Into the Breach (2018)

Bought this game soon after it came out, played it for a few days but thought it was too hard and didn't love the mechanic that made you completely start over.

What was I thinking? I tried this again and saw several things that I didn't the first time, making it much easier to complete. Not going to be the kind of game I play again, but man beating it felt SO good.

A super smart tactical game where you use forced movement abilities and damage to slide enemies around a grid and avoid their attacks. It's a cool puzzle and does well at both being a super thinky main focus or a chill second monitor game once you get into the swing of things and get comfortable with a composition.

4 / 5 Stars

I don’t know how many timelines I played through. At least a dozen, for sure. I wish the game would tell you those stats at the end. Anyway, I completed the final stage with one surviving pilot and one ai-run mech.

The game is a very simple, turn-based, tactical board. You move after the enemies move but before they attack. Each level is a simple 8x8 grid with environmental features. You try to prevent the enemies from damaging your mechs or the citizens. There’s a little bit more than that but that’s it in a nutshell. There is a story and background characters but you don’t spend much time on that.

A good game if you like tactical games. Works great on the Steam Deck and the Backbone One (I have the Steam and iOS versions) and Steam cloud is perfect for switching between at home and on the go.

It's been a while since a game took over my brain, my soul, my waking hours and my nightly dreams.

Into The Breach drops you right into the action. A beautiful retro grid populated with the Vek - pixelated monsters - awaits to engage you in battle chess. You use your three mech warriors and their various abilities to crush the Vek, push them into water or lava or, most deliciously of all, in the firing zone of another Vek. After puzzling your way to the best possible configuration, you watch your turn unfold, feeling either like the smartest human being on the planet, or the biggest idiot. I cannot state clearly enough how satisfying this is. Did I mention one match lasts about 15 minutes, and is thus ideal for the busy gamer with kids or other obligations?

How quickly you finish the game for the first time very much depends on how cautious you are. If you like to click around and see what happens, you'll be throwing several pilots into timelines until you figure out how to play the game with meticulous foresight. If your first victory is hard-won, you may be tempted to throw down your weapons there, and forget about all the other timelines that need saving. Or in player terms, all the achievements you can hunt.

Because after the game ends, that's when it begins. These achievements are no pixel-hunting challenges meant to separate your body from your soul through endless grinding. They are additional puzzles, encouraging you to make the most of the capabilities of your mech squads. I'm still deep into exploring these challenges while I write this review, and I have no intention of stopping any time soon.

3.5 stars overall

This game was freaking awesome. That tactical style gameplay was extremely satisfying. I didn't know that this was a Rogue-like going into it, and at my first death I almost just put the game down because I am usually not a fan of the genre, but I decided to stick with it and I'm glad I did because it's fantastic!

I love how simple the gameplay is. With just 3 units to control it makes it feel very easy to maneuver and contemplate what you actual moves are. In fact, the battles feel almost puzzle like in a way. And getting yourself out of tough situations is a completely satisfying feeling! Made me feel like I had big brain power!

My one complaint about this game was how short it was. I beat the game on my third run through. I only did 3 islands (you can do 4-5 if you so choose) because I didn't want to risk losing and starting over. After I finished the game I almost regretted it because I was struggling to want to continue playing as I felt like I had beat the game.

That's not to say there isn't stuff to do once you've initially beat it. There are new mech units you can get that have whole different move sets which make you think tactically different in each scenario. And there are different upgrades you can get and it seemed like there were new and different enemies spawning each time as well. All this is great! But it wasn't enough to keep me playing. Personally I guess I just needed a little bit more incentive.

I really did love this game though. And while I complained about it being to short because I enjoyed it so much, I'd rather it be to short than to long.

Now I have to go find another Rogue-like game that I might enjoy.....

Neat pixel art, turned based strategy balanced on a knife's edge and just enough randomness to encourage replay, I love Into the Breach. The main elements are not many and a mostly well explained and the framing device of timeline hopping is brilliant. The fact that every battle affects those after it a bit while keeping each rather small and well contained is exactly what I like.

Mostly every failure is a mistake you did and caught just a second too late) and you definitely learn from playthrough to playthrough. the ability to go on even after pilots die and the balance of weapons and energy is well executed.

Highly recommended for tactic-heads.

I'm of two minds about this enjoyable turn-based strategy game. From a programming and design perspective, it is a marvel. Its procedurally-generated maps and enemies are always just the right mixture to keep things interesting. It's sort of like sitting down to pick up chess in the middle of a game. On the other hand I find its structure punishing and stressful. The idea behind its small maps is that it's a game that can be experienced one bite-sized chunk at a time; but when you lose, you lose big and have to start over (bringing one of your pilots with you, if they survive). The two design concepts - iterative gameplay and the inability to redo bad missions or moves - seem to grate on one another. Some sort of pressure valve, perhaps letting you restart an island or not killing your pilots, would have made the game much more navigable for casual players. Once you get the swing of it, though, winning is its own kind of reward. I want to keep playing even though I'm wary of the anxiety it causes.

Played digital copy on Nintendo Switch.

OVERVIEW

• Rating: 9/10
• Hours played: 9
• Pros: puzzle-like structure, player agency, content depht
• Cons: enemy variety, progression depends partially on RNG

I completed the final mission of Into The Breach after 9 hours and 7 timelines. That was a 3 Islands run. I'm yet to unlock many things, one of my goals being completing the game with all Mech Squads.

REVIEW

Last month I decided to try out some games that I got for free on the Epic Store at the end of last year. I've been through Celeste, I'm playing Rayman Legends on the weekends with my girlfriend and, finally, I played Into the Breach over the last week, in one of the most interesting experiences I've ever had with a video game.

In this game, the player controls a trio of Mechs whose purpose is to defend civilization from insectoid invaders from the future. The game features roguelike mechanics, through which, upon defeat, we can select one of our 3 pilots to reset the present timeline and try again. This pilot maintains his level and bonuses obtained, but the Mechs are reset.

Part turn-based strategy, part puzzle game, Into the Breach has an impressive balance in its structure. Mission maps never increase beyond their 8x8 format, and the player never has to control more Mechs than his starting trio. The complexity, however, comes from the enemies and their attack patterns, the new upgrades that can be obtained for the Mechs, and from the different squads - it is possible to unlock 7 new trios in addition to the initial squad in the game. Maps and secondary objectives also add to variety.

The main objective is to reach the final mission and survive. To do this, you must defeat at least 2 of the 4 islands in the game, each with a different group of missions and a boss fight at the end. The final mission scales in order to balance the challenge to the player based on the number of islands, which allows the player to have the choice of facing it early, with a weaker group, but a smaller challenge, or later, with more powerful Mechs , but at higher risk.

In addition to presenting an interesting variety of abilities that allows the player to explore enemies in different ways - direct damage, move them on the map, paralyze them, make them attack each other -, Into the Breach has a dynamic different from others turn-based combat games I've tried. Rather than giving the player the mission of eliminating all targets, the game puts the immediate objective of preventing damage to the Mechs and, in particular, the buildings that serve as a source of energy for them. This, associated with the secondary objectives of the missions, which must be fulfilled so the player can upgrade his Mechs to be able to face the most difficult missions, makes Into the Breach a constant cycle of determining priorities and looking for creative ways to execute our strategies properly.

CONCLUSION

Into the Breach has an excellent format for casual sessions, but a run to the end can take a few hours if you want to. Due to the large amount of unlockable content and the great fun it gave me, I believe that I will continue playing for some time, and in the future, it is possible that I will upgrade the rating to 5 stars.

I kinda thought there would be no way this would live up to the hype. I had this reflexive "yea right" response. The gameplay vids certainly didn't sell the experience. I begrudgingly put it on my Switch wish list, only looking to purchase it if the price were to drop substantially, and I had some extra money in my fun budget.

Well, the stars aligned and a sale hit only a few days after my birthday. I had an extra $40 in my fun budget, and I only needed to spend $7.50 to buy what many considered the best game of 2018. So I let my arrogance buckle, and I bought it.

Hot dog, this game is good.

It is a strategy puzzle alien invasion game. There really isn't anything else like it.

I love how many choices you have in this game. You choose how you battle. You choose how to upgrade your machines. You choose which order to visit the islands and how many islands you'll visit. You choose which machines you will use for that timeline and what pilots will pilot them. It feels endlessly replayable and I want to replay it because it makes you feel smart. Every time you push a vek on top of a space where another vek should spawn, you feel smart. Every time you maneuver a vek in the line of fire of another vek, you feel smart. Every time you break free from a trap, position, and eliminate several vek, you feel like corn dog Einstein!

ITB also crushes auxiliary areas that lots of puzzle games would ignore. The music is tense and engaging. The art style is consistent with an almost American Gundam appeal. But most shockingly, this game has good writing! Characters make me laugh, remind me of the gravity of the situation, and keep me invested in the world.

I'll swallow my pride. I was wrong. This game is excellent. Once again, video games have taught me that I am dumb and smart all at the same time.

The game delivers a simple and, dare I even say, perfect puzzle strategy experience. The comparisons to chess are apt. If you like video games, play Into the Breach.

Honestly, this is a pretty simple review boost. Into the Breach is a quick, rogue-like turn-based tactical game in which you fight giant bugs with giant robots and time travel.

Each time you play, you build up a team of 3 mechs and their pilots. At the end of the playthrough, either you win and save a timeline or lose, but either way you send a time traveler back to try to save another timeline.

There's 8 teams of 3 mechs (plus 2 styles where you can mix-and-match mechs), with different playstyles, and the game is pretty simple to pick up, with a relatively steep initial difficulty curve. Once you get past that, though, it's just a matter of carefully plotting out your turns, and trying to stay a step ahead of the Vek.

If you are tactically minded, and like games you can play in quick bursts, this is a good choice. Also, if you're a fan of FTL, this was made by the same devs and I think it definitely has cross appeal (sci-fi + tactical planning).

It can be a bit repetitive, as the main reason to keep playing after a couple wins is to just do better, grab achievements, try new teams, etc., but only a little. It's quick and fun, so it's kinda cool to just be a completionist.