Massive Chalice (2015)

XCom: Enemy Unknown is a great game, but it has one fairly big flaw - if a squad member dies it can set you back so much that it triggers a domino effect that eventually makes you lose the game. You have to train a new member, so you fight generally harder battles with a weaker squad.

Massive Chalice tries to fix this by giving you loads of heroes and by allowing them to pass on experience to their children. Technically speaking this is a really good idea. The problem is that they added a bunch of other factors (traits, classes, age, fertility) that turn this system into a confusing mess. You have to take so many things into account, but the information you need is hidden away in a pretty terrible interface. It's also just not a lot of fun to shuffle people around, especially since there's little real choice who to pick for certain positions.

Another big problem with Massive Chalice is that the main campaign (if you can even call it that) is lazily designed. There's no story, just randomly generated events to match your randomly generated heroes. They obviously want you to play the game, fail, and then replay it a bunch of times until you get it right. This works for grand strategy games, but it really doesn't work for a XCom-style game. XCom is fun to play through once. Even with the changes made by Enemy Within the second playthrough was kinda boring. The same goes for Massive Chalice. There's so little real choice there's no reason to want to replay this. You have to build 4+ keeps again. You have to sit through the boring combat at the start again. And i'd wager those random events get annoying quite fast too.

So the hero system is deeply flawed and the campaign sucks. But wait, there's more! As i said above, combat is really boring at the start. XCom has cover, line of sight, overwatch, etc. Massive Chalice doesn't, not really. You just crawl across the map and finish enemies from a distance. The terrain is dull. Enemies are more an annoyance than a threat. Heroes of each class and sub-classes look identical. Some skills have no description. It doesn't indicate friendly fire. Traits and skills have little to no popup information so you have to go through menus. Et cetera.

There's a few things i like. Losing a region/hero isn't as dramatic as in XCom. The whole hereditary system is interesting if poorly executed. Classes and enemies aren't boring and generic. And the game has a distinct style. But that's not enough. There should have been more of a story. The interface should have been much better. There should have been more real choices. And combat should have been interesting right away, like it seems to become around the 100-150 year mark. Most of all, the game should have made you care. Heroes, regions, families - they're all just faceless gameplay elements now.

I have to recommend this game. I've been watching Let's Play videos and then embarked on my own playthrough, and it was a glorious, addictive session. After loving X-Com and being perturbed by X-Com 2's failure to improve/grow significantly, Massive Chalice gave me that X-Com, can't put it down, strategizing, permadeath-fearing warm and fuzzy feeling.

First, the negatives: I don't like the art style, or the self-contained culture that can be a bit off-putting (caberjack?? what??). I don't like being confined to your set of zones, having some be 3x the area of others, no ability to ever take back lost areas or expand your reach, and the mind-numbing "you can only fight one battle!" mechanic taken right from X-Com. I don't like marrying a 71 year old dude to a 16 year old girl, something about that being allowed makes me feel dirty, but hey that's the game. And I don't like that some of the AI monsters run in circles or act incoherent.

I STILL have an awesome time playing the game. Time and lives are your only resources - no need to horde gold or decide what to spend on equipment. You focus on spending two things - time, to find heroes or research or build keeps - and your heroes. Do you keep this one around for battle, or set him as Regent to sire children for your future army? Useless characters can find a home at the Sagewright's guild, and your amazing, infertile warrior can teach others as the Standard.

Balancing bloodlines and classes, working all 3 main classes and their subsets to get a good mix while growing more powerful and staving off invasion, it's a brilliant challenge. Having to decide which of the best 3 sons will continue the bloodline, leaving the others to become Standards or just keep fighting. Becoming enamored with a character that lasts 3 battles (~45 years), and then seeing their offspring inherit their Relic.

The random events are a little lacking - too often they are minor with no impact, or suddenly take away two of your most valuable characters. Middle ground seems to be missing. But sometimes, when your 48 year old veteran asks to go out by competing in the Lash tournament, you grant them their wish.

This game drives home the shortness of existence like few others can - Civilization doesn't show you individual people after all, and X-Com has everyone going from scrub to uber soldier in 3 or 4 months. In this game you can see your heroes, from the cradle, to 15 year old recruit, to bearded prime-age warrior, to aged veteran, to elderly scholar, growing and changing over time. It's definitely not a connection like other games - you can't have anyone around more than a quarter of the game, and only that much if you are extremely lucky (and they are only useful for a portion of that). Your connection will be with 3 or 4 family names that persist over time, if you are lucky, and the relics and experience and traits they pass on.

Different, interesting, very X-Com but with enough of its own mechanics to make it shine.