It just causes more grinding than necessary. I recently played another game that also used it, Alder’s Blood, and I ignored this mechanic there too. I found myself never using this mechanic and am personally not a fan of it.
We also have the option to sacrifice any daughter in order to heal up and boost another of equal or lower level. It expects repetition of the same, which can be offputting, although it is certainly better than simply starting a new run from scratch with no progress. This recollections mechanic is interesting, but it can give an impression of being grindy. Some bonuses do allow us to skip the eras we’ve done already, so if we choose to go for those, we don’t have to start from the very beginning each time. We then push this recollection as far as we can, and then start over again with even better bonuses. So, upon restarting a run from day 1, we can resurrect any of our fallen daughters and spend acquired crystal points to get bonuses that make us stronger. When we no longer have enough daughters to take on missions because they all got killed or if we lose to a boss, we begin a new recollection with all the existing bonuses and unlocks. The game puts us at a huge disadvantage at all times and expects us to lose a run from time to time. One really intriguing mechanic this game implements is the idea of recollections. Once the boss of one era is beaten, we move on to the next era. Each boss is a guardian of a certain era, and there are 5 eras in total. After a few in-game days, we can face a boss.
But once a daughter has been on a mission, she can’t go on another mission until the next in-game day. We can take anywhere from 1 to 4 daughters on the missions, depending on how many the mission allows. They are generally very much alike throughout the entire game, and only change the enemies and some locations. The missions come in a handful of different types: to hunt and kill all enemies, to survive for as a certain amount of time, to escort someone, and so on. These act as buffs that give an additional effect to these skills, such as debuffing enemy armour, delaying their turn, increasing critical rate, or simply dealing some extra damage.įor each in-game day, we can do a few missions. Each of the classes learns new skills at certain level ups, and just like with XCOM, we are given a choice of two skills at each of these points, so not every daughter of the same class needs to have identical skill setup.ĭuring the missions, we acquire memories which we can equip to the skills of our daughters. Halfway through the game we also unlock the 4th class – Scythedancer, who use a scythe to deal some area attacks and debuff enemy defences. The daughters come in 3 classes in the beginning: 1) Blademasters, who get upclose to deal colossal melee damage but lack on defence, 2) Soulslingers, who use guns to attack from range and offer supporting fire to other daughters, and 3) Shieldbearers, who specialise in tanking damage and protecting their allies.
These reactions and interruptions can be fun to string together and let us deliver some free hits on the enemies in between turns. Reactions all differ, but usually they respond to things such as an enemy in range taking damage or getting within melee range of the unit, or could even be happening when the unit itself receives a buff from an ally.
Interruptions have them respond to enemy attacks against allies, causing a counter that cancels the enemy attack and deals damage to the enemy instead. The daughters can learn a number of skills that allow them to respond to specific things. While in XCOM and a few other similar games, we had an overwatch feature to respond to enemy entering our character’s cone of vision, Othercide takes this concept and develops it further. One of the big aspects of gameplay during combat encounters are the reactions and interruptions. However, there are many new and unique gameplay elements of its own that make Othercide so intriguing.
However, the story here is mainly to service the gameplay and to create a backdrop for all our battles.Īt first glance the gameplay is very XCOM-like, with the isometric grid and turn-based tactics involving action points. A lot of the story can seem rather cryptic and some of it can be up to interpretation. We often see flashbacks and can piece the backstory together based on the major figures we come across, particularly the bosses, all of whom played a part in causing this evil to spread. The story revolves around a battle of good vs evil, what appears to be on a spiritual plane of existence, with the Mother and Daughters fighting for a sense of order and justice, while many nasty things filling this world being results of corrupted people and all the suffering that was unleased on the world. Everyone is dead and only hideous nightmarish creatures roam about. The story is set in what looks like a dark fantasy, post-apocalyptic world.