The demo for Archrebel Tactics is out! While I did like it, as I see massive potential from a tactical viewpoint for the full release, I did find the demo a bit on the difficult and sadly annoying side. Now, my issues stem mostly from it being a demo, with heavy tutorials – that to be fair are excellent, but get a bit vexing on repeat playthroughs. The reason the demo gets to me is that it’s ironman, with a score being given to you if you finish the mission. The scoring is pretty cool, but man, no reloading in combination with the relentless difficulty does put a hamper on things when you just want to try things out and learn how the game works.
Presentation & combat
The presentation is excellent, from the retro pixel-esque visuals to the meaty sci-fi sounds and electronic beats that play while you massacre alien wildlife. That is not all. The gameplay itself is great as well, going deep into turn-based tactical tropes with unit stats coming out the ears. The combat is very satisfying and deadly. And thanks to all the stats there seems to be a lot of character builds to be made, from making master snipers, to melee champions, or why not a dedicated medic? It’s all turn-based with AP (action points) to determine what you can and can’t do during a turn. Every unit also has an inventory, and a weight limit, and from what I can tell is that enemies, if they have any, will drop all loot on death.
Between battles, you are free to move around without any AP restrictions, and that is a good thing. However, for some reason doing stuff like reloading still uses action points. You can move about with zero AP, but if you have spent your action points on say opening a door, it will have you defenseless if you run into an alien creature. I don’t get this system at all, since while you are allowed to walk around freely, you still have to constantly click the end-turn button to get AP back. It slows the game down to a crawl. Opening a door takes half your action turns, so you can imagine how much extra time it will take to go through a base. Also, at one point one of my soldiers got injured, which lowered his action points. It made him incapable of healing himself during an encounter. But since it takes action points during free-roam mode too, he couldn’t heal up during that segment either. This might be the decision reason as to why, but I just find it annoying, and overly punishing. Maybe I got something wrong here, but that’s my impression of it, so far.
Developer response:
I got the developer to comment on this, and apparently, it’s made this way since it’s score-based. Ending your turns gives you a penalty in scoring at the end, which means playing defensibly means you will get lower points. Refreshing action points are punished, basically. I can’t say I care too much about this, as I would prefer to keep my men alive. The lowered pacing will be bothersome though.
Time is of the essence
There is only so much time I will give a demo, especially if it’s as tough as this one where progression does not matter in the end. According to the developer, it will take about three hours to complete, and I assume that is without any wipes. It’s a hefty demo for sure, which is nice, I just don’t personally feel that incentivized to spend that much time on a demo, in addition to avoiding spoilers. I rather invest that in the full game when it comes out, so I probably won’t be completing it. However, saying that, I was very impressed by what I played even if I found certain parts annoying. I recommend everyone who likes the genre (especially the X-com one) to give it a go. I’m sure you will like it. I have to comment on the level of polish too for being such an early version. It’s surprisingly high!
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
Addendum:
Remember to check out part 2 of my demo testing. I actually stop whining in that one, and completes the game!
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