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TROUBLESHOOTER: The anime XCOM I never knew I wanted
- Thread starter Aaron D.
- Start date
Goddammit I'm in. I'm always stoked to see Korean games do well critically so I guess I have to do my part and support it.This game is on sale on Steam for $18.74. Time for me to jump on in
Save 60% on TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children on Steam
TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children is the first season of a turn-based strategy SRPG that takes place in the world of Troubleshooter.store.steampowered.com
Not really the sort of game to get reviews, unfortunately. 100-hour long indie games would be lucky to get a niche site's review, let alone a mainstream one.
Word of mouth is extremely important for games like this, IMO.
Yeah Heixing is awesome. He's a badass reserved nerd!
To the name, I considered a "sh" pronunciation but I've never been confident enough to stick with it. Also I don't know anything about the Korean language so I was even less sure. Should probably just ask them on the forums, lol.
I should get back to this game. I enjoyed what I played and it sounds like I just scratched the surface. It will have to wait though because the next few months are loaded.
seems like nothing til september, and (for me) nothing I care about til November (cyberpunk). seems like a prity good time for me to take a chance.
I have Horizon: Zero Dawn PC on Friday, followed by Wasteland 3 later this month and Crusader Kings 3 in September. There is also the expansion to Battle Brothers sometime this month as well, I believe. If CK3 is as good as even early CK2 I will lose at least a month to that game, so I might be able to fit it in between that and Cyberpunk. Unless I am missing another game, which is a good possibility.
Hearing XCOM-like gameplay would've piqued my interest already, but if I saw art like that, that would've piqued my interest way more. You're telling me these two elements come together in a single package, and there's even more to it?? Well shit, I can't not buy it now.
OP
OP
Online is supplemental.
When faced with dialogue choices, it shows you percentage statistics of what other players picked. That can be good/bad depending on if you think it will influence your choice.
I think there's online gear trading as well, but I've never messed with that element.
I play online just to get the "full" experience, but it's far from essential imo.
lol my position exactly. This is sounding really amazing and I will be getting it. I don't think today's the day though
Jumped in and got, love it so far. The only thing I'd want in the future would be English voices for the unit barks. It's not really needed as everything else is in English, it would just be nice to know what my units are saying. Even subtitled barks would be fine.
For those further in, is mastery farming required for end game or can I just play normally and be okay?
For those further in, is mastery farming required for end game or can I just play normally and be okay?
There are actually subtitles for the barks! You can turn it on in the settings... somewhere. Gameplay, maybe? I briefly turned them on but didn't like how they looked.
To add on to Aaron's comment, they've said they want to expand the online stuff in the future I think, so I wouldn't be surprised if co-op or versus shows up at some point (or in the sequel).
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So today is the day after all. Game bounced from wishlist to backlog in the space of a week due to the WOM in this thread.
Imma bumping this, because i'm 50h in and it's SO GODDAMN GOOD
Save 60% on TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children on Steam
TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children is the first season of a turn-based strategy SRPG that takes place in the world of Troubleshooter.
Troubleshooter Early Access Trailer [Steam]
http://store.steampowered.com/app/470310/Troubleshooter/www.youtube.com
Troubleshooter. It's anime-XCOM w/ FFT character building & VN storytelling.
And it's legit dreamy.
Another indie out of Korea that just went 1.0 a few weeks back, it's the team's first release. It's drawing influence from a number of places and it's pulled off with an infectious upstart, whipsmart confidence.
Mechanically it's lifted straight out of modern XCOM but with enough new spins & layers of depth that it feels familiar yet fresh. On the map there's overlapping layers of synergy, enough to make the mind reel. Buff & debuff possibilities can seem limitless (seriously, there's over 600 Mastery types that you can equip each character with).
Quick example. Fighting indoors and my partner says, "Hey, there's a fuse box over there. You should flip it since we're outnumbered here." So I do it and the room falls into darkness, giving everyone (including my team) a vision, movement & hit-chance debuff. Then he goes, "You got some flashbangs, right?" Well flashbangs daze everyone in the aoe. BUT...if those poor saps also have the darkness debuff, the combo of darkness & daze makes them start panicking and shooting both enemies & allies randomly. Bonus. BUUUT...only 3 of the 4 baddies proc'd panic debuff because when I triggered the flash...the last one had a Sunglasses modifier (Mastery) equipped. You know, just in case that 1 in a million situation arose. Guess it was his lucky day. (ed. It wasn't.) Bonkers.
And that's not even getting into the environmental synergies much like the Divinity: Original Sin mechanics. Yeah so you see someone standing in a pool of oil. Looks like a fireball should warm them up right nice. But here it's like a dozen layers deeper. What time of day is it outside? Is there a breeze in the air? How hot or cold is it? You can capitalize on all these factors and many more.
Combat in Troubleshooter is super melee-focused. There are guns. And there's magic projectiles. But it's equally balanced with crazy-cool h2h fighting disciplines. From the traditional martial arts style to the more wacky break dancing variety. (Hey, it's anime.) The combo of h2h + magic disciplines take the XCOM blueprint and make it feel incredibly invigorated in practice.
Story is really great so far. You play a newly-graduated Troubleshooter in the near future. You part of a civilian paramilitary group that works adjacent with more traditional police forces in the country. Your team have Judge Dread jury/executioner rights and a baller Persona-like fashion style. As someone else put it, "a civilian militia of superhero punk rock kids called Troubleshooters." I can already see the story tension rising as the Troubleshooters start clashing with the FedPD as the latter are sectioning off neighborhoods and whole cities due to escalating crime. Then there's that whole rising cult thing with these weirdos who worship spoons [sic].
Besides the wealth of writing & character development, out of combat you're also building your character's stat loadouts Final Fantasy Tactics style. Seriously, there's more tables, stats and combo possibilities than I've seen in a long time. They just went all in on the fine customization of character job systems. When you start feeding skills into other skills to make even bigger, better & more badass skills, you start to appreciate the madness that went into these systems.
Presentation is great. AA budget that's well realized. Combat maps have tons of environmental detail. Storytelling is a combo of 3D environmental shots (w/ quite creative cinematography, oddly enough) and VN type stills. Both done really well. Music is baller. Nice mix of big, dumb anime hair-metal and smooth jazz, intersperses with more serious notes. And THANKFULLY (seriously, this would have been a deal-breaker), no gross anime tropes. Everyone is tastefully dressed. Males & females are equally strong in character. Fresh.
When I started to recognize how special this production was the big takeaway for me was how fun it was to be experiencing an XCOM-adjacent gameplay loop that wasn't all grim & serious like the source material. The over-the-top flashy anime, both on and off the field. The interesting characters and heavy focus on story in between combat. The whole production just had so much energy & life behind it.
It's so crazy that we're in a season of riches with the recent launches of XCOM: Chimera Squad and Gears Tactics. Yet here comes this little $25 indie out of S. Korea that completely steals the show. Made by a team of 6 people it's gem that just epitomizes heart and verve. There's a bit of a cult following behind it, it'll probably go largely unnoticed all told. But for me I'm just glad I heard about it. It's most fun XCOM has been in years.
99% to hit success!
Seriously, i'm even enjoying the whole goofy affair, but i wanna draw attention to one long-lost art:
The pacing of mechanics.
I fully believe this kind of game should stop going shortly after it ran out of new mechanics. And this thing?
It has more! more! MORE!
There's always new stuff, it always feels engaging and on Cruel\Challenge, even challenging in most cases
Overall a great rec, ggwp op
I'm really hooked
I kinda wish the story text was localized a pinch better, but there's a certain charm in keeping very close to the Korean text and themes
I kinda wish the story text was localized a pinch better, but there's a certain charm in keeping very close to the Korean text and themes
Yeah, absolutely.
I haven't played in a bit due to other games but it continually impresses me with the way that the game grows and the map design, which is the best in pretty much any recent SRPG I've played. Being their first game makes it even more impressive.
I'm not the biggest fan of its map design, I've been playing Chimera Squad and it made me realize how small maps are preferable to humongous maps where you have to spend half your turns moving units into position. Still it remains the best SRPG I've played this year with its amazing focus on builds and complexity. Looking forward to Season 2 and the intermission chapters, whenever they release them. Not sure how they'll keep balance though... I'm expecting Season 2 to be some sort of reset or something cause if they just keep ADDING mechanics instead of replacing them it's gonna be a balance and programming nightmare.
It's a bonus chapter of the game, and will be rolled out in parts due to some schedule issues.
TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children - [Notice] Maintenance and Update Announcement - Steam News
[Notice] Maintenance and Update Announcement
Looking forward to it. I'm a little worried about their business model, there's not much buzz about this game so I can't say it's made that much money but the dlc is free when it's gladly pay for it.
At least from playing the complete main scenario they are basically just present in a few side stories and we know next to nothing about them and their relationship. I suppose it'll be answered in this DLC.
In hindsight there's pretty much no romance in this entire game.
That's what I gathered. My GF hasn't finished the main scenario, since it's fucking long. They are my main draw to the game but I imagine it's going to subtext at most. Going off what I've seen, it's probably the case that Alisa is Bianca's hired bodyguard or whatever and they are just really friendly with each other. -_-
This game overwhelms you with content in the first couple of hours. I do like the gameplay but I feel like first couple of hours aren't the best. I'm no X-Com player either, so that doesn't help. It also doesn't help that literally nobody seems to play this game, so advice on the internet is scarce. 😂 I do like it though all in all.
I really enjoy this game. Xcom got boring for me after a few missions as the storyline feels nonexistent and I didn't dig the general vibe of the game. This is kind of rough at times but I am really liking it. Really fun so far! The skill system was a bit confusing at first but after reading up on it and playing around I figured it out.
Yeah I couldn't get into X-Com for the same reason. I find it aesthetically unpleasing and I don't really care much about the military stuff. Having a JRPG alternative is really cool.
I'm a huge fan of this genre but like someone said above finding impressions on this game is kinda hard.
So going by this thread it seems like the game is good?
So going by this thread it seems like the game is good?
the game is good, yeah. it's a bit slow and the english translation is really weird, but outside of that the content of the game and the different mechanics you can use if you want are pretty crazy indepth
Just curious: I just died in a mission and used the "return to checkpoint" feature. Do I retain all the XP and items I gathered in my failed attempt? And is there an option to save and suspend?
edit: I don't think I kept any of the XP or items. :/
edit2: Another question. I failed to talk to the couple in mission 2 and they ran. I then talked to Irene and she joined my party. I suppose talking to these units makes them join me. Did I miss out on units for good because I didn't talk to them?
edit3: What is "the spoonage"? 😂
edit: I don't think I kept any of the XP or items. :/
edit2: Another question. I failed to talk to the couple in mission 2 and they ran. I then talked to Irene and she joined my party. I suppose talking to these units makes them join me. Did I miss out on units for good because I didn't talk to them?
edit3: What is "the spoonage"? 😂
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1. return to checkpoint literally reloads a checkpoint so you lose what you did after the save of the checkpoint
2. that was only temporary, you didn't lose out on any units in the long term
3. weird english translation of a super weird cult you will be dealing with A LOT
Awesome, I have another million questions but let me just ask whether the color of the crates in the levels determines the rarity or quality of the items they hold. Or is it completely random? Is a black crate more valuable than a yellow one?
i honestly only played like 5 hours of the game so I can't really tell you too in depth things.
but responding in this thread is making me reinstall it again :D
Another question:
What does this mean? Why can I not choose the "Extreme Speed" mastery? The count says "0" so I guess I just never happened to unlock this particular mastery, but why can I select it here? Wouldn't it only be on this list if I had unlocked it at some point?
What does this mean? Why can I not choose the "Extreme Speed" mastery? The count says "0" so I guess I just never happened to unlock this particular mastery, but why can I select it here? Wouldn't it only be on this list if I had unlocked it at some point?
Count is how many you have in your inventory. You have none right now so you would need to loot or craft more copies. TP is how much it requires to slot into its appropriate category - Basic. Albus's Basic cap is currently at 1/7, which means he has 6 TP available for Basic abilities.
There are a couple in-depth beginner guides in the Steam forums for this game with early-mid game builds. Don't worry about masteries too much until you progress further in the story and unlock more characters.