Anyone tried Phoenix Point?

[haphazard1]

I am curious to see what Mr. Gollop has created with this new take on the classic X-com concept. Has anyone given it a shot?

[BaII]

Not yet but it certainly shows promise. I think I might like it more than XCOM 2.

[Old Harry]

I watched the let's play on their site and couldn't see how it differs from xcom at all. Anyone know?

[El Grillo]

I don’t own the game but I’ve watched a few streamers try it out. Seems like there are interesting mechanical elements with a less than ideal implementation. A Long War mod built on its foundations could be really promising.

For example, there’s a free aim system that lets you target specific body parts and simulates cover elements. It reminds me of Valkyria Chronicles in that regard where you use your vehicle as cover not because the game says it’s high cover, but because the enemy can’t see you standing behind the vehicle. Different body parts are differently armored and provide different abilities, so it’s pretty satisfying to identify weak points and good angles. One early game enemy carries a big shield that your weapons can’t penetrate head on, but you can easily find soft targets if you approach from an angle or the rear. Your own soldiers also take wounds to specific body parts, which opens up a wide range of scenarios in longer missions and perhaps your sniper has to switch to a pistol because one of her arms was hit.

The enemy scales through the body part targeting system, in that it redistributes armor from places you don’t shoot to places you do shoot. Enemies also mutate over time to swap out their abilities for new ones, and when you assault their bases the AI spawns reinforcement variants based on what it thinks will be effective against your squad, creating an interesting time pressure.

Unfortunately there’s also a game breaking issue where equipment management lets you freely move guns and gear instantly from a squad on one plane in flight to another plane in flight, continents apart. The guy whose stream I was watching quit in despair after realizing that that hasn’t been fixed in play testing. The pacing also felt a bit off, where you’d get fully upgrade your soldiers very early on, then struggle to get equipment that kept up with the enemy scaling. Losing soldiers very early also felt like a crushing setback, as you need to research a few techs before you can recruit new ones. Hopefully some of these issues get addressed either in DLC, patches, or mods.

[BaII]

I looked over Beaglerush's review of Phoneix Point and it does look less promising than what I first saw. It looks pretty tedious in all honestly and the systems built in place are not very good either from a enjoyment standpoint imo.

[yuris125]

I played for about 4 hours myself and watched a fair amount on twitch

I think the game doesn't do a good job of presenting itself and getting the player engaged early. The first missions are the most tedious - free aim isn't noticeably different until you start facing mid-game enemies, soldiers are hard to tell apart with next to no abilities and subpar voiceovers, and you can't even recruit new soldiers until you start exploring and unlock and research a certain tech. It also doesn't do a particularly good job of explaining mechanics - for example, the game has 3 human factions, with whom you can do diplomacy. The instinctive approach is to maintain passable relationship with all three; however, the optimal play is to choose one faction you don't care about and raid them to steal resources and research. The game tells you that it is an option, but never gives any indication of what would be the consequences of pushing relationship with one of the factions deep into the negatives

Some mechanics also seem to be included as gimmicks, not for being good for gameplay. Inventory - which the devs apparently are fond of for some reason, they even made a video highlighting it - seems to be there to screw the player when they forget to build a consumable item which can't be made instantly (e.g. ammo). They also included a bunch of status effects - "bleeding", "poisoned", "infected", "burning", you name it. I didn't see how this multitude of status effects added to the depth of the game. On the contrary, there was a situation where I was screwed by one of these effects (and that was the point where I stopped playing and not sure if I will come back). I was ambushed by the aliens - it's a kind of mission where enemies spawn indefinitely, you need to survive for 3 turns and then evac. First, one of my operatives got mind controlled (there's an early game enemy who facehugs soldiers to mind control them, not unlike XCOM seekers). I had to rush to free him, and left my soldier open to attacks. She got hit 3 times - and I knew she could take it - but she got hit by status "paralysed 22". She couldn't move (as the status suggests), and it couldn't be remove by a medkit. The game seemed to suggest that the paralysed effect can be counteracted by the strength stat, so it's possible this didn't mean she was paralysed for 22 turns, but only until the number dropped below her strength. But firstly, there was no way of knowing, and secondly, getting hit by this on a mission with extreme danger level and infinite enemy spawns was not a fun situation. It felt like the devs purposefully wanted to make more obnoxious thin men - and they certainly succeeded

All in all, I think the game has potential, I think Beaglerush went too far in his criticism - but I also think it wasn't ready for release, and if anything, it made me appreciate how much the devs of modern XCOM improved the game by removing the tedium of some of the original mechanics

I wouldn't recommend buying the game at full price, especially considering the devs went down the path of removing some of the features to release them as DLC later. But if you have "Xbox game pass for PC" (quite a name!), the game should be released there in the near future (and if you don't, as a new customer you can currently get it for $1/£1 a month for the first 3 months)

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the comments and info, all! Sounds like the game could use some balancing. The DLCs also looked like an issue, with what should be core features separated into DLCs and coming later. Maybe this one will be worth taking another look down the road, once everything has come out and been better balanced.