I decided to bail from the game - in frustration - I Was making "fine" progress in the campaign, but after losing a few times in a mission I decided to call it quits because - the checkpoint was too far (I had made slow but significant progress, then died, and had to go back to the beginning, and it was too many times at this point). But, more importantly, I just ran into too many technical issues that sort of "broke" the game experience for me. A few examples:
a. AI partner is 2 meters away from an enemy, both are shooting at each other - super close, and no one hits. The partner AI just seemed obviously too ineffective (as well as the enemy AI).
b. In the "escape from jail" mission - the part right after you turn off everything from a tower in the middle and then have to go back down to guards waiting for you - all the guards were somehow completely unaware of my presence, so I knifed them all, they died and then more respawned and ran in, and still did not see me. I eventually just moved on...
c. I'm shooting at enemies, through the scope and clearly and obviously hitting them - but there's no effect. I wasn't "hitting the ground" nor was there anything in between myself and the target. And the target wasn't that far for the ballistic drop off or weapon range to be an issue. I have no idea what was going on to be honest but I had experienced earlier similar issues.
d. They story/narrative started to rapidly decrease in its comprehensibility. I was captured in china, taken to a prison that was then in Singapore? Or that's where I arrived after escaping, but it was in the jungle, but the jail was at the top of a really snowy mountain? Maybe I'm just confused by the geography here? But there's also some super secret that involves a Chinese national I helped bust out, whose "wife" (not the wife?) was a double agent, she got us all jailed, but then she's "the good guys" again? But what's this all about anyways? Now, there's a difference between "the story's simple, but it's kind of stupid" which I'm usually fine with. But here I feel like it's in the "kind of stupid" camp - but too complicated to follow along with easily?
All that being said...
I though the weapon system was interesting - you can hit the "boxes" in the level and just equip whatever you want (that you've unlocked/found). I was partial to some of the Chinese-manufacture weapons (are they based on real weapons?). It was also fun to ride around in vehicles (once I learned how to exit them). I also thought it was pretty neat how the art direction on the cover (blue/orange color palette) is also part of the game - at least in some of the earlier missions!
I've since played a bunch more, unlocked more characters, etc. The story unlocks are a lot slower/grindy than I'd like and I've realized that some character combinations are pretty bad! I think I've reached the point where I've figured out a bunch of things, but am not quite ready to take my play to another level - as in, there are things it has not occurred to my to try out. This is sort of the moment where I might look at some guide online or see what the player community is saying - what does expert play look like in this space? can I pull off some of the more challenging strategies? I don't know...I'm sort of interested in exploring some more, but also looking at a (digital) stack of other unplayed games... hmm. choices!
Maybe it's the road trip aspect of this game, but I was really reminded of the game "Road 96" even though the gameplay and story are completely unrelated. Both games are unrelated. I don't really know why the connection popped into my head to be honest.
Anyways, interesting game - especially the deckbuilding aspects of it. The game does away with most of the intricate and sophisticated mechanics you see while simplifying some things in a way that's pretty refreshing: your deck is always the same size and at the end of every encounter/conversation you have to remove a card from your deck and pick a new one from a small selection (was it 6 options or 3? I can't recall as I write this). The game's mechanics themselves are also simple and interesting - and there's cards that have different effects and such, but not too many.
So, I really liked the pared down deckbuilding! But, the playing a little less so - I mean the playing the card game part - there are perhaps a few too many turns in which I couldn't really do anything and that's always a bummer. On the other hand, the experience aligns well with the game's theme and story! (communication, culture, how people change when exposed to others and their cultures, etc.)
Also, having only played a "full game" once - I feel strangely satisfied, I got the story I got, had the experience I had, and feel no desire to go back and play it differently...which I think is a good thing for many narrative-based games (where replays essentially becomes more about optimizing/ gaming the game than having different stories). This is because in many, but obviously not all, games - playing a gain sort of ruins the experience because you get to see too much behind the curtain - e.g. realizing which things happen regardless of your choices, what the system is doing behind the scenes, etc.
It's an interesting game for sure. Mostly because I enjoyed slowly figuring stuff out - which tiles to place where and why, and so on. That being said, the "learning loop" (the length of time you have to play in order to try something out and then learn from it) is pretty long - which makes the game a bit of a slog in that sense. This is because, in a nutshell, the effects of your strategies are systemic - they'll play out slowly, over time, as you play the game. In my mind this is similar to playing city-building games (which I'm bad at - I get too impatient and reactive, which means everything goes ok until it all spirals out of control once certain thresholds/tipping points are met). It also makes it hard to try out multiple things at the same time - should I focus on doing X and Y while avoiding Z? (sort of too many variables).
I'm not saying any of this as a bad thing - just as a characteristic that results from this game's design. And, like I said, it is interesting to try out different things and hopefully see success (or failure you can learn from). But, the game's moment to moment isn't that interesting - you mostly watch the game play and pause every now and then to change your loadout (e.g. equip a better weapon that just dropped).
So, the game sort of gets boring pretty soon?
Oh, there's also an entire town-building system - but it's super slow to make any progress here because you need to "farm" (from the main combat/action loop) resources - though what resources you get depends on what tiles your placing, so understanding THOSE relationships is also important.
