After having a great time with FTL a couple years ago, I finally got around to trying Into the Breach, which is made by the same developers.

Into the Breach is a roguelike puzzle/strategy game built around tactical, turn-based combat - you control three mechs and must protect civilian structures by killing or otherwise incapacitating the enemy (the Vek).

The "macro" gameplay consists of choosing one of four islands, each with a randomized set of enemies that can appear there. On each island you have to complete four missions + a boss mission before progressing. Once you've completed at least two islands, you can move onto the final island and beat the game.

What I Liked

• The core gameplay loop is extremely satisfying and fun - there is a massive amount of strategy behind every action. You have basically perfect information every turn - you can see what the enemy is going to do, in what order, and where new units will spawn (although you don't know which ones, which can actually make a significant difference). So you have tons of options - from killing Vek, moving them around, forcing them to attack each other, using environmental effects, and the list goes on.
• The game has a lot of variety. There are 12 squads you can unlock, each of which plays vastly differently from the others. Some focus more on killing, others on movement, while some try to stall out the game, etc... Combined with the Advanced Edition Content, which also adds new enemies, missions, and gear, each run feels fairly unique.
• Into the Breach is incredibly challenging - early on I spent quite a while thinking through every turn, and constantly finding new ways to get the most out of each move. I loved the learning process, especially discovering new tricks for each squad.

What Was Average

• Each Mech has a Pilot, who gains EXP and unlocks certain skills. You're allowed to carry over a Pilot from one run ("timeline") to the next. It's a great feature to have...but it also encourages you to use the same Pilot repeatedly instead of trying out others. IMO the Pilot abilities are fairly imbalanced too - there are a couple that are just so much better than the rest that, once you get them, you basically never want to swap Pilots.
• Into the Breach allows you to choose whether to complete 2, 3, or all 4 of the main islands before tackling the final island. While the flexibility is great at first glance and lets you control the length of your run, enemy difficulty will scale appropriately. The main issue was that, at least on Hard difficulty, it rarely felt worthwhile to attempt the 3rd or 4th island because it was difficult to get strong enough to outpace the natural enemy scaling.
• I thought the final island suffered from a similar flaw to FTL: a huge difficulty spike compared to the rest of the content. While I still enjoyed the challenge, I would have liked for the difficulty to be slightly more balanced.

What I Didn't Like

• My biggest gripe with Into the Breach was how much it emphasized achievements over simply winning. Every new squad unlock requires "coins", which are 1:1 mapped to the in-game and Steam achievements. However, there's no actual reward for winning. Obviously, as a roguelike, you could argue that winning a run *is* the reward, but winning a run and only getting one of the three squad achievements sometimes felt worse than unlocking all three and losing.

Final Thoughts

I played most of Into the Breach on Hard with Advanced Edition turned on (minus the first few runs to get acclimated) and beat the game with all of the squads. I did one Unfair run with my favorite squad (Mist Eaters) and beat it. At that point, I felt like I'd experienced most of what the game had to offer, so I called it quits. I had no real motivation/desire to play most squads again or grind achievements.

I played ~55 hours total and had a blast overall, and would definitely recommend Into the Breach to anyone who enjoyed FTL and/or likes tactical puzzle/strategy games.

Overall Rating: 8 / 10 (Great)

With the Dead Space Remake coming out a few years ago, I finally tried out the series. I played 1 & 2 fairly close to each other and they are extremely similar games, so I thought I'd group the two into a single review and highlight the key differences.

Similarities

Of course, the atmosphere was the primary highlight. Everything in Dead Space was creepy as hell: the environment, the enemies, and the unending foreboding and tension. They really did an excellent job at keeping me unsettled and on my toes constantly throughout the game(s), without ever feeling too over-the-top.

The gameplay was great. All the weapons were unique and fun, and I used most of them throughout. Having telekinesis and stasis also added some good variety. Resource management was one of my favorite parts; ammo and health were tight enough that I never felt too safe and was always trying to juggle resources - all of which added to the constant tension.

I loved the worldbuilding behind Dead Space and the slow drip feeding of lore along with the aura of mystery. I was always excited to get the next text/audio log and trying to just understand what the hell is happening (especially in the first game) and/or understand the nuances of the in-game universe.

Dead Space Remake

The first Dead Space had a huge advantage of getting the remake treatment - the graphics looked fantastic, the side quests were solid, and it played smooth throughout. Apparently in the original, Isaac didn't even talk which I can't imagine now.

Also, since it was the first game, there was a high novelty effect - the setting was incredibly fresh, compared to Dead Space 2 where the Universe was more established.

My only major issue was that a lot of the story >!reveals didn't hit as hard for me - the Kendra reveal was fine, but the entire Nicole/Elizabeth Cross reveal seemed almost forced. I think my primary disappointment was that I was hoping more would be explained about the Marker in general (and Unitology).!<

Dead Space 2

Going from a 2023 Remake to a 2011 game was obviously a step back, but honestly the core experience and gameplay all held up incredibly well. The only major hiccup was a technical one - I had to install the "Marker Patch" to even get the game to run at all, but at least it came with a bunch of bug fixes as well.

Really my biggest issue with Dead Space 2 was that I felt like the story >!was too similar to the first one, and the worldbuilding also seemed to be significantly less. Stross in particular was super underwhelming - a quite significant chunk of the game was spent just listening to him ramble on and after all that effort we just kill him. I liked the closure with Nicole (and the ending with Ellie) and we got to learn slightly more about the Marker and see it almost achieve convergence, but it all seemed fairly rushed in the last couple of chapters. I think because the lore wasn't as fresh anymore, I was expecting a more unique plot / more plot development overall given the strong base from the first game.!<

Final Thoughts

Overall, the atmosphere of both games was incredible, gameplay was solid, and I loved the in-game universe. I'm definitely going to play Dead Space 3 soon, although I have heard some mixed reviews. If I had to compare, the first Dead Space definitely felt a bit more special due to the more modern remake and it being the introduction to the series.

Overall Ratings:

Dead Space Remake: 8.5 / 10 (Excellent)

Dead Space 2: 7.5 / 10 (Solid)

After starting the Mass Effect series last year, I finally got around to Mass Effect 2. With the last game, I played mostly Paragon, whereas this time I kept it more mixed (for better or worse) - I generally leaned Renegade except when dealing with my squadmates.

What I Liked

• As expected, the gameplay was a significant improvement over the first game. I played on Hardcore (the second highest) which provided a good challenge without being overly punishing (I heard squadmates die very quickly on Insanity) and I liked having to use all of my powers and squad abilities, compared to ME1 where I rarely needed them. Everything felt smoother and I'm glad that certain encounters required at least *some* strategy.
  • Relying more heavily on powers also encouraged me to experiment with different squadmates which kept things relatively fresh early on, although towards the end the combat still became fairly repetitive.
• The loyalty missions were easily my favorite part of the game - I enjoyed the depth of the missions and the resulting worldbuilding / character development.

What Was Average

• "Exploration" was technically an improvement over ME1 because...it was absent...and I wasn't forced to drive around for small points of interest. Resource collection was still fairly boring and tedious but I liked that I actually had something to use the resources on and there were plenty of upgrades which made the collection worth it.
• The DLC was somewhat all over the place; a lot of DLC is immediately available, which was odd. I had no idea some of the optional missions were DLC and it killed the pacing a bit (since those missions tended to be longer). Kasumi and Zaeed were decent additions, but they definitely felt tacked on due to their lack of dialogue/interaction throughout the story. Also, I ragequit out of the Firewalker DLC which added the Hammerhead, because the missions were fairly boring and dying once meant you had to restart the entire mission.

What I Didn't Like

• The overarching story really felt like it went nowhere - I was hoping to learn more about the Reapers or more significantly progress the overall plot somehow. Maybe the set-up pays off in ME3, but the entire game ultimately seemed fairly inconsequential. And while I loved the final mission with its hype moments and payoff for all the loyalty missions, I found that the >!reveal of the Human Reaper!< was quite underwhelming.

Final Thoughts

I find these types of games are always difficult to evaluate because I think much of the appeal and magic are in the various choices and outcomes that can happen. However, I don't see myself doing a second playthrough, which means I'll have to resort to guides/videos to learn about the possible outcomes - while trying to avoid spoilers for ME3. It was also a little unclear how some of the choices from the first game actually mattered - >!e.g. letting the council die in the first game.!<

Overall, I enjoyed ME2 more than ME1 thanks to its stronger gameplay and character development, but the lack of any substance to the main story left me somewhat disappointed.

Overall Rating: 7.5 / 10 (Solid)