Recent reviews by Moondoggie

A fun enough game. the turn based combat is interesting and decently challenging.
There are 3 different classes (mage, fighter, ranger) with a variety of abilities you can pick to customize each character.
Through various events characters may get unique quirks that further customizes the characters further.
There is also the interesting mechanic whereby enemies get more and more powerful over time by adding more powerful enemy cards to the 'deck'. The enemies you face in each encounter is randomly drawn from the deck. By optimizing your time and preventing/removing annoying enemies from being added to the deck you can make many battles relatively easy.

However each campaign is rather short and can probably be completed in a day or so.
After completing a few campaigns, things do get a bit repetitive with not much new to look forward to unfortunately.
But overall it is still a fun game to play for a couple of days.

I had a somewhat enjoyable time with this game so i am giving it a thumbs up. But this game is really short and once you figure out the mechanics the game gets repetitive and has no replay value. Recommend to get it on sale as a little diversion if you are interested in SRPG's or Darkest Dungeon type games.

The game has a tactical turn based combat like the Tactics' games but takes its inspiration from rogue-like game Darkest Dungeon (it even has a narrator narrating in the background like DD). You manage a party of heroes from a base and send them off on a mission each day. Missions will have a map with a series of encounter points that have random encounters, usually involving combat but sometimes it could be non-combat encounters. After each mission you will head back to base and choose what equipment/skill to upgrade using the gold earned.

Combat is typical SRPG turn based combat. Characters can buff, heal or inflict hexes/conditions on enemies. Each class/enemies has its own strength and weaknesses. It was fun to learn the mechanics but once you have it figured out there really isn't much more to do.

Warning, the game doesn't really give you time to experiment and learn the mechanics slowly. The difficulty ramps up quickly and you will most likely die. I had to restart twice before figuring out everything.

To conclude, pros of this game is that is is a more relaxing and shorter Darkest Dungeon. (I never completed DD because it was so tedious).The mix of Combat and party management is interesting.

However the cons of it is that there is not much variety to the gameplay. The mission types are more or less the same thing. Random encounters are more or less the same (typically you just choose to fight, if possible, for every encounter because that will net you much needed XP and gold). Combat typically plays out the same way. Characters have fixed skill paths and equipment, i.e. not much RPG elements in it.

Overall there are some really interesting ideas in this game, but its potential is never fully realized.

This was the first VN i tried and i quite enjoyed it.

I found the first few hours a chore and boring though as the story slowly introduces the various characters. But finally once the characters all get together and the goal becomes clear i became thoroughly engaged to follow these characters and see the story to its very end. I would say the story is a good enjoyable heartwarming tale. A side note, I also really enjoyed the music. While not incredible, it really helped to set up the mood perfectly. In fact i enjoyed the music so much i purchased the soundtrack and listen to it occasionally when driving.

Unfortunately while i liked looking at the cities grow in response to my various efforts to supply goods to it, ultimately i found the game kinda plain and boring after awhile.

The world is pretty much static. No new factories sprout up over time. No one suddenly discovers a patch of oil nor does the oil ever run out even after a 100 years. Worst, i cannot even commission the construction of a factory at a more strategic location to optimize my routes. Everything remains where it is from the start to the end.

Secondly, the ticket price for all goods are the same. Finished goods pay the same as raw materials. Hence i didn't feel any incentive to actually spend my time completing all the supply chains. There are no dynamic events like recessions or supply gluts, or cities awarding subsidies/contracts to supply certain goods or materials. Everything just remains the same from start to end. Once you've figured out the economic system you just repeatedly set up the same supply lines over and over again. And i got really bored of building the lines over and over again because i found the construction tools 'fiddly' and annoying to use.

Because of these, there really was nothing to keep me continuing to play the game other than to unlock achievements. Neither was there any replayability as nothing different or new ever happens in every game. This is not a bad game to say and i am sure that there are people who thoroughly enjoys it, but ultimately i didn't find it all that enjoyable.

Played the story mode and felt it was kinda boring.

But then i started career mode and it was tons of fun. You have a limited time to take your rookie unknown merc company and score as high as possible. This means you need to carefully plan and fiddle with everything so you can maximize your mechwarriors and their mechs so they can take the toughest missions possible in as short a time as you can manage.

Fiddling with your mech loadouts as you pick up new mech types and new rare weapons/equipment is really fun and can really change your battlefield strategies. And there are tons of strategies you can employ: from bombarding enemies using LRM's from afar, to kitting out a hit and run brawler that can close in quickly and deliver a massive SRM barrage before quickly ducking back out to cover.

Totally a game i would recommend for those mechwarrior/battletech fans.

I desperately want to love this game that's why i am giving it a thumbs up despite its flaws.

For those that are fans of an ancient retro hex turn based game called Civil War Generals, i think you will like this game as it really reminded me of that game despite this game having pausable real time combat.

Before i talk about the flaws, i just want to mention the things i love about the game.

1. A persistent army that follows you throughout the campaign from 1861 - 1864 that you can manage and tweak to your hearts content. Create egiments of infantry, artillery, snipers and cavalry. Buy weapons and equip them with different rifles, cannon etc. Tons of fun! And each regiment will improve their stats based on their actions on the battlefield: accuracy, melee etc.

2. Excellent combat mechanics. Each regiment has Morale and fatigue modeled.Experienced troops fight harder and longer. You need to flank enemies or concentrate artillery fire in order to rout enemies to push them back. Gain defensive bonus fighting from woods or behind walls. And a decently challenging AI keeps you on your toes somewhat.

But unfortunately the game has flaws.
1. The campaign is just a static series of battles. You could slaughter the yanks at Antietem or Gettysburg and nothing changes. You just proceed to the next historical battle.

2. Each battle is standalone and there is no consequence or link between each. Example: i sent my best troops to raid Harpers Ferry in the Antietem campaign. Historically these troops would not be able to make it back to fight in Antietem until late in the afternoon. In this game, these same troops were fresh and ready to fight in the morning at Antietem and i promptly slaughtered the Union army.

3.The enemy army will just replenish in size and difficulty based on your damage to them each battle. Slaughter 10,000 men. The enemy just replaces them with 15,000 experienced troops. Kill 5,000 of their men, they just replace them with 8,000 new recruits. This is meant to ensure the battles scale in difficulty to your progress, but it just makes my battlefield achievements feel kind of meaningless.

Because of these flaws the campaign can feel kind of boring because there is no sense of consequence to each battle. You just fight the battles over and over again and none of your actions on the battlefield feels like it matters.

In the end i still give this game a thumbs up because i love these sorts of army management game despite its boring and flawed campaign mechanics.

The best city simulation i have played since Simcity 2000. I especially love the transportation mechanics and spend hours just fiddling around with bus routes, railway/subway lines and roads/highways and even pedestrian walkways. The other mechanics in the game: water, fire, power, crime etc is good enough though not exceptional in any way.

Great game even after many years.

Xenonauts is basically a faithful remake of the original classic Xcom (not the recent new Xcom remake by Firaxis). Now if you played and loved the classic Xcom, you will definitely love Xenonauts as it plays almost identically like the classic (with some improvements). If you've only played (and loved) the Xcom remake, then be warned, Xenonauts plays very differently. I personally found the Xcom:EU remake annoying but loved Xenonauts, so i imagine those that loved Xcom:EU might find Xenonauts frustrating.

If you've never played any Xcom before, then the game is probably only recommended for those who love a 'hardcore' turn-based squad-level strategy game. The game has a base-building resource management strategic layer, but the real meat of the game is in the tactical combat. You will be spending hours fighting battle after battle, poring over each squaddie's movement and facing, trying to flank enemies, agonizing over decisions to rush troops in the line of enemy fire, or taking risky shots with allies in the field of fire etc. If you don't enjoy tactical squad combat, then you won't enjoy this game. Take note, you WILL lose soldiers, don't get too frustrated over that.


I completed the game on normal mode. Had to reload the game a few times due to some stupid tactical errors, but i didn't find anything to be too unfair/punishing. I don't play ironman on the first run-through cause i want to make sure i can reach the ending and i don't want to waste time constantly restarting. The game can get a bit repetitive and 'grindy' in the later stages but taking my high leveled elite squad to the final battle and practically breezing through with almost my entire squad surviving and escaping was pretty satisfying.

The only cons i have (other than slightly grindy later stages) would be the boring air combat system. After a few rounds of air combat, i resorted to just using auto resolve as i didn't find the air combat particularly engaging.

Overall i enjoyed the game. I especially loved some of the improvements over the classic Xcom:
- More organized squad equip/management with ability to customize your own soldier roles/class
- A handy line of fire indicator so i know what objects are in the way
- A nice suppression fire system (suppressed units cannot take reaction shots and start with only half TU's on their turn)
- No more hunting the last alien hiding in some basement somewhere. Mission ends if you clear the UFO of all enemies for 5 turns.
- if you are bored of sending your troops on ground missions, just airstrike UFO's from the air for some cash.

To me, this game is like Kings Bounty meets Total War. A turn based strategy map where you move your hero around completing quests but unlike Kings Bounty during fights it switches to a Total War real time combat with armies. Being a fan of both games, i definitely enjoyed King Arthur II.

I loved leveling up the various hero units and equiping all manners of artifacts to them. Regular army units can be leveled up and customized in various ways as well. The amount of unit variety and their abilities also made experimenting with different units fairly enjoyable although you could stick with the same standard units and still steamroll the enemies. I also liked the magic shield and spell mechanics in battle. The 'choose your own adventure' RPG quests also allows you to reap different benefits/penalties depending on your choices which is also fun.

However, i did find the game somewhat linear and short. Beyond the main quest plots you really can't deviate that much. Sure you could make evil choices during the RPG portions and become a tryrant but the main quests still remain the same. Enemies or allies are fairly scripted and don't really do much of anything that could alter your strategy. And the controls can be a bit clunky. My biggest annoyance was with the holdings/fiefdoms management. I had to constantly click through many windows to upgrade the buildings and to figure out who was the liegelord of which holdings etc.

Overall i enjoyed the game and i think that if you liked Kings Bounty, you would probably enjoy this game as well.

A fun little game, something of a light hearted time management sim. The characters are fun and likable. However note that this game is very short and can be completed in just a few hours. There is some limited replay value to try and get all the characters as your friends but nothing much besides that. The time management aspect is also pretty simple. I personally would have liked more things to do and more impact from how you spent your time. But overall, i would say i found my time playing this game to be amusing and enjoyable enough.