izigame.me

Being a lover of many turn-based games as well as WWII era history, I cannot really recommend this game. It has done a few things well, but the gameplay just ruins it for me. It is yet another over simplified XCOM 2 rip off that does not bring much to the table. The biggest issue is the battle mechanics. After about 11 hours, I find myself just wanting to go play XCOM or JA3. Every battle seems to be me moving people into position and pumping rounds into each bullet sponge enemy that would make an 80s action movie jealous. There seems to be minimal effort to add realism to this type of guerrilla warfare in an era of powerful weapons. The game is buggy, the inventory controls are wonky and it generally feels unfinished.
Cons:
The effort (AP) to pull a trigger is too high as with most games that just rip off X-com.
Needs burst, quick shot vs aimed shot mechanics.
Aim mechanics are too simple to be engaging. No run and gun mechanics that I have seen.
No repeat aim boosts for adjustment on same target or subsequent shot penalties for recoil effects.
Full power rifle rounds are extremely underpowered in an era where body armor was extremely rare.
Enemies are all bullet sponges. Its fine to shrug off a grazing hit or limb shot, but the injury penalties are very simple. Its tough to come back to this after Jagged Alliance 3. If an enemy takes a 8mm mauser point blank or even 3 tiles off that should be an auto crit and unless you aimed for a limb, odds are he is down.
Weapons jam too much. its feels too fake. This probably relates to the guns not being repaired correctly because the armory is buggy AF.
Even crits are too weak for many weapons.
-Perk trees for classes just do not make sense in my opinion. I get where this an effort to get some sort of balance, but basically I cannot build my troops how I want them and they all start feeling the same type of useless.
-Nit picky, but nobody called .30-'06 "7.62x63". Maybe use a parenthetical but its hard to read the ammo types or memorize the ammo box icons. Clicking the guns make ammo light up is a VERY cool feature but this could still be improved with call ammo what it is instead of differentiating the case length in mm for the 3 primary rifle cartridges. 8mm Mauser. .30-'06, .303, and 7.62x54R would actually fit on the icons. There is way too much "7.62" in the game, not because you tried to use the correct ammo, but just because you used the same non-history naming convention on each of them.
Overwatch mechanics are a bit silly. Too much of an XCOM rip off but pooly executed. This game would be so much better with cones and the ability to fire when the enemy pokes his head out to fire. Overwatch is just a guaranteed miss in the early game, and only if the enemy runs, so it is almost pointless. It also has too high of a AP cost. If I have an semi auto or smg vs a bolt gun should allow different attack limits. Maybe let perks allow you to return fire. Or better yet, just rework it entirely.
Some suppressive fire mechanics would help a ton.
Each combat ends with you trying to surround the last remaining enemy who has already been hit 2 or 3 times so he could put one more of your dudes in the hospital.
Maybe thats so you can explore maps more and get these documents I have yet to find, but if I am missing them because I am not exploring during a turn based tactical game, then shame on the devs, because thats ridiculous. I should clear the map unless i need to exfil in a limited time and using too much of those timer/turn mechanics are a good way to cause people to rage quite your game to mostly negative.
There is minimal story so far, but that's not a huge deal.
The base building mechanics are very clunky. I have a soldier that will not use the shooting range because his weapon is being repaired, but its at 100% and not showing in the armory. The buttons are bit awkward, but it was a decent idea to do some camp building. Just seems funny how far these troops will travel from their crappy tiny camp to go do missions for both fronts.
Why can I not just drag my bayonet onto the rifle it says it fits. My armory if fully upgraded. Everything about the armory makes me want to rage quit every time I play. Devs, just throw out everything you did with the shooting range and armory and start over.
It tells me there are optional documents and i take 30 minutes and 27,000 turns pressing wearing out my alt key to never find the documents.
Pros:
For not using any sort of real time setup mechanics, doing setup entirely turn based is not too grindy. However, the enemy still seems to see you before you can see them a bit too often for my liking.
They tried to make the ammo types match the weapons. Huge Kudos. 9mm ammo works in Sten, MP40 and P38. Seriously. Good job! Amazing how many games sacrifice this and it is such a frustrating turn-off.
Lighting up the ammo boxes for a given selected weapon is very nice.
I like the uniforms being a resource and a way to customize the look of your troops and offer a disguise.
The maps are good. Cover mechanics are pretty decent usually, but some cover is missing or silly for world objects. World looks pretty realistic.
So far, I like the troop types for the enemies and how it tells you about each one.
I have not seen a turn limit yet. As poor as the combat is in this game, turn limits would be a step too far.
Summary:
I'll update this if I get more playtime, but I'm not sure I will play anymore. I really wanted this to be good after being so disappointed by Classified '44. It seems like it fell in most of the same traps while not bringing much original thought or deeper mechanics to the table. It is very difficult to play this game when there are so many others in the genre, and I just wished that someone would make something good for WWII. Maybe I'm biased because Jagged Alliance 3 is just so hard to beat for a turn based shooter, and it's mechanics and battle depth has ruined so many games for me that just want to ride XCOM's success. I would have accepted something more like XCOM 2 simple, but this is not it.