted by Nachtphysik:

Originally posted by swordfish:

Do not listen to this guy. He never even finished 5 missions in this game and keeps ranting all over the forum.
I think 🤔 he is a robot. Pls insert letters you see in the pic

Funny as his profile looks way more legit than yours...

If you may your highness, explain to us how a profile could show enough legitimacy to make you happy? 🤷‍♂️

[Nachtphysik]

Originally posted by swordfish:

Originally posted by Nachtphysik:

Funny as his profile looks way more legit than yours...

If you may your highness, explain to us how a profile could show enough legitimacy to make you happy? 🤷‍♂️

Why not first you explain how you come to delegitimize people's opinions by calling them bots without ANY proof? Oh no you won't, so we're done here, troll. Go back to your cave.

To the topic at hand: I've actually went through to play this game a couple of hours and it didn't take long to find the Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy or Avengers type of quippy dialogue. It's full of it during and between missions. The fundaments of the story around chimera squad could have been done better but are not the worst. Even though having Vipers or Mutons as coworkers seems for the average human unthinkable. The immersion breaking does really come from the dialogue. I'll take Torque the Viper as an example here: An entire species of reptile-human hybrids (that will have a bunch of conflicting instincts in of themselves probably) that are only female as we know from XCOM2. So this species is doomed to die out after just one generation. What goes through the mind of such a character? Probably not phrases that come straight out of Buffy the Vampireslayer...

They try with Terminal and Cherub a bit of the potential tension points but shroud it always in Marvel banter and that just feels really off-color for the XCOM franchise, so I do understand the points the OP is making.

Mechanically it feels in many ways more facile. The breach mode is an interesting addition and I hope the expand on it and tweak it a bit in future games. The constant reinforcements though that force you to retreat in quite a few missions were tonally fitting for guerilla warfare in XCOM2 but not at all for police work as you do here in CS. That just seemed either a somewhat lazy holdover from XCOM2 or a solution to difficulty/balancing issues. Either way not the best design choice.