X-com like games that are not stupid hard

Stele wrote:

No

Haha. Invisible is a blast. Another sci-fi/tech game atmosphere at least. Into the Breach, yes, it's more of a puzzle game. Still thought it was so fun that I got 100% achievements on it.

Banner I absolutely hated because there are dozens of out-of-combat ways for your characters to die. Some random, some choice, some nonsense. And then, maybe a character you had leveled up, used in combat, and really liked, is just gone. And didn't die in battle. I thought it was dumb and frustrating, and wish I'd never played the first. And I definitely will never play the sequels. If random punishment appeals to you though, by all means...

No to your no. If that's how we're offering feedback.

The random events can be brutal, but nothing in the game can totally stop your run like XCOM.

The art is excellent, the combat is balanced and fun, the story is interesting.

The whole tone of the game revolves around tough choices. Selecting a choice where you're prioritizing money over a team member's life, asking a party member to buy time for everyone else's escape, or hesitating to go to another character's rescue, can all have permanent consequences.

To anyone who hasn't played it, since the above implies the choices are random, in between battles you have story choices, so the game is part visual novel and part strategy. There are some choices that will kill characters, and characters might die is if you lose specific battles. However, even if you lose a specific battle, you can keep progressing. Story choices can branch, so you might lock yourself out of certain achievements or paths, but none of them will prevent you from completing the game.

Just to be sure, I looked up the choice list out of curiosity. Dozens grossly overstates it, but there is one character who is so comically killable there's an achievement if you keep him alive through the entire game. He's the Dogmeat of Banner Saga, basically. If you don't like the game, or don't like permadeath, that's one thing. But calling it random nonsense just isn't accurate.

I guess if you prefer ironman XCOM then banner might be fun? Permadeath outside of battle was not something I encountered in any other RPG or SRPG before or since, so Banner left a rotten taste in my mouth.

Wildermyth and Banner Saga series seconded for me.

Invisible Inc never clicked with me. Others loved it though.

Yes to Battletech (sorry BATTLETECH) but that can be really hard at fist.

Expeditions: Rome is another great suggestion.

Battletech is on Games Pass I believe, as is Gears Tactics. Wasteland 3 was also on it, can't remember if it's still there.

This thread reminded me that there's quite a few games in this genre which suits me just fine. From time to time I'd like to see developers evolving the genre (just like how 4X can't seem to break away from Civ/MOO) but it seems the XCOM move + action AP structure is practically embedded into the genre.

I really enjoyed Mutant Year Zero. I actually finished it which I almost never do with any game. It's not necessarily easy, but once you get the hang of how it all works, it's challenging in places and just a fun romp sometimes too. There are some character building choices and some equipment upgrading choices and they are meaningful but unlikely to limit you if you build towards your playstyle. The atmosphere is top notch.
I also really enjoyed Druidstone:Mehir Forest or whatever it's called. Can be a little gamey at times. Not too tough on normal difficulty. It has a great upgrade system that allows you unlimited easy respecs throughout. Great atmosphere as well. The only knock is that it sometimes puts time pressure on missions. It fits well in this game though and will never set you back more than 15 minutes if you screw up. Some missions get a little into the puzzle zone with this game moreso than most tactical games.

Neither of these 2 have any strategic layer.

Homard, how long was your play through of Mutant Year Zero? Did you try the DLC?
I’m thinking of picking this one up for the Steam Deck as I believe the UI and number of characters in screen might not be too difficult to read on the small screen.

Thanks,
Chad

If you want an XCOM-like experience, Phoenix Point is supposed to be pretty good as well but some folks found it difficult up front.

I can't comment because this is a game that's been sitting on my hard drive for a while, installed but unplayed.

chooka1 wrote:

Homard, how long was your play through of Mutant Year Zero? Did you try the DLC?
I’m thinking of picking this one up for the Steam Deck as I believe the UI and number of characters in screen might not be too difficult to read on the small screen.

Thanks,
Chad

Not asking me but my full completion playthrough of Mutant Year Zero was 21 hours and the expansion was another 15 or so hours.

Consider maybe the UFO: Aftermath, Aftershock, Afterlight games. They're Xcom style games with a weird hybrid turn based / real time system. Every turn, you plan your moves for all of your units - then, the turn resolves in real time for all friendly and enemy units at once.

I bounce off most Xcom / tactics type games eventually when I hit a point where I feel like the game is no longer respecting my time. I play games for the experience of discovering new things and making progress. It's not okay to invest 45 minutes of my time in tedious mopping up operations or trying to work through a doomed situation.

I'd really like an Xcom style game where the two sides were controlled by the computer and the outcome was largely dictated by the choice of equipment and training. Maybe limit player involvement to higher level decisions like aggression / caution and use special abilities.

Thank you Vector.

The Shadowrun Trilogy just dropped on consoles. These are excellent RPGs that have XCOM-esque combat that's much more forgiving. Also, as a nice bonus, Dragon Fall and Hong Kong both have well constructed stories which some real stellar twists and turns.

I have 18.8 hours on Mutant year zero in my steam log. I restarted once as I always end up trying something then coming back to it later due to the nature of my work. If I can't remember where I was I just start over. Probably 16 hours to finish and I'm fairly slow playing stuff. I didn't try the expansion but I think I might now after reading that it's fairly long.

I will second Shadowrun. I finished the first one and enjoyed it a lot. I'm halfway through the second one and enjoying that one too. More RPG than XCom though but a tactical mission based game for sure.

IUMogg wrote:

I’ve been playing through Valkyria Chronicles 4 and it’s fantastic. One of the best turned based strategy games I’ve played. I played the 1st one years ago on ps3 and it’s really good too.

Lol. The backlog strikes again! I read this and it reminded me how much I liked the first game so I went to the eshop to pick up 4 - I had already bought it.

I'm very late to responding and our GWJ peers have damn near covered every solid choice I could have drummed up.

Personally, I've spent a lot of time with W40K: Battlesector and enjoy it immensely. Otherwise I would have also suggested the Shadowrun Trilogy from Harebrained Schemes for something less punishing while still providing a ton of RPG feels.

I've also had Stolen Realm on my wishlist for a while. People seem pretty positive on this as well: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1330000/Stolen_Realm/

farley3k wrote:
IUMogg wrote:

I’ve been playing through Valkyria Chronicles 4 and it’s fantastic. One of the best turned based strategy games I’ve played. I played the 1st one years ago on ps3 and it’s really good too.

Lol. The backlog strikes again! I read this and it reminded me how much I liked the first game so I went to the eshop to pick up 4 - I had already bought it.

That’s basically like getting a free game

Lots of good ideas in here. I need more time...

No one has mentioned "The Feud: Wild West Tactics". Turn based tactics in the late 1800's, largely based on the story of the Hatfields and the McCoys. Very fun, not stressful, interesting variety of weapons and skills, and expansions take it out West too. I have really enjoyed it.

Edit - Have not played it since I got my new system, and I see that they have added a ton of new content to the game. Over 3000 maps now. New game modes, like Survival - take a five man team and fight waves of enemy's, with a health crate dropping before the next wave starts. All sorts of cool 19th century gunslinging fun.

On to the wish list, thanks Robear!

I was also about to add Stolen Realm onto my wishlist just to find out I already had it..man, I need to get to my backlog!

Steam sale is on.

XCOM: Chimera is 75% off I haven't got that yet.

There's a game that seems to be a homage called Encased that's deeply on sale and cheap to boot. Mixed reviews from what I've seen.

Other than that, the latest Disciples is 50% off. Seems to have gotten fairly positive reviews too.

A shame Chaos Daemonhunters has such a slight discount - 10%.

King Arthur has a 33% discount. Hmm.

Anyone play Phantom Doctrine? It seems like xcom mixed with hitman. I saw it was 90% off on the steam summer sale

Bfgp wrote:

Steam sale is on.

XCOM: Chimera is 75% off I haven't got that yet.

There's a game that seems to be a homage called Encased that's deeply on sale and cheap to boot. Mixed reviews from what I've seen.

Other than that, the latest Disciples is 50% off. Seems to have gotten fairly positive reviews too.

I have Encased in my library but haven’t tried it yet. It’s more of a Fallout-like than XCOM-like, though. Turn-based RPG with dialogue trees and an openish world to explore.

chooka1 wrote:

A shame Chaos Daemonhunters has such a slight discount - 10%.

King Arthur has a 33% discount. Hmm.

Posted in the video games sales thread but try isthereanydeal - Fanatical has it 27% off.

If someone plays King Arthur let me know too. Reviewers seemed to think Mordred was a bit of an edge lord but one can always mute the sound and skip the dialogue ...

I actually kickstarted Encased based on Larian's involvement. Unfortunately I can't recommend it. The starting/tutorial area is pretty cool, but it seems like the devs ran out of money after that point because the rest of the game is pretty empty, bug ridden and boring. It's a shame because the combat system has potential and it could have made a decent entry for this thread had it been finished properly.

The xcom collection for the switch just went on sale for $10. I am a sucker and bought it so I could try war if the chosen

Start a thread about similar games that are not as hard and end up buying it again, and finding on I already owned.

IUMogg wrote:

Anyone play Phantom Doctrine? It seems like xcom mixed with hitman. I saw it was 90% off on the steam summer sale

I took Phantom Doctrine for a spin right after my first XCOM 2 playthrough - I played through the tutorial level and felt so overwhelmed that I bailed. There are a lot of cool ideas, but they're super front-loaded and presented in a perfunctory way that made it difficult for my aging brain to retain any of them. I want to come back to it some day - my sense is that there'd be a pretty cool game in there if I had the time to really learn it.

farley3k wrote:

The xcom collection for the switch just went on sale for $10. I am a sucker and bought it so I could try war if the chosen

Start a thread about similar games that are not as hard and end up buying it again, and finding on I already owned.

Is there any way to get character pools on Switch? I thought I may play it more if portable but can't do it without playing with goodjers.

I'm going to put in a plug for Xenonauts

If you've always wanted to play the original X-COM: UFO Defense but never been able to get the game to run, or get past the somewhat dated interface, then this is the game for you. Of all the XCOM clones and remakes there have been, this is the closest in both style and gameplay to that original game.

It's a little clunky for sure in places, and the interface can be quite fiddly, but compared to the original it's a massive improvement.

The air combat system I never really got my head around so just ended up auto-resolving everything (Believe me, not a problem) and there is definite optimal path to research and upgrades you'll not wanting to be deviating from too far, but over all it's really quite good, well presented and has an understated but really quite funny wry sense of humour to it all. There is a total conversion mod called "X-Division" that, by all accounts, is even harder than The Long War mods are for the Firaxis remakes. You might want to give those a miss.

Xenonauts 2 is still in development even if it moving at a snails pace. It's basically the same game with some added extras, but I would wait until full release.

So on the recommendation of this thread I have been playing Mutant: Year Zero and I am really enjoying it!

SallyNasty wrote:

So on the recommendation of this thread I have been playing Mutant: Year Zero and I am really enjoying it!

that was my game of the year when it came out, and unexpected joy