Great points. Something not mentioned here is the ability to spend your movement and shooting however you want. You can move, shoot, and keep moving. Or shoot several times. No extra skills needed. I very much miss it when playing other games of the genre. The inventory management was not such a problem when I last played it, the game tried to replenish your items when you returned from battle. Perhaps it changed in your version.
Like most people, I value gameplay over everything else, but it's really hard to not compare it to xcom's polish. It makes you really appreciate the small details like having your soldier standing in the Armory while changing their loadout, or how the ui is floating next to the soldier instead of flat on the player's screen. I understand a small studio being unable to create animations as fluid as firaxis, as animations can be very expensive and time consuming to produce, but I don't see why their environment models and weapon models lack so much polish, it doesn't take that much time or money to create a decent looking environment and crisp ui. That forest level looks horrendous. Trees being 6 sided cylinders is ridiculous, its not 2006.
I fully agree on the UI, it doesn’t take long to implement, but is such a QoL feature. my guess is that their focus was more on other features and they ignored the basics.
💯 agree with your summary. I played it at launch and *kind of* enjoyed it, but I lost interest after a while and didn’t even finish the campaign. I think for me it lacked tension, and as you mentioned the side grade system just felt like I was progressing through the story rather than powering up. Ironically I enjoyed the story, but the game kind of got in the way of it, really. I didn’t care about the characters, I didn’t care about the enemies, the tactical layer felt gimmicky and lacked immersion, the UI / management was clunky. I dunno, I just didn’t find it fun. I don’t usually like bashing games but this one is frustrating because its got so much potential. Hopefully they’ll do a sequel that addresses the actual core gameplay.
I also do not want to bash games, I try to do fair and balanced reviews with constructive criticism. The core of the game is good, the ironic part is that it has so much potential, that it could be much more than it currently is. The downside however is that the implementation feels unfinished, even 2 years after release. More content doesn‘t help to solve that. Balancing, pacing, better & smaller campaigns, review of the classes + equipment and options to reduce / get rid of micro management are needed to increase the QoL of the product.
@@SykenPlays hi , i have a question has this game a similar stupid system like x com 2 where the game forces you to choose what fights you take and at some point the progress bar is full and you are forced to take end game fight and the game ends or is it more like the game *Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden* , where you have a story and you go from place to place, from map to map etc and the games ending is fixed where you have to play the full game and then you get to the end.
I have started yet another campaign recently. Always get excited for a while, then I just stop going back to it about a third into the game and I never find the motivation to go beyond. I had never managed to understand why, but now I get it. Your review has nailed it: Just too much going on, too much choice, too many sub-systems. I bought the whole game on sale and have always played with "all DLCs", the usual reflex of "I paid for those, I need to stack them all up". Maybe I should restart, yet again, with only the base game, finish it, then play only one DLC at a time. There is indeed "something" there with that game, I wish I could find it and enjoy it.
I'm glad your thoughts align with mine. At launch (Steam) I was so hyped for the game but the micromanagement was too tiring by mid to end game that I only finished it once. I tried a couple of the DLCs but got too overwhelmed with the vast number of simultaneous quests. Xcom WOTC did it a lot better and gave you the option to skip the storylines and just integrate the content. I'm giving the game another chance now that your playing it but will look into mods to hopefully fix some of the faults. Thanks for the honest review.
I didn't find that busted melee build. The game did give me a fantastic end run though. A third of my team dead, another third crippled so they couldn't use their weapons, and the last three just scrambling to finish off the big bad before it got them too. Real white knuckle ride there. Although, at the time I triggered the last mission, I'll admit the rest of the game had become a brick wall I was just through banging my head against. Definitely agree with your conclusion that the game is a mixed bag
Great to hear that you had a memorable final mission! You might want to look into my run a little bit later down the road to reassess your opinion regarding the melee builds.
8:28 - viral weapons are great in the anu playstyle... lower willpower for more effective mind control and other psychic attacks. Or just to prevent syrens to mind control you, if they not have willpower to to such. But agree on acid/fire/poison style weaponry, that are basically same... and fire is the best. But each are also rom different faction, so it is a worldbuilding - their way of handling same problem, mutated enemies. 10:00 - "mind control - annoying and suck it up" - you see what you did here? 10:44 "there is no way to counter it" - There are several counter-strategies to enemies with mind control skill. First, lower their willpower, so they cannot use the skill or panic - viral weapon. Ideally mind control "them" now, so other enemies target syrens or perhaps syren kills them with meelee. Second, easy from start - just focus fire on the head. When you target enemy body parts, you also see what skill you disable when you disable that part. So a sniper shot or two to the head and bye bye mind control. Third, Clarity Head bionics. Fourth - skilled Berserker soldier. Five - counter with Jericho technician turrets, that cannot be mind controlled or vehicles. Six - paralyze your own mind controlled soldier (you do not have to destroy his weapon or kill him as you stated are the only option) to get more time to deal with the source of the mind controller. And that's just the direct and obvious. Syrens are terryfing on first playthrough, but that's almost for everything in XCOM as well (still remembering running into Lobstermen in XCOM2 , with just particle weapons and no way of piercing his huge armor) 14:00 - "one way of playing is stronger" - there you hit the nail with the hammer. The differences in classes are big, vehicles practically unusable (i like just the synedrion for the "paralyze something" mission"). But still, it is IMHO fun game and apart from completely broken builds like you presented that can kill anything, it conveys to me better that you are on the loosing side of planetary invasion and you have just practically days and weeks to counter it.. while the rest of humanity is dying in unhospitable ecosystem and later fight each other for the remaining scraps om the race to the bottom - so "horizontal" development by acquiring tech from factions instead of big jumps of capabilities like in XCOM games are valid for the setting. Just ancient weapons are OP in everything, kind of outshine everything, so it is sometimes more interesting to play not with them.
I bought the game, as a 40 year old XCOM fan from childhood, and I stopped after a few hours. It's just not built right strategically. The fights are not well designed. What a disappointment.
I would, as a somebody who started with Dune II and XCOM, reply in opposition.. combat is very well designed and XCOM: EU now feels a bit blunt, even with Long War. I hate only one thing in Phoenix Point compared to original XCOM, resp. terror from the deep (my favourite) - items are very costly (compare few magazines or rifles to a reopening of base or vehicles) and you tend to not have resources to fully equip all soldiers. This moves to a bit unrealistic practice of having multiple teams around the globe, but teleport their equipment between continents on the soldier equipment screen :) I would prefer to have things cheaper, like 33% or even 20%, but able to move between soldiers just on same location (and perhaps add stuff to planes as cargo between bases) - just for the immersion thing. You need to schedule trading flights anyway, now it would be cool if the planes also differ not only in soldier capacity and speed, but a cargo space (the anu airship would be now worth something - for things where speed is not the essence).
@@petrhanak862 I can only concur. That said, there are mods that do just that. In your case, I'd recommend the one that makes weapon drops from enemies guaranteed if said weapons were not destroyed during battle, plus the one that adds resource gains to a few of the base buildings (I think Assorted Adjustments offers both as configurable options and is up to date). I've solved most of my own issues with the game via mods. The only things I'm now missing is a way to turn off the damn auto replenishment of ammo feature (because it wastes an entire clip on a missing bullet), and a way for technicians to meaningfully heal bionic body parts (such as making their heal mechanical ability also heal bionics), as would be only right and proper (note: their Field Medic ability can do it, at 10 HP/use, but that option also comes with a bug that breaks all bionic augments if you fully heal them this way in a mission - so you have to heal them almost to full over several turns, then repair for an optimal cost/repair ratio; this truly is un-fun).
This game is like a messy desk that has more on it than the desk can hold. Shit spills off the side of the desk and items on the desk are on top of other item making them hard to see or get too. This is one of my favorite games, but I dread ever playing it. I’ve turned it on so many times only to turn it off before it even gets to the main menu. If you clean the fluff, I think this is way superior than the modern xcoms. If they restructure the core of the game…got rid of the ticking clock and turned it into a 4x game it would be fine. The alien war should just be an ongoing gritty struggle to cleanse the earth how ever you see fit. Territory, rep, resource and method in a sandbox.
Well, start with not all DCL enabled for the first run. But, yeah, anyway, first few playthrough will be always rough and probably will be lost. For example, since I did not know about the trade, really sucked to have resources just for basics. But in any strategy game you probably loose on first few tries. " The alien war should just be an ongoing gritty struggle to cleanse the earth how ever you see fit" - generally agree, but then.. it is kind of strange that you resist with basically dozens of soldiers against full planetary invasion of technologically superior enemy for such long time (basically any XCOM). Phoenix Point gives you the feel that the Earth is being terraformed below your feet and most of the population is already dead and rest is on a clock. I love this, it is proper. But for the "sandbox clensing" - try Xenonauts 2 or perhaps Terra Invicta (more wild guess at the moment).
@@petrhanak862 I mostly agree, except that the rampant starvation is a little absurd on Veteran difficulty. Even if you regularly trade food to the heaven, they still starve at the exact same rate (only impacted by mist coverage) and often don't even build farms - which is utterly absurd on a societal level.
Do you think you’ll do a rereview of this game covering the Terror from the Deep overhaul mod? Or do you not really review mods? From what I’ve heard the mod fixes a lot of the issues you’ve mentioned and retools the different dlcs so that they actually work together to make the game feel more cohesive, instead of being a mess of different features that don’t really interact with each other. It also changes the human population timer to be a representation of humanity collectively going insane and better represents the lovecraftian themes they were trying to go for. There’s other cool features, changes to the story/lore, and adds more variety to the missions. The mod definitely looks pretty interesting. From what I’ve heard this game has a decent amount of cut content and promises from the Kickstarter that never came to pass. Apparently, there were originally going to be underwater missions like in X-com Terror from the Deep. I unfortunately couldn’t find a list of the game’s cut content, and since I haven’t played it or the dlcs I can’t really compare it to what was promised in the Kickstarter.
Well I love this game. At times I think it's better than Xcom. I have all the Xcom/UFO games. Bought this with all the DLC in a recent sale. Worth every penny, you won't regret it.
@@paulmorgan6269 Some of the DLCs are essential to make the game playable IMO. I got the first 3 or 4 for "free" after kick starting. Apparently the inceptor / air power is horribly broken though or was?
Its a good game but I haven't finished it either, I tried to go back to it and forgot what I was working towards. I ended up replaying X-com 1 and I am working back to X-com 2 War of the Chosen for a second playthrough.
That is pretty much the problem. It has an initial WOW effect, but due to the pacing of the game and the very micro-management intense playstyle, it feels like doing Taxes.
the game is not bad, it just did not live up to the hype. Also, with a bit more streamlining and reduction of complexity plus a faster campaign victory (such as in total war warhammer 2) with side goals instead of world domination, you’d see much more replayability. this game feels like too much content and complexity and no streamlining.
@@samwalker9808 Thanks mate, appreciate the feedback. The game is good enough to give it a shot. If I had to replay it, I would chose an arbitrary side-goal, some limitation (i.e. certain weapons, only one faction to ally with, maybe even start a war with another faction and play as a raider) and then play 20-30 missions and call it a day.
Glad you liked it, I do have quite a few videos planned about video game design and general topics about what creates a good game, need to find time to release them.
That’s really too bad. I was really looking forward to playing this game. I guess it’s for the best I bought Xcom 2 when it was on sale and not this one. That’s such a shame that the game has a lot of underlying issues dragging it down because it has such an awesome premise/setting and like you said the foundation is solid. Hopefully they can eventually fix the game, but I’m not sure if that will happen this late. Even if they don’t fix the game one thing it NEEDS is official mod support. That will allow people to fix the various issues and keep the game alive through user generated content. It would be interesting to see what the devs do in a Phoenix Point 2. Although, from what I’ve seen it reaches a narrative end that would be hard to make a sequel to. I’d hope they add underwater missions and expand more on the human factions. It would also be cool if they delved more into the body horror designs we see in the concept art and show us the mutated flora/fauna. Good video. Let’s hope they somehow fox the game and add modding tools.
As I mentioned, it is not a complete failure, it just is an average game. And for people that are okay with a lot of micro management, bugs, cumbersome mechanics and the idea of side-grades as progression, it might just be the right game. The Lore is good, the graphics are appealing and it has some neat mechanics.
Yeah, I can see that. I will admit I might’ve been a bit too harsh in my comment. I’m sure if I was a hardcore Xcom style game fan I’d probably be really eager to play this game, but micromanaging everything and having a bunch of skills/weapons that kind of do the same thing isn’t really for me. Hopefully they can rebalance the game in a way that builds on its solid foundation. It’s also too bad that we no longer live in the time when mod support was considered mandatory for a game. I’ll be sure to check out your other videos.
10:37 Yes there is. Multiple ways, in fact. New Jericho has a head augment that literally grants mind control immunity, the Disciples of Anu offer a player the ability to also use mind control (thus quickly removing the enemy mind controller unit), and literally everyone can shoot the offending enemy in the head until that part is disabled and, as such, the mind control dissipates. There are several more options. This is entirely a player skill issue. Furthermore, not all weapons are side-grades. Many are, certainly, but in terms of action economy and even damage per shot, there are clear upgrades available, just not that many. Regarding weapons, the main issue Phoenix Point has is that the costs are unbalanced for what they offer and some factions offer items that are straight up more expensive than other options without significant benefits - Synedrion is the main problem here due to their unreasonably high tech cost (particularly for ammo), as well as some Phoenix Point weapons (such as the heavy grenade launcher eating tech as ammo like it grows on trees). I also did not find anything confusing about the game's mission or gear system. That said, I've been gaming for ~23 years and play EvE Online for fun, so perhaps I'm not the best yard stick to use in that regard. 11:08 Missions are not timed, at least I've never come across any. New enemies will spawn in every few turns, but as long as the player can dispatch them, it's just more xp. I've stayed in missions farming kills and the occasional drops for literal hours, on veteran. Also, Jet Packs allow heavies to simply fly away from goo, same thing with the rocket-jump leg augmentation, and there's even a research that unlocks anti-goo leg mounts for any soldier to use. There are multiple ways of dealing with this problem, with the augment solution being available very early on if New Jericho reputation is prioritized. 11:22 Fair enough. Those shades are real bastards and don't even have distinguished limbs that one can shoot off, just a lot of HP. The entire hitbox just reads as 'claw', which is extremely bizare, and probably an oversight on the dev's part. It's a problem that requires overwatch actions from a good distance and, preferably, multiple heavy weapons or sniper rifles. They also seem to ignore illusory team members, for some god-forsaken reason. If you have one that spawns close by... my only suggestion is to save-scum really hard. Edit: Turns out fire can stop the spawning (another commenter pointed this out). My real issue with the game is the absurd, rampant starvation (even if food is traded with that heaven), the insta-pop of heavens on veteran difficulty, and the _very_ poorly thought out end-of-mission auto-use of ammo in storage that can't be turned off (leading to even one missing bullet using up an entire magazie if it's left out in the open, forcing players to store them on unused soldiers or lose large amounts of resources post-mission). Thankfully, mods exist that fix most of these issues, as well as other problems, such as the aircraft descriptions not matching up with their in-game stats and the mechanical vehicles running dry after a few turns of shooting while costing a silly 3 squad slots (and not being worth even two fully trained and geared soldiers on the battlefield, except in terms of raw HP, but since they can't take cover that element also isn't nearly as helpful for their survivability).
I really wanted to like pheonix point but as someone who averages about 6 hours of gaming time per week because of my irl responsibilities the complexity is just too much. The limited time I played felt like layers upon layers of systems simply to add unneeded complexity.
Same in my case, if I wouldn‘t have had an influx of time for a short period, it would have potentially not worked out for a full campaign. I will do a video in the future about game difficulty and why adding more complexity doesn‘t equal a higher difficulty. All it achieves is that well organized individuals will find cookie cutter strategies, which others will then mimic. In the case of PP, unfortunately the developers drowned in their own complexity, which led to questionable balancing.
Phoenix Point is a game where I absolutely love the lore and atmosphere but find the actual gameplay pretty mid. I was hooked on the setting of the game before it was even released from reading the short stories on their website. But the actual moment to moment gameplay was mostly not very exciting or rewarding for me. I think I'd prefer to see this story as a TV show or something without the gameplay getting in the way of it.
That is a nice way of putting it. The lore is really top-notch, potentially the best that I have seen in any of the alien invasion games. But the actual realization is an accumulation of too many game mechanics.
TV show from the phoenix point setting would be awesome, agreed. Also.. the game quite changed from the first initial release to current state. I know just the later, IMHO better polished, when I see the videos from the "just released" version, it is confusing.
I like the game a lot more than you & don't really remember micro management being a big issue. I guess the spreadsheets of armour comparisons might give lie to it but I enjoyed that stuff. Other points are pretty fair. The DLC is fairly bad, it all adds early difficulty that makes things easier once you have overcome that (like the chosen in WotC). It also as you say adds many parallel issues to deal with rather than giving you a series of problems and that exacerbates the difficulty hump too. The ancient weapons is IMO the best and that adds many repetitive missions to get the sexy game weapons. Then that gear is definitely an upgrade but it's too much of an upgrade, a massive leap in power, with a couple of exceptions where you are upgrading poor weapon types. As another comment says it would be better not to play with the last two DLC on a first run. TBH I could do without them at all, especially the air combat which would probably count as micromanagement - feels like contractual obligation being a KS stretch goal.
Short answer - no, it's not worth it and as an added note they stabbed their initial funding community in the back for an Epic stores exclusive contract when they said that they would not and would release it on multiple storefronts. Avoid everything they make.
Dont know what changed in the 6 months. I also cant see that it was updated 2023. I really like this game. I expected a boring dissapointment. But I can't see the negatives you mentioned. Inverntory micromanegment was non existend. It even auto refilled broken weapons after the production was done. Auto refilled mags, replaced maks in soldier inventory if I used them in battle. Difficulty progression was organic. i.e. at the beginning very very easy and then to easy normal then hard. No "difficulty spikes" for me. When you mentioned "anti-fun" enemys. This is what the original X-com was famous for. Anti fun unfair enemys. Their are a lot of unfun stupid enemys but again the game wants you to shoot the limbs which gives them these abilitys. After I stoped palying it like xcom 2 and start to use the limb disabling everything was fine again. When you told your best of of stupid unfun things. Thats not what I had problems with. I would have listed stupid meele aliens which attack you 3 times in a row with 100 dmg running. Or meele enemy which makes himself invisible after gettin attacked retreats and then just bypasses overwatch and meele attacks you and regain all health again. Why unfun? because it circumvents my playstyle which I consider fun to play. If I change my playstyle this is no longer an issue but all of the sudden other things which were no problem at all become major problems. I think this is good. Because getting an AI which actually acts Intelligent will never happen so a Game designer has to make things to give the AI an advantage without pumping damage value and health value which is common in modern games Lets say there is a helmet add on which makes you resist mind control. What happens then. This add on to the helemt would be a must have. So why having mind control ability in the first place? Also you said overpowered weapons and so on. These were DLC weapons which were designed to be overpowered on purpose. because people complainted too much that the game too difficult. But this is what I think makes the game so good. You have a different play style so for you the game actually tries to prevent you from playing like this. I have a playstyle and the game throws different things at me. The "upgrades". Maybe you got distracted because you recorded yourself when playing it for the first time. But that the 3 factions have like "specialaizations" of the weapons was clear for me. So I did not expect a new sniper rifle to be "better" it depens on what you value what "better" is. Like their is no lvl 1 Sniper and lvl 2 Sniper and lvl 3 sniper and the latest version is always better. Then you wanted to have trading routes which buy and sell automatically? This is not a trading game and would be too much for the developers. Lets say they would implement a trade route system. The you just google "best trade routes" and then you have no resource problems and always too much to spend. Then you would have said trading routes are too good it trivialized resource gather missions which you dont need. Well it feels like you played a different game or a different version of this game then I did.
That is indeed some interesting feedback. I am not sure about the changes - I can only report from the anniversary edition and the issues that I had with it (based on the long and very time consuming playthrough that I had). If indeed they have fixed some or multiple of the issues of the game, I can revisit it. For now, I can only go by my last experience, which was mixed.
@@SykenPlays There is another thing I remembered now. You said the Siren AI was badly designed. So that the Siren just jumped away or ran away and there is no way to prevent mind control. The ASPIDA (the vehicle from Synderion) has an Upgrad which gives you immunity to mind control of your soldiers. And if its so bad so unplayable because they designed the SIren AI how it is. Then why didnt you used the Aspida? it just takes 3 slots.
I love this game. First I love the choices all side grades as you call them are all worthwhile and I don't find things convoluted as you do and every problem seems to have a solution ie the goo( there are literally 2 ways to make the goo not a problem for yours soldiers.. I think the choice PP offers to the player and the world it builds is awesome. Love the original xcom and thought both reboots were God awful and incredibly flawed and broken but good review all the same.
One thing I found disappointing is the limb targetting system Yes, on paper it sounds great to be able to disable (eh! eh! PUN!) enemy abilities like that, but in the end, the fact that hitting an already disabled limb still damages the main body means that, most of the time, you'll just be shooting at the weakest part, until the ugly thing dies. There didn't seem to be enough incentive to spread your damage more, which is a shame Maybe they could have implemented something a la Dead Space: some creatures cannot die until you cut off all their limbs or, if we want to get crazy, some mutants' weak spot regularly changes position or shows up when a certain amount of body parts are disabled, etc... Something like that could have added much more value to the targeting system, imo, instead of a simple "health bar goes down: you win"
Shooting off their shield-limb, weapon-arm, or their mind-control head seems pretty meaningful to me. Also, reducing their movement to practically nothing is really helpful against a Cyclops and allows a team to safely take it out from very far away. Oh, and ancient Hoplites are easy to kill once you shoot off their shield (can be done in 2 shots with a piercing sniper rifle), because it actually doubles as their torso. Matter of fact, Pandorans with chameleon torsos need to have that part disabled first, because otherwise they'll turn invisible and move when hit elsewhere. Regarding most shield-using melee Atrons, my favorite tactic is to shoot off their claw and paralyze/capture them for extra food - they literally can't hurt your team if they don't have a claw (which is odd, since they should be able to use Bash with their shield, but I don't think the NPCs ever actually use Bash) and won't even run away in certain mission types.
By now it's become an excellent tactical game barred the end game final battle and the DLC Festering Skies. Requires much patience but is very rewarding. War is rarely fun or fair.
I agree that the core of the game is good, maybe even good+. Where I do have a slight disagreement is on the fun part. If a game feels like you are doing taxes, then it is not achieving what it should try to do - be a good distraction and an engaging fun activity. Most people would agree that the way that the micromanagement is done in PP is simply clunky, doesn‘t add much to the game and does not require „skill“ to do it. It‘s just a lot of chores that prolong the core game aspect of the campaign.
@@SykenPlays I see and understand your point. Although it make me glad that the Aliens have much different abilities than the Human race. I even would have given them much more distinct alien abilities.
The weapon advancements are far from simply sideways. Even when they are sideways, say the different tier 1 assault rifles, there are key differences. New Jericho favour shredding armour, more damage per hit, but smaller bursts, whilst Synedrion favour very accurate, high burst weapons, with little shredding and less damage per hit. However, NJ's next tier actually pierces armour, making it even more effective vs highly armoured targets. There are several tiers for most weapons. Even without the DLCs, there is research that opens up far better weapons than the sideways faction ones, but even the latter can unlock much better versions. New Jericho get armour piercing weapons, flamethrowers, back mounted rocket launchers with 2 tiers etc Synedrion upgrade their crossbows to poisonous ones, unlock paralysis weapons and several new grenade types from EMP to poison etc. Anu unlock 2 progressively better shotguns, 3 better melee weapons, viral guns etc. Phoenix Point themselves can combine faction research to create even better weapons, such as laser guns, turrets and a back mounted laser or missile launcher. They can create virophage weapons that do far more damage vs Pandorans snd mutated beings, hand held missile and grenade launchers etc. With the Ancient DLC, you get far better weapons than anything equivalent in the base game. There are also two one off living weapons and one living armour as well as powerful but less reliable marketplace weapons with the DLCs. You mentioned resurrecting enemies you claimed you could do nothing about. I am unsure what you mean. Depending if you have the Corrupted Horizons DLC installed, some types, Arthrons and Tritons release an Umbra version on death if they have the ability, BUT if you kill them with fire, this doesn't happen. In the same DLC, Acherons can have the ability to raise the dead, but if you kill the Acheron, it stops them doing so. So either way resurrecting enemies is stoppable. I think the main issue with the game is it's easy to be overwhelmed, particularly if you play it like XCOM2. The strategic map plays very differently and you have to plan your goals, what to target and what to ignore with much greater skill as you have far more possibilities. I recommend beginners do not play with the Festering Skies and to a lesser extent Corrupted Horizons DLCs, until they have defeated the game once. They add more depth and complexity, but they add more missions and emergencies to respond to, which can be overwhelming until you know what to prioritise. Finally, there is an excellent wiki available that answers practically anything you can think of, that the game doesn't already.
I was not aware fire dmg prevented Shades from spawning. I'm not sure if this is mentioned or simply a matter of trial and error but, finally, the flame thrower has an actual purpose besides being the only 2 AP heavy weapon (which I don't care much about, since I multiclass early on heavies). Oh, and fire grenades - I'll make sure to carry at least one with me now. Thanks for the info!
@@DarkVeghetta Also, people tend not to read a manual to a game and don't know you can change not only the distance but also the cone of the overwatch to be very wide (close cqb, want to cover anything close, or narrow, for sniper to trigger on specific enemy you are worried and not on every worm that come into view). It also depends on the weapon type, since with pistols and PDWs you can do almost 180 degree cone, but with heavy and snipers you could not swing that much around. Cone target: move mouse Cone width: CTRL + mouse wheel
@@phh2400 I did read the art book, but I much prefer figuring out the controls entirely in-game and, frankly, expect devs to incorporate such into in-game prompts - which do exist here. I've even read the entire Pheonixpedia the game provides, including game concepts, and I don't think it ever mentioned cone width. Cheers, mate.
That is a nice comparison. The game has a surprising amount of depth, but not balance unfortunately. There is plenty of content, it just seems wildly thrown together instead of carefully selected.
I love how you complain about the characters don't have means to deal with the enemies and in the same sentence you then continue to say the characters can be made OP. Furthermore in real life just because research is invested doesn't mean it will bear fruit, many research projects come up with mediocre results IRL. Mind fraggers taking control of your character and running off is awesome. Why wouldn't the aliens do that IRL? They are trying to cut your team members off from your team. I don't agree with this review however I do respect the difference in options. GG EDIT: I'm not playing with the DLC so my experience is probably much different tbh.
Hello Hamdog, I appreciate the different perspective, we do not need to agree on the outcome. If you like the game the way it is designed, there is nothing wrong with that. Regarding character - I think you are taking what I am saying out of context. I talk about how several design elements are binary counters on the one hand and how too much content on the other hand leads to overtuned characters. Both symptoms are classical cases of poor balancing - the wrong decisions get you immediately killed without much counter-play, the right decisions trivialize the content. Not a good design. Regarding research - I think the vast majority of players would agree that lateral progression is less fun/rewarding than horizontal progression (as in stronger weapons). The game is an abstraction of the real world - and just like how you do not need to have a tax department, a PR manager or a compliance officer in your imaginary workforce, you also do not need to simulate that some of the results are absolutely horrible. The research of the game has been widely criticized as poorly implemented, not rewarding and imbalanced. It is certainly not a strong suit of the title. You personally might see that differently, but the majority of the audience was quite clear on that point.
The base game is available on xbox gamepass right now. I only played the first mission and found it a bit clunky to work the interface with a game controller. I'll probably try it again after watching a few of your vids on it.
Great to hear - it requires a lot of micro management unfortunately, there is only so much you can do about the clunky interface, but the core of the game is good and has potential.
Very interesting video! Like you said if they were to polish the shiny surfaces the game does have and trim some of the fat it would be a much better experience.
I came into similar conclusion just by watching half of the first episode of campaign. Too many systems make game tedious and ultimately boring. Reminded me the trend that was popular is survival genre a few years ago when every game must have a hunger/thirst/carry capacity meter no matter if it was logical or necessary for game's story or setting.
Good review, however think this should be compared to the orignal X-Coms and not X-Com 2 as the modern X-Com games were very much dumbed down (still great games).
@@SykenPlays granted the mod is still in alpha pre 1.0 but after finishing the game its execution of the game progression for players is significantly a better experience.
Considering how good the original XCOM was, it’s incredible that in the three decades since, this abomination is the best that Julian Gollop could come up with.
I really wanted to like this game on release, but just found it horribly boring for reasons I can't properly remember anymore. Watching reviews to see how it's changed in 5 years.
It is not a bad game at all, but it requires some polishing to get rid of a lot of the clutter and have clearer progressions and better balancing. At the moment it is more like a sandbox and you can make whatever you want out of it.
I downloaded this gane yesterday for the ps5, i found it boring, but that might be because im so use to xcom wotc, also wasteland 3 by far one of the best turn base rpg to ever be created.
@SykenPlays believe me it is, the story, and the attributes, skill points, character customization, weapons, and armor modifications with upgrades, the crafting system, and building your base. FYI you are going to say omg im just playing this now.
I don't think it's worth it. Not because it's bad, it's a good game, but because it don't reward the player and his work. Even in late game NOW it's imposssible to have some OP soldiers, wich is nuts if you ask me. I have work so hard and try any combination and all i have it's just a bunch of dudes with some fancy weapons and equipment, nothing more. In 2017 it was infinite better, it have his problems but at least i was rightfully rewarded for my jobs, now is only a joke T_T
I think the restrictions of not having OP soldiers works for this game despite his flaws. Recent XCOM make you feel like war heroes while Phoenix Point makes you feel like you are fighting against overwhelming odds. So having OP powers would remove some of that fun tension in fights
its a good game but i stopped playing it as i just didnt wanna waste my time on a game that sooner or later forces you to finish the game not interested in short games just a waste of time in my opinion
The enemies accurreally annoys me to no end. Im being sniped from 20+ tiles away, with a pistol. They also tend to have much more health and armor, and require alot to take down. I understand this gets mitigated a bit later on, but for me in my 1st play through, Im getting to where I either restart on lower difficulty, or stop altogether. I like it better than xcom 2 though
@@SykenPlays Only for the enemy it seems.. PDW is poor accuracy no matter the distance. Shotguns are incredible no matter the distance. Most rifles suck. Snipers are hit or miss, same with heavy weapons. The enemy seem to have an extreme advantage in hp, armor, accuracy, even AP at times.
Hi, let me see if I understand. You think Phoenix Point is a bad game because: A. The game gives you a a ton of choice on how to play the game. B. The player is not supposed to do it all the player has to pick and choose what they want to go for and set thier own goals In short I think the pacing works. I guess I'm one of those who likes choice I never saw Phoenix Point as too complex. By the way most people vrise to a challenge when it is presented to them. I think your selling a lot of people short. 3 all weapons are useful just depends on the synergies the player chooses. I love to set the pandorans on fire and then literally crush the will out of them. Also weapons have specs that tell the player what they will all do I myself never use hand to hand or short range weapons But it's not the games fault if you did not take the time to read of the stats. Only once with thr Hawk sniper rifle did I go why. Next I just wanted to correct you bothered were some major errors. This may be just you as the reviewer didn't put in the time you wouldn't be the first reverse to do this it is rather a bad trend but it is what it is anyway 1. There is a robotic head that prevents mind control. I know I use it so offer that the big pandoran that uses mind control now tries to spit acid instead. 2. There are robotic legs that make goo irrelevant 3. As for will draining fog. Use grenades to destroy it. 4. Reanimated enimes. I thought this was a cool feature, it went with the story. Why was this unfun for you mist are close range attackers so use grandes, rockets and sniper rifles for have an assault with awesome perception take them out or crush them with mind crush. Next the skills are not that over powered or under powered take dash(people seem to pick on that one) it is really useful when you need to have a soldier book it across the screen after destroying a spawnery or after taking a shot a those big blue 3000 point spider like things. I forgot thier name but they can leap half way across the screen can cast instill and are a mindfragger hatching machine. Vehicles are not underpowered more like a surgeons scalpel. I found the micromanagement not to be a problem but that's just me a guess besides there the replenish feature at the end of every mission so there not much to worry about. Just my two cents
You are free to have you own opinion on the game. I think you have misunderstood my criticism - the game is needlessly complex, choices are not meaningful, many of the sub-systems are not well thought through, the game - due to lack of randomization - becomes repitative, pacing is off, the game is not well balanced and overloaded with options. Those were the main points that I made.
@SykenPlays i did not miss the point . One of my main points was your facts about the game are flat out wrong ie your take on mind control and goo not having solutions to counter them which both problems due in the area of cybernetics in the game. Heck your Statement here about Phoenix Point's lack of randomization here is just flat out incorrect. The game is completely procedurally generated to the point where if I mission goes off the rails and the player needs to restart it they will find that while the map is of the same type, the layout of the map and the composition of the enemies on that map are now different. I was just trying to point out some factual errors tactfully. Then again to each his own
5 is average to be fair. According to modern inflated reviews it might be low, but I decided to do actual reviews that are based on comparison, structure and a normal distribution. Reaching a 9 or a 10 should be the rare exception and not the rule.
You know another thing that is anti-fun? This review. You spent 16 min complaining about all the things you DIDNT like and forgot to talk about the good parts of the video game. Sure the game has balancing issues, but so does your review. This is more a complaining video than an actual review. You only briefly touched on the gameplay, sound, music (did you even mention music?) in the beginning of the video and the rest is just ranting about things you didn't like. This is not how you make a video game review.
Appreciate your feedback, I tend to disagree with your view, since I highlighted a lot of the positive parts of the game as well. Preferences are different, so you are entitled to your opinion about the game and this video.
Unless modding is a specific feature that is core to the game (i.e. Trackmania), my view on it is that it is a nice to have feature, can definitely improve the longevity of the game and is great to keep games relevant. I am not including it on purpose for a variety of reasons: - Game developers should be objectively judged on the software that they release - Community design (even if it is great), can only be a crutch and will never turn a game from mediocre to awesome - Mod quality and the use varies widely, many do not use them at all, so it's simply comparing apples with oranges. What everyone can relate to is how the game plays as-is
Great points.
Something not mentioned here is the ability to spend your movement and shooting however you want. You can move, shoot, and keep moving. Or shoot several times. No extra skills needed. I very much miss it when playing other games of the genre.
The inventory management was not such a problem when I last played it, the game tried to replenish your items when you returned from battle. Perhaps it changed in your version.
Good point, thanks for the input.
Like most people, I value gameplay over everything else, but it's really hard to not compare it to xcom's polish. It makes you really appreciate the small details like having your soldier standing in the Armory while changing their loadout, or how the ui is floating next to the soldier instead of flat on the player's screen. I understand a small studio being unable to create animations as fluid as firaxis, as animations can be very expensive and time consuming to produce, but I don't see why their environment models and weapon models lack so much polish, it doesn't take that much time or money to create a decent looking environment and crisp ui. That forest level looks horrendous. Trees being 6 sided cylinders is ridiculous, its not 2006.
I fully agree on the UI, it doesn’t take long to implement, but is such a QoL feature.
my guess is that their focus was more on other features and they ignored the basics.
They got a big epic exclusive contract by epic so it make that much more confusing where did all that fund goes?
💯 agree with your summary. I played it at launch and *kind of* enjoyed it, but I lost interest after a while and didn’t even finish the campaign. I think for me it lacked tension, and as you mentioned the side grade system just felt like I was progressing through the story rather than powering up. Ironically I enjoyed the story, but the game kind of got in the way of it, really. I didn’t care about the characters, I didn’t care about the enemies, the tactical layer felt gimmicky and lacked immersion, the UI / management was clunky. I dunno, I just didn’t find it fun.
I don’t usually like bashing games but this one is frustrating because its got so much potential. Hopefully they’ll do a sequel that addresses the actual core gameplay.
I also do not want to bash games, I try to do fair and balanced reviews with constructive criticism. The core of the game is good, the ironic part is that it has so much potential, that it could be much more than it currently is.
The downside however is that the implementation feels unfinished, even 2 years after release. More content doesn‘t help to solve that. Balancing, pacing, better & smaller campaigns, review of the classes + equipment and options to reduce / get rid of micro management are needed to increase the QoL of the product.
For the life of me why didn’t they include custom starting options!!! This would have solved like 99% of the game’s problems.
That would have been a great option for the game
Fair. I recommend mods for that exact purpose. Assorted Adjustments has pretty much all of the options at least I would care to have.
@@SykenPlays hi , i have a question
has this game a similar stupid system like x com 2 where the game forces you to choose what fights you take and at some point the progress bar is full and you are forced to take end game fight and the game ends
or is it more like the game
*Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden* , where you have a story and you go from place to place, from map to map etc and the games ending is fixed where you have to play the full game and then you get to the end.
I have started yet another campaign recently. Always get excited for a while, then I just stop going back to it about a third into the game and I never find the motivation to go beyond.
I had never managed to understand why, but now I get it. Your review has nailed it: Just too much going on, too much choice, too many sub-systems. I bought the whole game on sale and have always played with "all DLCs", the usual reflex of "I paid for those, I need to stack them all up".
Maybe I should restart, yet again, with only the base game, finish it, then play only one DLC at a time. There is indeed "something" there with that game, I wish I could find it and enjoy it.
Glad that you found value in the description.
The game really has a clutter-problem. More is not always better, quality above quantity.
I'm glad your thoughts align with mine. At launch (Steam) I was so hyped for the game but the micromanagement was too tiring by mid to end game that I only finished it once. I tried a couple of the DLCs but got too overwhelmed with the vast number of simultaneous quests. Xcom WOTC did it a lot better and gave you the option to skip the storylines and just integrate the content.
I'm giving the game another chance now that your playing it but will look into mods to hopefully fix some of the faults.
Thanks for the honest review.
Speaking of mods "Terror from the Void" sounds like a good rehash of the game.
Good luck on the retry - I believe that if you know what you get yourself into, the game actually is quite fun.
I didn't find that busted melee build. The game did give me a fantastic end run though. A third of my team dead, another third crippled so they couldn't use their weapons, and the last three just scrambling to finish off the big bad before it got them too. Real white knuckle ride there.
Although, at the time I triggered the last mission, I'll admit the rest of the game had become a brick wall I was just through banging my head against. Definitely agree with your conclusion that the game is a mixed bag
Great to hear that you had a memorable final mission!
You might want to look into my run a little bit later down the road to reassess your opinion regarding the melee builds.
The game did not let me shoot or move just was being a cuckold and watching my team get raped??
8:28 - viral weapons are great in the anu playstyle... lower willpower for more effective mind control and other psychic attacks. Or just to prevent syrens to mind control you, if they not have willpower to to such. But agree on acid/fire/poison style weaponry, that are basically same... and fire is the best. But each are also rom different faction, so it is a worldbuilding - their way of handling same problem, mutated enemies.
10:00 - "mind control - annoying and suck it up" - you see what you did here? 10:44 "there is no way to counter it" - There are several counter-strategies to enemies with mind control skill. First, lower their willpower, so they cannot use the skill or panic - viral weapon. Ideally mind control "them" now, so other enemies target syrens or perhaps syren kills them with meelee. Second, easy from start - just focus fire on the head. When you target enemy body parts, you also see what skill you disable when you disable that part. So a sniper shot or two to the head and bye bye mind control. Third, Clarity Head bionics. Fourth - skilled Berserker soldier. Five - counter with Jericho technician turrets, that cannot be mind controlled or vehicles. Six - paralyze your own mind controlled soldier (you do not have to destroy his weapon or kill him as you stated are the only option) to get more time to deal with the source of the mind controller. And that's just the direct and obvious. Syrens are terryfing on first playthrough, but that's almost for everything in XCOM as well (still remembering running into Lobstermen in XCOM2 , with just particle weapons and no way of piercing his huge armor)
14:00 - "one way of playing is stronger" - there you hit the nail with the hammer. The differences in classes are big, vehicles practically unusable (i like just the synedrion for the "paralyze something" mission"). But still, it is IMHO fun game and apart from completely broken builds like you presented that can kill anything, it conveys to me better that you are on the loosing side of planetary invasion and you have just practically days and weeks to counter it.. while the rest of humanity is dying in unhospitable ecosystem and later fight each other for the remaining scraps om the race to the bottom - so "horizontal" development by acquiring tech from factions instead of big jumps of capabilities like in XCOM games are valid for the setting. Just ancient weapons are OP in everything, kind of outshine everything, so it is sometimes more interesting to play not with them.
Hi Petr,
thanks for the comments, really appreciate them.
I bought the game, as a 40 year old XCOM fan from childhood, and I stopped after a few hours. It's just not built right strategically. The fights are not well designed. What a disappointment.
I hear you and can certainly understand where you are coming from.
Ouch
I had a game ending bug where you can't move or shoot just overwatch getting raped in the ass pretty much??
I would, as a somebody who started with Dune II and XCOM, reply in opposition.. combat is very well designed and XCOM: EU now feels a bit blunt, even with Long War. I hate only one thing in Phoenix Point compared to original XCOM, resp. terror from the deep (my favourite) - items are very costly (compare few magazines or rifles to a reopening of base or vehicles) and you tend to not have resources to fully equip all soldiers. This moves to a bit unrealistic practice of having multiple teams around the globe, but teleport their equipment between continents on the soldier equipment screen :) I would prefer to have things cheaper, like 33% or even 20%, but able to move between soldiers just on same location (and perhaps add stuff to planes as cargo between bases) - just for the immersion thing. You need to schedule trading flights anyway, now it would be cool if the planes also differ not only in soldier capacity and speed, but a cargo space (the anu airship would be now worth something - for things where speed is not the essence).
@@petrhanak862 I can only concur. That said, there are mods that do just that. In your case, I'd recommend the one that makes weapon drops from enemies guaranteed if said weapons were not destroyed during battle, plus the one that adds resource gains to a few of the base buildings (I think Assorted Adjustments offers both as configurable options and is up to date).
I've solved most of my own issues with the game via mods. The only things I'm now missing is a way to turn off the damn auto replenishment of ammo feature (because it wastes an entire clip on a missing bullet), and a way for technicians to meaningfully heal bionic body parts (such as making their heal mechanical ability also heal bionics), as would be only right and proper (note: their Field Medic ability can do it, at 10 HP/use, but that option also comes with a bug that breaks all bionic augments if you fully heal them this way in a mission - so you have to heal them almost to full over several turns, then repair for an optimal cost/repair ratio; this truly is un-fun).
This game is like a messy desk that has more on it than the desk can hold. Shit spills off the side of the desk and items on the desk are on top of other item making them hard to see or get too.
This is one of my favorite games, but I dread ever playing it. I’ve turned it on so many times only to turn it off before it even gets to the main menu.
If you clean the fluff, I think this is way superior than the modern xcoms.
If they restructure the core of the game…got rid of the ticking clock and turned it into a 4x game it would be fine. The alien war should just be an ongoing gritty struggle to cleanse the earth how ever you see fit. Territory, rep, resource and method in a sandbox.
Very good perspective, I think you are right with the game jamming too much into it.
Simplicity is often hard work.
lmao
Well, start with not all DCL enabled for the first run. But, yeah, anyway, first few playthrough will be always rough and probably will be lost. For example, since I did not know about the trade, really sucked to have resources just for basics. But in any strategy game you probably loose on first few tries. " The alien war should just be an ongoing gritty struggle to cleanse the earth how ever you see fit" - generally agree, but then.. it is kind of strange that you resist with basically dozens of soldiers against full planetary invasion of technologically superior enemy for such long time (basically any XCOM). Phoenix Point gives you the feel that the Earth is being terraformed below your feet and most of the population is already dead and rest is on a clock. I love this, it is proper.
But for the "sandbox clensing" - try Xenonauts 2 or perhaps Terra Invicta (more wild guess at the moment).
@@petrhanak862 I mostly agree, except that the rampant starvation is a little absurd on Veteran difficulty. Even if you regularly trade food to the heaven, they still starve at the exact same rate (only impacted by mist coverage) and often don't even build farms - which is utterly absurd on a societal level.
Do you think you’ll do a rereview of this game covering the Terror from the Deep overhaul mod? Or do you not really review mods?
From what I’ve heard the mod fixes a lot of the issues you’ve mentioned and retools the different dlcs so that they actually work together to make the game feel more cohesive, instead of being a mess of different features that don’t really interact with each other. It also changes the human population timer to be a representation of humanity collectively going insane and better represents the lovecraftian themes they were trying to go for. There’s other cool features, changes to the story/lore, and adds more variety to the missions. The mod definitely looks pretty interesting.
From what I’ve heard this game has a decent amount of cut content and promises from the Kickstarter that never came to pass. Apparently, there were originally going to be underwater missions like in X-com Terror from the Deep. I unfortunately couldn’t find a list of the game’s cut content, and since I haven’t played it or the dlcs I can’t really compare it to what was promised in the Kickstarter.
I would first need to play the mod - it has been requested quite a bit, so maybe it is going to happen
Well I love this game. At times I think it's better than Xcom. I have all the
Xcom/UFO games. Bought this with all the DLC in a recent sale.
Worth every penny, you won't regret it.
Oh .. sorry I forgot. Comparing this with Xcom was a poor way
to access the game itself. It's not Xcom.
Thanks for sharing your views, the game is good, one just needs to adjust their expectations I suppose.
@@paulmorgan6269 Some of the DLCs are essential to make the game playable IMO. I got the first 3 or 4 for "free" after kick starting. Apparently the inceptor / air power is horribly broken though or was?
in 2024 Phoenix Point is worth buying! Especial with mod Terror frome the void!
Its a good game but I haven't finished it either, I tried to go back to it and forgot what I was working towards. I ended up replaying X-com 1 and I am working back to X-com 2 War of the Chosen for a second playthrough.
That is pretty much the problem. It has an initial WOW effect, but due to the pacing of the game and the very micro-management intense playstyle, it feels like doing Taxes.
I remember being so excited then so underwhelmed by this game :(
the game is not bad, it just did not live up to the hype.
Also, with a bit more streamlining and reduction of complexity plus a faster campaign victory (such as in total war warhammer 2) with side goals instead of world domination, you’d see much more replayability.
this game feels like too much content and complexity and no streamlining.
@@SykenPlays haven't played since launch so maybe ill give it another chance, great video btw
@@samwalker9808 Thanks mate, appreciate the feedback. The game is good enough to give it a shot. If I had to replay it, I would chose an arbitrary side-goal, some limitation (i.e. certain weapons, only one faction to ally with, maybe even start a war with another faction and play as a raider) and then play 20-30 missions and call it a day.
@@SykenPlays I have a friend who repeatedly plays 20-30 missions then stops...
8:43 That's one of the greatest points Ive ever heard in gaming! Like that's good enough to make a video about. How complex a game should be?
Glad you liked it, I do have quite a few videos planned about video game design and general topics about what creates a good game, need to find time to release them.
10:35 flashbang grenade breaks sectoid and priest mind control. Its avaliable from the start of the game. A good example of fun system vs tedious one.
Yes, exactly
That’s really too bad. I was really looking forward to playing this game. I guess it’s for the best I bought Xcom 2 when it was on sale and not this one. That’s such a shame that the game has a lot of underlying issues dragging it down because it has such an awesome premise/setting and like you said the foundation is solid. Hopefully they can eventually fix the game, but I’m not sure if that will happen this late. Even if they don’t fix the game one thing it NEEDS is official mod support. That will allow people to fix the various issues and keep the game alive through user generated content.
It would be interesting to see what the devs do in a Phoenix Point 2. Although, from what I’ve seen it reaches a narrative end that would be hard to make a sequel to. I’d hope they add underwater missions and expand more on the human factions. It would also be cool if they delved more into the body horror designs we see in the concept art and show us the mutated flora/fauna.
Good video. Let’s hope they somehow fox the game and add modding tools.
As I mentioned, it is not a complete failure, it just is an average game. And for people that are okay with a lot of micro management, bugs, cumbersome mechanics and the idea of side-grades as progression, it might just be the right game. The Lore is good, the graphics are appealing and it has some neat mechanics.
Yeah, I can see that. I will admit I might’ve been a bit too harsh in my comment. I’m sure if I was a hardcore Xcom style game fan I’d probably be really eager to play this game, but micromanaging everything and having a bunch of skills/weapons that kind of do the same thing isn’t really for me. Hopefully they can rebalance the game in a way that builds on its solid foundation. It’s also too bad that we no longer live in the time when mod support was considered mandatory for a game.
I’ll be sure to check out your other videos.
10:37 Yes there is. Multiple ways, in fact. New Jericho has a head augment that literally grants mind control immunity, the Disciples of Anu offer a player the ability to also use mind control (thus quickly removing the enemy mind controller unit), and literally everyone can shoot the offending enemy in the head until that part is disabled and, as such, the mind control dissipates. There are several more options. This is entirely a player skill issue.
Furthermore, not all weapons are side-grades. Many are, certainly, but in terms of action economy and even damage per shot, there are clear upgrades available, just not that many. Regarding weapons, the main issue Phoenix Point has is that the costs are unbalanced for what they offer and some factions offer items that are straight up more expensive than other options without significant benefits - Synedrion is the main problem here due to their unreasonably high tech cost (particularly for ammo), as well as some Phoenix Point weapons (such as the heavy grenade launcher eating tech as ammo like it grows on trees).
I also did not find anything confusing about the game's mission or gear system. That said, I've been gaming for ~23 years and play EvE Online for fun, so perhaps I'm not the best yard stick to use in that regard.
11:08 Missions are not timed, at least I've never come across any. New enemies will spawn in every few turns, but as long as the player can dispatch them, it's just more xp. I've stayed in missions farming kills and the occasional drops for literal hours, on veteran. Also, Jet Packs allow heavies to simply fly away from goo, same thing with the rocket-jump leg augmentation, and there's even a research that unlocks anti-goo leg mounts for any soldier to use. There are multiple ways of dealing with this problem, with the augment solution being available very early on if New Jericho reputation is prioritized.
11:22 Fair enough. Those shades are real bastards and don't even have distinguished limbs that one can shoot off, just a lot of HP. The entire hitbox just reads as 'claw', which is extremely bizare, and probably an oversight on the dev's part. It's a problem that requires overwatch actions from a good distance and, preferably, multiple heavy weapons or sniper rifles. They also seem to ignore illusory team members, for some god-forsaken reason. If you have one that spawns close by... my only suggestion is to save-scum really hard. Edit: Turns out fire can stop the spawning (another commenter pointed this out).
My real issue with the game is the absurd, rampant starvation (even if food is traded with that heaven), the insta-pop of heavens on veteran difficulty, and the _very_ poorly thought out end-of-mission auto-use of ammo in storage that can't be turned off (leading to even one missing bullet using up an entire magazie if it's left out in the open, forcing players to store them on unused soldiers or lose large amounts of resources post-mission). Thankfully, mods exist that fix most of these issues, as well as other problems, such as the aircraft descriptions not matching up with their in-game stats and the mechanical vehicles running dry after a few turns of shooting while costing a silly 3 squad slots (and not being worth even two fully trained and geared soldiers on the battlefield, except in terms of raw HP, but since they can't take cover that element also isn't nearly as helpful for their survivability).
Thanks for sharing your opinion, much appreciated.
I kick started this game and... then Xcom2 came out and I put 900 hours in to that and 120 into this. Make of it what you will.
That is a good point, the game has potential, like I mentioned, but is flawed and not fully finished / thought through
I really wanted to like pheonix point but as someone who averages about 6 hours of gaming time per week because of my irl responsibilities the complexity is just too much. The limited time I played felt like layers upon layers of systems simply to add unneeded complexity.
Same in my case, if I wouldn‘t have had an influx of time for a short period, it would have potentially not worked out for a full campaign.
I will do a video in the future about game difficulty and why adding more complexity doesn‘t equal a higher difficulty. All it achieves is that well organized individuals will find cookie cutter strategies, which others will then mimic.
In the case of PP, unfortunately the developers drowned in their own complexity, which led to questionable balancing.
Phoenix Point is a game where I absolutely love the lore and atmosphere but find the actual gameplay pretty mid. I was hooked on the setting of the game before it was even released from reading the short stories on their website. But the actual moment to moment gameplay was mostly not very exciting or rewarding for me. I think I'd prefer to see this story as a TV show or something without the gameplay getting in the way of it.
That is a nice way of putting it. The lore is really top-notch, potentially the best that I have seen in any of the alien invasion games. But the actual realization is an accumulation of too many game mechanics.
TV show from the phoenix point setting would be awesome, agreed. Also.. the game quite changed from the first initial release to current state. I know just the later, IMHO better polished, when I see the videos from the "just released" version, it is confusing.
I like the game a lot more than you & don't really remember micro management being a big issue. I guess the spreadsheets of armour comparisons might give lie to it but I enjoyed that stuff. Other points are pretty fair.
The DLC is fairly bad, it all adds early difficulty that makes things easier once you have overcome that (like the chosen in WotC). It also as you say adds many parallel issues to deal with rather than giving you a series of problems and that exacerbates the difficulty hump too.
The ancient weapons is IMO the best and that adds many repetitive missions to get the sexy game weapons. Then that gear is definitely an upgrade but it's too much of an upgrade, a massive leap in power, with a couple of exceptions where you are upgrading poor weapon types.
As another comment says it would be better not to play with the last two DLC on a first run. TBH I could do without them at all, especially the air combat which would probably count as micromanagement - feels like contractual obligation being a KS stretch goal.
Fair points Jonathan, appreciate your views.
Short answer - no, it's not worth it and as an added note they stabbed their initial funding community in the back for an Epic stores exclusive contract when they said that they would not and would release it on multiple storefronts.
Avoid everything they make.
some good points, certainly a problematic release.
Dont know what changed in the 6 months. I also cant see that it was updated 2023.
I really like this game. I expected a boring dissapointment. But I can't see the negatives you mentioned.
Inverntory micromanegment was non existend. It even auto refilled broken weapons after the production was done. Auto refilled mags, replaced maks in soldier inventory if I used them in battle.
Difficulty progression was organic. i.e. at the beginning very very easy and then to easy normal then hard. No "difficulty spikes" for me.
When you mentioned "anti-fun" enemys. This is what the original X-com was famous for. Anti fun unfair enemys.
Their are a lot of unfun stupid enemys but again the game wants you to shoot the limbs which gives them these abilitys. After I stoped palying it like xcom 2 and start to use the limb disabling everything was fine again.
When you told your best of of stupid unfun things. Thats not what I had problems with. I would have listed stupid meele aliens which attack you 3 times in a row with 100 dmg running.
Or meele enemy which makes himself invisible after gettin attacked retreats and then just bypasses overwatch and meele attacks you and regain all health again.
Why unfun? because it circumvents my playstyle which I consider fun to play. If I change my playstyle this is no longer an issue but all of the sudden other things which were no problem at all become major problems.
I think this is good. Because getting an AI which actually acts Intelligent will never happen so a Game designer has to make things to give the AI an advantage without pumping damage value and health value which is common in modern games
Lets say there is a helmet add on which makes you resist mind control. What happens then. This add on to the helemt would be a must have. So why having mind control ability in the first place?
Also you said overpowered weapons and so on. These were DLC weapons which were designed to be overpowered on purpose. because people complainted too much that the game too difficult.
But this is what I think makes the game so good. You have a different play style so for you the game actually tries to prevent you from playing like this. I have a playstyle and the game throws different things at me.
The "upgrades". Maybe you got distracted because you recorded yourself when playing it for the first time. But that the 3 factions have like "specialaizations" of the weapons was clear for me.
So I did not expect a new sniper rifle to be "better" it depens on what you value what "better" is. Like their is no lvl 1 Sniper and lvl 2 Sniper and lvl 3 sniper and the latest version is always better.
Then you wanted to have trading routes which buy and sell automatically? This is not a trading game and would be too much for the developers. Lets say they would implement a trade route system. The you just google "best trade routes" and then you have no resource problems and always too much to spend. Then you would have said trading routes are too good it trivialized resource gather missions which you dont need.
Well it feels like you played a different game or a different version of this game then I did.
That is indeed some interesting feedback. I am not sure about the changes - I can only report from the anniversary edition and the issues that I had with it (based on the long and very time consuming playthrough that I had). If indeed they have fixed some or multiple of the issues of the game, I can revisit it. For now, I can only go by my last experience, which was mixed.
@@SykenPlays There is another thing I remembered now. You said the Siren AI was badly designed. So that the Siren just jumped away or ran away and there is no way to prevent mind control.
The ASPIDA (the vehicle from Synderion) has an Upgrad which gives you immunity to mind control of your soldiers. And if its so bad so unplayable because they designed the SIren AI how it is. Then why didnt you used the Aspida? it just takes 3 slots.
I love this game. First I love the choices all side grades as you call them are all worthwhile and I don't find things convoluted as you do and every problem seems to have a solution ie the goo( there are literally 2 ways to make the goo not a problem for yours soldiers.. I think the choice PP offers to the player and the world it builds is awesome. Love the original xcom and thought both reboots were God awful and incredibly flawed and broken but good review all the same.
Glad you enjoyed it!
One thing I found disappointing is the limb targetting system
Yes, on paper it sounds great to be able to disable (eh! eh! PUN!) enemy abilities like that, but in the end, the fact that hitting an already disabled limb still damages the main body means that, most of the time, you'll just be shooting at the weakest part, until the ugly thing dies. There didn't seem to be enough incentive to spread your damage more, which is a shame
Maybe they could have implemented something a la Dead Space: some creatures cannot die until you cut off all their limbs or, if we want to get crazy, some mutants' weak spot regularly changes position or shows up when a certain amount of body parts are disabled, etc...
Something like that could have added much more value to the targeting system, imo, instead of a simple "health bar goes down: you win"
Agreed, the limbs are more an „entry“ into being able to shoot the HP pool without armor.
Shooting off their shield-limb, weapon-arm, or their mind-control head seems pretty meaningful to me. Also, reducing their movement to practically nothing is really helpful against a Cyclops and allows a team to safely take it out from very far away. Oh, and ancient Hoplites are easy to kill once you shoot off their shield (can be done in 2 shots with a piercing sniper rifle), because it actually doubles as their torso.
Matter of fact, Pandorans with chameleon torsos need to have that part disabled first, because otherwise they'll turn invisible and move when hit elsewhere. Regarding most shield-using melee Atrons, my favorite tactic is to shoot off their claw and paralyze/capture them for extra food - they literally can't hurt your team if they don't have a claw (which is odd, since they should be able to use Bash with their shield, but I don't think the NPCs ever actually use Bash) and won't even run away in certain mission types.
By now it's become an excellent tactical game barred the end game final battle and the DLC Festering Skies. Requires much patience but is very rewarding. War is rarely fun or fair.
I agree that the core of the game is good, maybe even good+.
Where I do have a slight disagreement is on the fun part. If a game feels like you are doing taxes, then it is not achieving what it should try to do - be a good distraction and an engaging fun activity. Most people would agree that the way that the micromanagement is done in PP is simply clunky, doesn‘t add much to the game and does not require „skill“ to do it. It‘s just a lot of chores that prolong the core game aspect of the campaign.
LMAO you just said a game is good because ITS NOT FUN??? ok alright, imma gonna show myself out
@@SykenPlays I see and understand your point. Although it make me glad that the Aliens have much different abilities than the Human race. I even would have given them much more distinct alien abilities.
@@HellPedre Good riddance...
I'm a character in the game, thanks Syken👍
That might have happened :)
The weapon advancements are far from simply sideways. Even when they are sideways, say the different tier 1 assault rifles, there are key differences. New Jericho favour shredding armour, more damage per hit, but smaller bursts, whilst Synedrion favour very accurate, high burst weapons, with little shredding and less damage per hit. However, NJ's next tier actually pierces armour, making it even more effective vs highly armoured targets. There are several tiers for most weapons.
Even without the DLCs, there is research that opens up far better weapons than the sideways faction ones, but even the latter can unlock much better versions. New Jericho get armour piercing weapons, flamethrowers, back mounted rocket launchers with 2 tiers etc Synedrion upgrade their crossbows to poisonous ones, unlock paralysis weapons and several new grenade types from EMP to poison etc. Anu unlock 2 progressively better shotguns, 3 better melee weapons, viral guns etc. Phoenix Point themselves can combine faction research to create even better weapons, such as laser guns, turrets and a back mounted laser or missile launcher. They can create virophage weapons that do far more damage vs Pandorans snd mutated beings, hand held missile and grenade launchers etc. With the Ancient DLC, you get far better weapons than anything equivalent in the base game. There are also two one off living weapons and one living armour as well as powerful but less reliable marketplace weapons with the DLCs.
You mentioned resurrecting enemies you claimed you could do nothing about. I am unsure what you mean. Depending if you have the Corrupted Horizons DLC installed, some types, Arthrons and Tritons release an Umbra version on death if they have the ability, BUT if you kill them with fire, this doesn't happen. In the same DLC, Acherons can have the ability to raise the dead, but if you kill the Acheron, it stops them doing so. So either way resurrecting enemies is stoppable.
I think the main issue with the game is it's easy to be overwhelmed, particularly if you play it like XCOM2. The strategic map plays very differently and you have to plan your goals, what to target and what to ignore with much greater skill as you have far more possibilities.
I recommend beginners do not play with the Festering Skies and to a lesser extent Corrupted Horizons DLCs, until they have defeated the game once. They add more depth and complexity, but they add more missions and emergencies to respond to, which can be overwhelming until you know what to prioritise. Finally, there is an excellent wiki available that answers practically anything you can think of, that the game doesn't already.
Hi Cervando,
thanks for your input, appreciate your views.
excellent comment
I was not aware fire dmg prevented Shades from spawning. I'm not sure if this is mentioned or simply a matter of trial and error but, finally, the flame thrower has an actual purpose besides being the only 2 AP heavy weapon (which I don't care much about, since I multiclass early on heavies). Oh, and fire grenades - I'll make sure to carry at least one with me now.
Thanks for the info!
@@DarkVeghetta Also, people tend not to read a manual to a game and don't know you can change not only the distance but also the cone of the overwatch to be very wide (close cqb, want to cover anything close, or narrow, for sniper to trigger on specific enemy you are worried and not on every worm that come into view). It also depends on the weapon type, since with pistols and PDWs you can do almost 180 degree cone, but with heavy and snipers you could not swing that much around.
Cone target: move mouse
Cone width: CTRL + mouse wheel
@@phh2400 I did read the art book, but I much prefer figuring out the controls entirely in-game and, frankly, expect devs to incorporate such into in-game prompts - which do exist here.
I've even read the entire Pheonixpedia the game provides, including game concepts, and I don't think it ever mentioned cone width.
Cheers, mate.
If anyone is having issues on the Xbox Series X with freezing issues, downgrading the graphics and gameplay settings helps a lot.
Good point, thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the review Syken!
Glad that you liked it Cryptout
From seeing your play through I got the impression it was chips and no fish. Edible enough on their own but lacking any substantial depth of taste.
That is a nice comparison. The game has a surprising amount of depth, but not balance unfortunately. There is plenty of content, it just seems wildly thrown together instead of carefully selected.
I love how you complain about the characters don't have means to deal with the enemies and in the same sentence you then continue to say the characters can be made OP.
Furthermore in real life just because research is invested doesn't mean it will bear fruit, many research projects come up with mediocre results IRL.
Mind fraggers taking control of your character and running off is awesome. Why wouldn't the aliens do that IRL? They are trying to cut your team members off from your team.
I don't agree with this review however I do respect the difference in options. GG
EDIT: I'm not playing with the DLC so my experience is probably much different tbh.
Hello Hamdog,
I appreciate the different perspective, we do not need to agree on the outcome. If you like the game the way it is designed, there is nothing wrong with that.
Regarding character - I think you are taking what I am saying out of context. I talk about how several design elements are binary counters on the one hand and how too much content on the other hand leads to overtuned characters. Both symptoms are classical cases of poor balancing - the wrong decisions get you immediately killed without much counter-play, the right decisions trivialize the content. Not a good design.
Regarding research - I think the vast majority of players would agree that lateral progression is less fun/rewarding than horizontal progression (as in stronger weapons). The game is an abstraction of the real world - and just like how you do not need to have a tax department, a PR manager or a compliance officer in your imaginary workforce, you also do not need to simulate that some of the results are absolutely horrible. The research of the game has been widely criticized as poorly implemented, not rewarding and imbalanced. It is certainly not a strong suit of the title. You personally might see that differently, but the majority of the audience was quite clear on that point.
The base game is available on xbox gamepass right now. I only played the first mission and found it a bit clunky to work the interface with a game controller. I'll probably try it again after watching a few of your vids on it.
Great to hear - it requires a lot of micro management unfortunately, there is only so much you can do about the clunky interface, but the core of the game is good and has potential.
Very interesting video! Like you said if they were to polish the shiny surfaces the game does have and trim some of the fat it would be a much better experience.
Yes, sometimes less is more, having 10 mediocre options and too many stacking systems will only bring confusion.
I came into similar conclusion just by watching half of the first episode of campaign. Too many systems make game tedious and ultimately boring.
Reminded me the trend that was popular is survival genre a few years ago when every game must have a hunger/thirst/carry capacity meter no matter if it was logical or necessary for game's story or setting.
The sad part about it is that I really wanted to like the game. It has so much potential and yet stumbles over its own feet
Good review, however think this should be compared to the orignal X-Coms and not X-Com 2 as the modern X-Com games were very much dumbed down (still great games).
That is a fair point, most of the audience might not have that as a frame of reference through, since they are already a bit older.
This game is sick! I don't understand how people are complaining at all.
That is a fine opinion as well, if you like it the way it is, then great for you :)
I recommend you play the terror from the void mod for the game, makes the game much more playable for new players
I have heard a lot of good feedback around that mod.
@@SykenPlays granted the mod is still in alpha pre 1.0 but after finishing the game its execution of the game progression for players is significantly a better experience.
Not an option if you’re playing on console.
I own this game on xbox and steam deck. Im a fan. Xcom is better but i like it alot. Love the build variety
That is a fair assessment Mr. Bob, thanks for sharing.
Considering how good the original XCOM was, it’s incredible that in the three decades since, this abomination is the best that Julian Gollop could come up with.
I think it was a case of too many compromises, which led to a jack of all traits game.
I really wanted to like this game on release, but just found it horribly boring for reasons I can't properly remember anymore. Watching reviews to see how it's changed in 5 years.
Enjoyed the game. Would have liked a better ending but it kept me entertained as a game
It is not a bad game at all, but it requires some polishing to get rid of a lot of the clutter and have clearer progressions and better balancing. At the moment it is more like a sandbox and you can make whatever you want out of it.
Can't wait to see your playthrough of this.
It is coming soon ;)
I downloaded this gane yesterday for the ps5, i found it boring, but that might be because im so use to xcom wotc, also wasteland 3 by far one of the best turn base rpg to ever be created.
I will definitely give Wastelands 3 a try, it seems to be great.
@SykenPlays believe me it is, the story, and the attributes, skill points, character customization, weapons, and armor modifications with upgrades, the crafting system, and building your base. FYI you are going to say omg im just playing this now.
I don't think it's worth it.
Not because it's bad, it's a good game, but because it don't reward the player and his work.
Even in late game NOW it's imposssible to have some OP soldiers, wich is nuts if you ask me. I have work so hard and try any combination and all i have it's just a bunch of dudes with some fancy weapons and equipment, nothing more.
In 2017 it was infinite better, it have his problems but at least i was rightfully rewarded for my jobs, now is only a joke T_T
Thanks for sharing your view
I think the restrictions of not having OP soldiers works for this game despite his flaws. Recent XCOM make you feel like war heroes while Phoenix Point makes you feel like you are fighting against overwhelming odds. So having OP powers would remove some of that fun tension in fights
its a good game but i stopped playing it as i just didnt wanna waste my time on a game that sooner or later forces you to finish the game not interested in short games just a waste of time in my opinion
I can see your point, thanks for sharing your feedback
but i still love this game its still a good game if you love xcom its worth your time
the game is good, no question. but is also has its flaws.
It's worth - 220+ hours played.
Glad that you like it. It is not a bad game and like I said - I trying to give balanced and fair reviews.
It has a lot of potential.
No Snitties? No Chance.
that’s also a take on a game review.
Critic😂 alert im subscribing just for your sheer brutality and judgement casting plus solutions 😂
Thanks mate, appreciate the feedback
Yeah I knew sth was wrong with it, couldnt make myself play it. I enjoyed xcom 2 tho
Glad that the review was on point with what you also experienced.
The enemies accurreally annoys me to no end. Im being sniped from 20+ tiles away, with a pistol. They also tend to have much more health and armor, and require alot to take down. I understand this gets mitigated a bit later on, but for me in my 1st play through, Im getting to where I either restart on lower difficulty, or stop altogether.
I like it better than xcom 2 though
The pistol accuracy is a bit of a strange design decision. They seem to be surprisingly accurate on distance.
@@SykenPlays Only for the enemy it seems.. PDW is poor accuracy no matter the distance. Shotguns are incredible no matter the distance. Most rifles suck. Snipers are hit or miss, same with heavy weapons.
The enemy seem to have an extreme advantage in hp, armor, accuracy, even AP at times.
Hi, let me see if I understand. You think Phoenix Point is a bad game because:
A. The game gives you a a ton of choice on how to play the game.
B. The player is not supposed to do it all the player has to pick and choose what they want to go for and set thier own goals
In short I think the pacing works.
I guess I'm one of those who likes choice I never saw Phoenix Point as too complex. By the way most people vrise to a challenge when it is presented to them. I think your selling a lot of people short.
3 all weapons are useful just depends on the synergies the player chooses. I love to set the pandorans on fire and then literally crush the will out of them.
Also weapons have specs that tell the player what they will all do I myself never use hand to hand or short range weapons
But it's not the games fault if you did not take the time to read of the stats. Only once with thr Hawk sniper rifle did I go why.
Next I just wanted to correct you bothered were some major errors. This may be just you as the reviewer didn't put in the time you wouldn't be the first reverse to do this it is rather a bad trend but it is what it is anyway
1. There is a robotic head that prevents mind control. I know I use it so offer that the big pandoran that uses mind control now tries to spit acid instead.
2. There are robotic legs that make goo irrelevant
3. As for will draining fog. Use grenades to destroy it.
4. Reanimated enimes. I thought this was a cool feature, it went with the story. Why was this unfun for you mist are close range attackers so use grandes, rockets and sniper rifles for have an assault with awesome perception take them out or crush them with mind crush.
Next the skills are not that over powered or under powered take dash(people seem to pick on that one) it is really useful when you need to have a soldier book it across the screen after destroying a spawnery or after taking a shot a those big blue 3000 point spider like things. I forgot thier name but they can leap half way across the screen can cast instill and are a mindfragger hatching machine. Vehicles are not underpowered more like a surgeons scalpel.
I found the micromanagement not to be a problem but that's just me a guess besides there the replenish feature at the end of every mission so there not much to worry about.
Just my two cents
You are free to have you own opinion on the game.
I think you have misunderstood my criticism - the game is needlessly complex, choices are not meaningful, many of the sub-systems are not well thought through, the game - due to lack of randomization - becomes repitative, pacing is off, the game is not well balanced and overloaded with options. Those were the main points that I made.
@SykenPlays i did not miss the point . One of my main points was your facts about the game are flat out wrong ie your take on mind control and goo not having solutions to counter them which both problems due in the area of cybernetics in the game. Heck your Statement here about Phoenix Point's lack of randomization here is just flat out incorrect. The game is completely procedurally generated to the point where if I mission goes off the rails and the player needs to restart it they will find that while the map is of the same type, the layout of the map and the composition of the enemies on that map are now different. I was just trying to point out some factual errors tactfully. Then again to each his own
Neat!
Air combat stinks they period
Yep, haven't seen a great air combat implementation yet.
5 pretty low
5 is average to be fair. According to modern inflated reviews it might be low, but I decided to do actual reviews that are based on comparison, structure and a normal distribution. Reaching a 9 or a 10 should be the rare exception and not the rule.
You know another thing that is anti-fun? This review. You spent 16 min complaining about all the things you DIDNT like and forgot to talk about the good parts of the video game. Sure the game has balancing issues, but so does your review. This is more a complaining video than an actual review. You only briefly touched on the gameplay, sound, music (did you even mention music?) in the beginning of the video and the rest is just ranting about things you didn't like.
This is not how you make a video game review.
Appreciate your feedback, I tend to disagree with your view, since I highlighted a lot of the positive parts of the game as well.
Preferences are different, so you are entitled to your opinion about the game and this video.
Why don't you mention modding?
Unless modding is a specific feature that is core to the game (i.e. Trackmania), my view on it is that it is a nice to have feature, can definitely improve the longevity of the game and is great to keep games relevant.
I am not including it on purpose for a variety of reasons:
- Game developers should be objectively judged on the software that they release
- Community design (even if it is great), can only be a crutch and will never turn a game from mediocre to awesome
- Mod quality and the use varies widely, many do not use them at all, so it's simply comparing apples with oranges. What everyone can relate to is how the game plays as-is