TL;DR - Keeping in mind the low production budget of Chimera Squad, at the time I purchased it at 9.99 this title is an adequate experience albeit with a few Majorly confusing design choices.
Whenever you purchase this, if it is not at a Deeeeep Discount and if you have never played XCOM in your life it's best to skip Chimera Squad and buy the XCOM and XCOM 2 games along with the DLC for both of them which are better first experiences of far more intense, engaging and rewarding game-play than Chimera Squad ever manages to be.
The Good - Breach mode was an interesting and fun addition to the new XCOM style of play since 2012; breaching charges, scanners, cease fire options were all fun tactics that remained fresh till the end.
My initial reaction to not being able to create my own characters were quickly offset with the characters given for the campaign, there was one of every type which formed a well rounded team for the encounters with additional training options unlocking or upgrading skills.
Aliens and Humans co-operating is an amazing sci-fi concept brought to the game successfully keeping the overall feel of the setting the game is based in fun bordering on cringe but not crossing the line.
Unique weapons were a good addition to offset the traditional and annoyingly fun XCOM RNG shot percentages.
The Bad - Many decisions regarding the game mechanics were baffling and downright hurts the experience of Chimera Squad.
Game balance, mostly useless supply shop, fixed number of agent slots from start to finish, small repetitive maps, directional overwatch, change from team turn based to player turn based and a few more.
These small things start building up fast considering the short length of the game and by the end they start making the game tedious without that traditional lurking fear of what is around the next corner that the XCOM games successfully incite.
The experience of the encounters vary wildly from the two extremes of stupidly easy ending within 5 - 8 min or stupidly easy but against an annoying number of enemies that you start getting bored of staying in the same room for 15 min, excluding the gate-keeper fight that literally drove me up the wall in fear, excitement and XCOM RNG rage/fun.
Strangely another important aspect of Movement was not focused on in this Spinoff since I spent more than 95% of my mission in the same spot after the breach till the end of the encounter in the said room, enemy numbers and small maps kept me from wanting to move around to escape from or get to better vantage points.
The player turn based over the team turn based also really takes out a big chunk of the experience of XCOM since fun little tactics like setting up a kill box, overwatch wipes, chasing a hidden enemy, searching the map for that last a-hole skittering around in the shadows all integral and addictive parts of the missions.
Overall like I said at a deeeeeep bargain price it is an alright experience for a Spin-off and gave a little scratch to my XCOM itch but it was unsatisfying and probably makes me crave for the whole experience even more so equivalent of being blue balled after a really good but slightly underwhelming tease.
Conclusion - XCOM 3 needs to get here soon.
Whenever you purchase this, if it is not at a Deeeeep Discount and if you have never played XCOM in your life it's best to skip Chimera Squad and buy the XCOM and XCOM 2 games along with the DLC for both of them which are better first experiences of far more intense, engaging and rewarding game-play than Chimera Squad ever manages to be.
The Good - Breach mode was an interesting and fun addition to the new XCOM style of play since 2012; breaching charges, scanners, cease fire options were all fun tactics that remained fresh till the end.
My initial reaction to not being able to create my own characters were quickly offset with the characters given for the campaign, there was one of every type which formed a well rounded team for the encounters with additional training options unlocking or upgrading skills.
Aliens and Humans co-operating is an amazing sci-fi concept brought to the game successfully keeping the overall feel of the setting the game is based in fun bordering on cringe but not crossing the line.
Unique weapons were a good addition to offset the traditional and annoyingly fun XCOM RNG shot percentages.
The Bad - Many decisions regarding the game mechanics were baffling and downright hurts the experience of Chimera Squad.
Game balance, mostly useless supply shop, fixed number of agent slots from start to finish, small repetitive maps, directional overwatch, change from team turn based to player turn based and a few more.
These small things start building up fast considering the short length of the game and by the end they start making the game tedious without that traditional lurking fear of what is around the next corner that the XCOM games successfully incite.
The experience of the encounters vary wildly from the two extremes of stupidly easy ending within 5 - 8 min or stupidly easy but against an annoying number of enemies that you start getting bored of staying in the same room for 15 min, excluding the gate-keeper fight that literally drove me up the wall in fear, excitement and XCOM RNG rage/fun.
Strangely another important aspect of Movement was not focused on in this Spinoff since I spent more than 95% of my mission in the same spot after the breach till the end of the encounter in the said room, enemy numbers and small maps kept me from wanting to move around to escape from or get to better vantage points.
The player turn based over the team turn based also really takes out a big chunk of the experience of XCOM since fun little tactics like setting up a kill box, overwatch wipes, chasing a hidden enemy, searching the map for that last a-hole skittering around in the shadows all integral and addictive parts of the missions.
Overall like I said at a deeeeeep bargain price it is an alright experience for a Spin-off and gave a little scratch to my XCOM itch but it was unsatisfying and probably makes me crave for the whole experience even more so equivalent of being blue balled after a really good but slightly underwhelming tease.
Conclusion - XCOM 3 needs to get here soon.
