Into All The Beaches With So Many Peaches (Into the Breach)

[Cordeos]

Was shocked there wasn't a thread for Into The Breach yet. I have already played 6 hours of it, main goal is trying to unlock more squads. I enjoy how tense the game is and how many trade offs you have to make. So far my attempts at venturing beyond Easy difficulty have ended in quick death. Maybe I will try later with a custom squad of my favorite units. Two Squads I found particularly useless were the Fire squad (Flame Behemoths) which simply didn't do enough damage and one based around pushing (Zenith Guard) where a units only move damaged itself. Right now I am using the weather based squad (Rusting Hulks) and am really enjoying them. Over all I like it more than FTL partially because its hard to limp along to the end, if you mess up you will usually die pretty fast. Blitzkrieg is also a pretty good squad.

[thepaulhoey]

I tried it out on Normal and died quite fast, but after every mistake it was totally clear in hindsight what went wrong. Usually it was that I rushed into things.

[sclpls]

I played an hour of the game before I left for work this morning. I started on easy because I learned my lesson from FTL hahaha

[Nappi]

I played four rounds (I think) on Normal, yesterday. In the first two, I died before and during the boss fight of the first island. After that, I got a couple of missions in on the second island. Finally, I started on the second island, completed it, and then died on the boss of the first island. I unlocked Rusting Hulks (which got me the furthest), and Blitzkrieg (which I'm yet to try). I think I will switch to easy next and focus on unlocking more squads and familiarizing myself with the different units.

 

I'm not a fan of roguelike progression mechanics, but the turn-based puzzle combat gameplay is right up my alley, so I will probably spend a lot of time with this game. I love how little randomness there is in the game. I was also positively surprised how different the various squads were. Too bad that many of the squad and overall achievements seem like they could become pretty frustrating once you are actually aiming to get more coins, and not just unlocking the easy ones accidentally. I also think the art style could have been more interesting considering the mech theme, but that is a really minor complaint. As I said, I love the gameplay, and it has already infiltrated my dreams.

 

 

[thepaulhoey]

If you buy it on GOG you get FTL as well.

[Henke]

Plus it's a couple bucks cheaper on GOG/Humble than Steam. If anyone wants my spare FTL Steam key, let me know.

 

I've played 2 games (on Normal). In game 2 I secured the first 2 islands but got my butt kicked in the Final Mission. Enjoying it very much! 

[BonusWavePilot]

Played a few hours last night, and I suspect I will be doing the same this evening - it is really good!  My best effort so far is a few missions into the 2nd island, but I am definitely improving.  Have noticed I have started focusing much more on blocking spawns and taking the fight to them than I was to begin with.

So far I have only used the starting team and the Rusting Hulks, but am already impressed by how differently those two play.  Am really looking forward to seeing what strange new units await in the other squads, and to having unlocked enough of them that the 'random team' option will have a good range of different units to choose from.  (The random start is always my preferred option in roguelikes, at least once I have some basic competence)

I found the Rusting Hulks a lot easier than the starting squad, and I see Nappi got furthest with them too: the damaging smoke mechanic has good DOT.

 

 

[osmosisch]

Loving this. I'm not sure how much I'll keep playing it, but for now the different squads are enough to keep my interest. Gone through all islands so far with the starting squad, shield/laser guys, and the self-damage/healing squad. All interesting and different.

 

I really hated my time with the blitzkrieg squad, the pull tank was not my thing at all.

[designiana]

This game is super fun! I tried it on Easy and beat it pretty effortlessly on my first run, so I'll definitely play on Normal from now on.

 

Not sure yet if this will grab me the same way FTL did but purely based on the mechanics I can already tell I'll be playing it for a *while*. Plus I'm a sucker for these kinds of unlockables! My only thing so far is that, despite the more detailed avatars and snippets of dialogue, I never really filled in the characters/story the same way I did for the crew in FTL but ITB's gameplay is less conducive to that, I guess.

[Cordeos]

7 minutes ago, designiana said:

This game is super fun! I tried it on Easy and beat it pretty effortlessly on my first run, so I'll definitely play on Normal from now on.

 

Not sure yet if this will grab me the same way FTL did but purely based on the mechanics I can already tell I'll be playing it for a *while*. Plus I'm a sucker for these kinds of unlockables! My only thing so far is that, despite the more detailed avatars and snippets of dialogue, I never really filled in the characters/story the same way I did for the crew in FTL but ITB's gameplay is less conducive to that, I guess.

Some of the pilots that have special powers have more character. I got a guy who game me 1 extra redo turn per battle and he was extremely talkative.

[sclpls]

So far my favorite mech squads have been the Blitzkreigs and the Flame Behemoths. I especially like the Flame Behemoths. Setting the whole map on fire is so satisfying, although they do have a lot of trouble dealing with the burrowing monsters.

 

Also personally the pilot dialog really works for me in terms of just doing some little things to bring out characters. I don't know why, but I never really developed any attachment to any of the crew members in FTL, they were just little mindless automatons to me. This isn't really a criticism of FTL since I know a lot of people did develop an attachment to them, imagining backstories, and stuff like that. Just interesting how these different approaches will work for some people and not others.

[Nappi]

I played two games on Easy on Blitzkrieg Squad, and beat the game with 2 and 4 corporate islands completed. Although, easy is quite easy overall, one still gets in interesting situations with the enemies. Like osmosisch, I wasn't very efficient with the pull tank, and at first, I mainly used it to block emerging enemies or to continue the circuit for chain lightning strikes. However, when I bought the cannon that shoots in two directions and upgraded it to do 2 damage, I was basically unstoppable.

 

I have unlocked Rusting Hulks and Blitzkrieg squad so far and wonder what I should go for next. I have 3 coins so far, so I could just go for Zenith Guard immediately or wait a bit and unlock one of the other ones. Looking at some of the achievements, I'm not sure if I will be able to unlock every squad without having to go for some of the annoying challenges (e.g., "Finish the first 2 Corporate Islands in under 30 minutes." Ugggh..), so I would like to unlock ones I that I find interesting first.

 

While the combat does not have much randomness (apart from enemy spawns), I still feel that a good run on Normal requires quite a bit of luck. With Blitzkrieg Squad, for example, things become much easier once you get a couple of power cores and are able to upgrade your Lightning Mech to chain through buildings without them taking damage and increase the damage 3. I think I will keep playing on Easy for a bit more to unlock and familiarize myself with the different squads, and then switch back to Normal. Not sure how much I want to grind to get a perfect run, though.

 

I like this game a lot more than most games with roguelike progression mechanics. However, I would still love to see a campaign mode with permanent progression (in terms of abilities or maybe even squads), with handcrafted challenges.

[Cordeos]

To unlock all the normal squads you only need about 50% of the achievements however there is a special squad that costs 25 coins so getting every squad would require all achievements.

[cakedotavi]

The timetravel mechanic when you lose is so, so smart - completely solves the problem in FTL where if 1 thing went bad you wanted to restart.

 

So far (just ~2 or 3 hours in) it is a total gem of a game.

[Gerretic]

How quickly do y'all typically take your turns? I beat the game on my first attempt, on Normal difficulty, with a playtime of like 9 hours (four islands), and from what people are saying online that seems a little surprising so I'm wondering if I'm spending an unusually long time to try and puzzle out my turns or anything like that - I do feel like I stare for quite a while to try and find something perfect (and I usually was able to).

[Nappi]

I have played a total of less than 6 hour according to Steam with 6 attempts. I think the one where I played through all the islands and beat the game took a bit less than 2 hours. Nine hours sounds a bit long, but on the other hand, it is clearly working for you, since you beat the game!

[thepaulhoey]

I'm taking longer on my turns now than I did at first because it's easy to miss something small and totally destroy your chances of getting any Bonus Objectives or taking a bit hit on Power. I'm probably at 2 hours with 3 islands complete on my current game so 9 still sounds very long.

[BonusWavePilot]

I'm hitting somewhere around forty-five minutes per island (have only played on 'normal' difficulty).  That said, even at that pace I am still quite often seeing the problem with a move only *just after* I have made it, so possibly I should be spending longer, or maybe no matter how long I stare at it for that will still happen :/

[Gerretic]

I've done three more playthroughs now; two islands in ~3 hours, three islands in 3.5, and two again in 2.5, so I'm feeling like my pace is acceptable at this point. Starting on the fifth with Steel Judoka.

 

I can't say enough nice things about this game.

[Bjorn]

On 3/3/2018 at 1:00 AM, Gerretic said:

How quickly do y'all typically take your turns? I beat the game on my first attempt, on Normal difficulty, with a playtime of like 9 hours (four islands), and from what people are saying online that seems a little surprising so I'm wondering if I'm spending an unusually long time to try and puzzle out my turns or anything like that - I do feel like I stare for quite a while to try and find something perfect (and I usually was able to).

 

Seems like I'm averaging about 4.5 hours per victory on Normal, which is definitely taking my time on most turns to make sure I maximize the possible good outcomes.  It can get particularly slow on squads that depends on moving enemy units around to line up shots and whatnot.

 

I've felt like Normal is maybe on the easy side for me so far?  Which seems to be the opposite experience of what everyone else is having.  I've made 4 runs, and won 3 of them.  Won with starter, rust and volatile.  Lost with Flame (badly).  All three of the winning squads play to my strengths though.  But this is also obviously a game where something small can spiral out of control very quickly.  Failing to kill fast enough, or not block a spawn, or whatever can quickly put you in a position of losing multiple buildings or objectives in a single turn.   Failure begats more failure to, not maximizing objectives or protecting time pods puts you in a bad place going into the third and fourth islands especially. 

 

So far I've made every run at all 4 islands.  Other than shortening game length and going for a few specific achievements, is there a particular reason to go for a 2 or 3 island victory? 

[Gerretic]

 

1 hour ago, Bjorn said:

I've felt like Normal is maybe on the easy side for me so far?  Which seems to be the opposite experience of what everyone else is having.  I've made 4 runs, and won 3 of them.  Won with starter, rust and volatile.  Lost with Flame (badly).  All three of the winning squads play to my strengths though.  But this is also obviously a game where something small can spiral out of control very quickly.  Failing to kill fast enough, or not block a spawn, or whatever can quickly put you in a position of losing multiple buildings or objectives in a single turn.   Failure begats more failure to, not maximizing objectives or protecting time pods puts you in a bad place going into the third and fourth islands especially. 

 

This is what I'm finding, too - I have yet to lose on Normal, which I'm sure means I should go to Hard, but I want to see if I can beat the game with every squad without ever losing first and I'm fine attempting that on Normal. Wanting to move onto the next thing is also why I've only done four islands once so far, but I'm really enjoying Steel Judoka so I may do a full set with them.

 

The thing I've consistently found important across all the squads is maintaining tempo: if you can answer more than one threat with an action that's good, and if your answers only delay enemies (e.g. pushing out of position without setting up anything else good) then new spawns will make you start to fall behind.

 

1 hour ago, Bjorn said:

 

So far I've made every run at all 4 islands.  Other than shortening game length and going for a few specific achievements, is there a particular reason to go for a 2 or 3 island victory? 

 

I haven't played enough to feel really confident in this answer, but I suspect it's a question of your squad's growth potential. The final boss scales up as you complete more islands, and if for whatever reason you expect that your squad is going to be below curve then you might want to just go for it sooner. I had a run where two of my three pilots died doing the first two islands: since I've generally found new pilots to be pretty scarce, pushing on to more islands would be relying on drops & equipment to get stronger without access to any of the bonuses from leveling up, so maybe I should expect that I'm getting proportionally weaker in that case and will be better off going immediately? (My last living pilot got hit by a rock on that run and died during the final battle, leaving the AI to close out the fight.)

[miffy495]

I have mostly been playing on Easy since I'm traditionally bad at strategy games, but have only lost once so I should probably step it up. It's a very good game. Regarding that one loss, I recommend not taking a pilot that you're attached to on a run to get a feel for a brand new squad. I'm sorry, Smashy Stan. (I rename everyone to what their mech does).

[Bjorn]

16 hours ago, miffy495 said:

I have mostly been playing on Easy since I'm traditionally bad at strategy games, but have only lost once so I should probably step it up. It's a very good game. Regarding that one loss, I recommend not taking a pilot that you're attached to on a run to get a feel for a brand new squad. I'm sorry, Smashy Stan. (I rename everyone to what their mech does).

 

You would lose that pilot no matter what tho, right?  If you win, lose or abandon a game, you have to pick a new pilot to take back with  you.  So the choice is always A) Do I want this maxed pilot for an easier start or do I want to pick a pilot that better synergizes with the mechs I'm going to take?

[osmosisch]

For me Normal feels about right, I lose like 20% of the games.

 

I go for two- or three-island victories on squads that I don't feel will scale well, for example on the fire squad when I haven't found good replacement/backup weapons for the prime and artillery mechs. Fire damage is pegged at 1 so things start to get really dicey if that's your main source of damage after three islands still.

[Bjorn]

I've only done one (failed) run with fire, but so far they feel like the squad that most desperately needs to add on additional equipment.  Everyone else I've played feels perfectly capable of a 4 island victory with just their starting gear. 

 

On that one run, I even got the Chain Lightning gun on my Prime, but then splitting points between another weapon still left them overall underpowered, and thus the eventual loss.