Fights in Tight Spaces Review (my butt is erect)
Though good at the same time, I'm annoyed by lack of clarity when mechanics are explained or communicated. An otherwise decent game nearly ruined by bad communication of the battlefield.
I basically recommend this. I do like it but got fed up. Every 15 minutes you will come across something explained badly, incorrectly, or hidden in a menu when it should just be an icon like most other things. There are too many important mechanics to not have plentiful indicators/icons.
Example: A certain enemy "advances" when you use a movement card. But on this enemy, that means he goes backwards when he "advances" which screws up your turn, as most enemies advance forward as you would expect (towards you). There is no proper info fully explaining that he will go backwards as both enemies use the same keyword. How hard is it to use "retreat" as a keyword instead? It seems different enemies have a different movement distance here too but annoyingly it seems to be unspecified.
There are many things like this. Sure it's only a little annoying, but then the same type of confusion happens 12 other times when it could have just been explained better. Upgrades earned from different level routes have no explanation what they are - just an image you can hopefully guess about correctly. Also the "you will be attacked in this cell" icon is regularly bugged and not accurate.
If you're willing to deal with a few infuriating moments that aren't really your fault, the game is eventually good after you figure out all of these badly communicated mechanics enemy by enemy. You can also enable a few redos for turns depending on the difficulty which can mitigate the problem a little.
This game is pretty fun, it really is. The fighting and strategy flows pretty well mostly. However, it is not fun until you lose or screw up a bunch of times because the game's explanations of a decent amount of mechanics is missing, hard to notice, misleading or just plain wrong.
To be clear, most of the game is pretty good. I just got very annoyed by this and am warning you. As I said, everything falls into place after a handful of confused eye rolls.