XCOM : Chimera Squad revealed

[The_Admiral]

How surprising, XCOM 3 is actually... X-Com 3  :D

(well not really number 3, more of a side dish, but it's a nice little dirty pleasure to have it seems!)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/882100/XCOM_Chimera_Squad/

[al_infierno]

Is this a mobile/console port?   ???

Honestly looks like hot garbage, but it's inexpensive so I'm curious to hear any grog opinions.

[The_Admiral]

Ah come on. That's just Apocalypse-lite. Alright, squad management & all seems simplified, but who knows, maybe they had the long war team following this one too to provide some more extensive gameplay.

The main "innovation" is successive individual turns. I am interested to see how this will go - make the engagements closer to a skirmish/JDR environment than the former IGOUGO system. Could be a winner. Could be a fail.

But knowing how much they playtest their stuff, I am ready to believe it could be a winner, actually - I mean, for a $10 adventure that is.

[sandman2575]

Anyone pick this up?

I'm pretty skeptical about this one. Even for the give-away price of $10, I'm not sure this is gonna appeal to me.

Pretty sure Xcom 2 is in my top 3 games on Steam in terms of hours played.  I love it -- even with the additions of the "Chosen" and the zombie "Lost" which I felt I tolerated more than actually enjoyed.

But part of the great joy of Xcom is customizing your squaddies. With Chimera Squad, there's *no* character creation at all? And if anyone dies on a mission, it's 'game over' ?  This seems to rip the heart out of the whole Xcom experience.

[Jarhead0331]

And if anyone dies on a mission, it's 'game over' ?  This seems to rip the heart out of the whole Xcom experience.

There is no perma-death for squad members.

I'm skipping this one. Will probably get it when its $3.00.

[ArizonaTank]

I am about 3 hours in and having fun....  The game is well worth $9 IMHO.  You can think of it as Xcom lite, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Battles can be challenging...and are much more intimate than Xcom (in smaller spaces). The game employs a breach mechanic, where you are blowing a hole through a wall or kicking down a door to get into combat very quickly; so far I haven't seen the long slogs before combat that you see in Xcom. Anyway, with breach, you are into combat immediately.

The battles are fun, and it seems like there are more tactical options than Xcom...but I may be wrong. Your team has both aliens and humans on it. So you have some of those abilities like vipers who can use their tongue to grab and pull enemies. Its fun. The battles are also challenging...but I haven't seen a brutal one yet.  Also, the game wants you to come away with the entire team...so you need to stabilize everyone to finish the fight. There is a new mechanic that I kind of like; the turn order is tracked on the side of the screen. There is a mixed turn order based on reaction time I believe. There are some combat abilities that allow you to dynamically play with the order during combat.

There is a strategic layer, but it is focused on just one city. You don't really build a base, you pretty much have all functions (training, research etc.) out of the gate, but you do have to decide if you will assign team members to them. You still have team management, but again not as in depth as Xcom. Your team is also capped at a smaller number of members I don't know how that works later game, but after about 6 missions, I am capped at 5 team members, 1 APC, and 1 robot. When it was time for me to select a new team member, I had a pretty good choice of characters to select from.

The game is like one of the Xcom DLCs; there is a story line. But once you get to the end, I am guessing you are done. Still there is a bunch of meat there. Not certain how replayable it is however.

The overall atmosphere is less dark than Xcom. The team members have personality and some of them are a little on the snarky side. The overall atmosphere kind of seems like a superhero movie to me anyway.

Overall, the game is targeted at an audience who just wants to play the battles, while having a much lighter experience with the strategic elements. If you found the original strategic elements to be somewhat distracting...this new game may actually be better for you.

If you are an Xcom purest, you probably won't like many of the cut corners in the game...but you still might find it to be a good romp.

As for me...I have been playing the series since the original 1994 release of UFO: Enemy Unknown. And while my favorite is Xcom2, I think this newest game has a certain charm and IMHO is worth playing.

[sandman2575]

Great write-up, AT.  Thanks!

I wonder if this is a taste of what's to come in an eventual XCom 3... personally, I hope it isn't. The 'Avengers'-style super-hero vibe just ain't my cup of tea. It kind of feels like Firaxis can't decide what it wants XCom to be anymore. War of the Chosen introduced not only zombie-apocalypse elements, but also the very campy, comic-book 'Chosen' themselves.  I still wound up liking WotC in spite of it. But it's almost like they can't decide on what mood the franchise is supposed to have. I'd vote for 'darker and grimmer' myself. Chimera Squad seems like the polar opposite of that...

[The_Admiral]

Aye, the mood is the mood, but I have yet to find a weak game in the re-imagined line.
Chimera Squad is indeed a X-Com lite that is pretty much a cool turn-based 3D door-kicker with imaginative mechanics, and a story exploring the lore of the after-war. Characters are written in a clever way and some are really easy to bond with (if not lovable). No perma-death, true that, but characterization in this particular frame make it worth it. And real hardcore gamers can still play it by disabling save-scumming or do it the iron-man way. For 9 bucks it's a steal. Every bit of this game screams "how come never anybody thought of or managed that sort of gameplay before"? It feels natural. You feel at home.

XCOM wasn't Enemy Unknown
XCOM 2 wasn't Terror from the Deep
Chimera isn't Apocalypse - but it is an interesting take on what a tactical phase in Apocalypse could be if it was to be made as a stand alone. As a amateur game designer myself, the sheer ingenuity displayed in there is a dream and would be self-sufficient if people were willing to give it a chance as a budget experience (that alone will easily keep you playing for 20 to 30 hours for one run btw).

It wouldn't be Xcom, it would be branded as one of the best turn-based tactic games to have ever seen the light in the recent years. Because it is branded as an Xcom game, it is easier to criticize it - but Man, are you missing the fun if you do so. A perfect Corona-compatible game that will keep you awake until the morning. Had to think about something else after we were done with the steam page and the teaser, and I can say without much mystery: mission accomplished (pretty much from 10 AM to 4 AM yesterday, with a salad in-between).

[The_Admiral]

oops double post