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| Okay, I've got a legit complaint. by Mischief Maker 07/08/2018, 6:44am PDT | ||||
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| No not the gender pronouns (boo-hoo), no, not the Unity engine choking on large overhead maps (Satellite Reign had insane load times, too). It's the fact that you're limited to four mechs.
Why this is a problem is ironically because of the game's greatest strength: its excellent streamlined interface. Playing the Battletech boardgame was a very involved process with complicated character sheets simulating these complex sci fi vehicles, representing armor as individual circles to be blacked out as they take damage, heat levels constantly filled in and erased, and so on. This was fun work for an imaginative middle-schooler, but it was still work nevertheless and so the limit of 4 on 4 made it actually possible to finish a game in a day. But in Battletech the videogame that's all handled by the computer in the background and the end result is... kinda dull. Don't get me wrong, a complex story map can still be a blast to navigate, but in general mech-on-mech random missions it feels like a heavily stripped down SRPG. You just move and shoot. The only real dilemma is choosing between moving to a hex with the highest amount of evasion and cover verses a hex with optimal firing position. There's no overwatch, no area-denial artillery, and with jump jets not even any choke points. The battletech board game rules were very simple in many aspects to make up for all the busywork but now that the computer's taking care of the busywork the only gameplay left for the player is too damn simple. It's kinda like how in the Etrian Odyssey games if they took out the manual map-drawing mechanics you'd realize their dungeon layouts are incredibly simple and boring compared to other games in the genre like The Dark Spire. Now this could still work if they massively increased the numbers of mechs on a map and included vehicle artillery backup or city maps, but I don't know if their engine can handle it. As much as that game does everything in its power to try to make me hate it based on terrible aesthetic choices, Sanctus Reach in its current patched state is way more fun than Battletech. |
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