More X-COM? Copy that Central! Chimera Squad online from 24th April

[matthunter]

This caught me unawares, like a Sectopod hidden by the fog of war (lucky I packed bluescreen ammo).

X-COM: Chimera Squad will be out on Steam from 24th April. It's set 5 years after the events of X-COM 2, where humanity defeated the Elders. Without their influence, some of the alien races have allied with humanity. Chimera Squad is an elite team of 6 humans and 5 aliens (including hybrids) tasked with protecting City 31 against sabotage by elements still adversarial to humanity.

This is more of a strategy RPG than previous X-COM games, as you have a fixed team and fatalities will cause mission failures.

Aliens on your team are a Muton, a Sectoid, two hybrids and a Viper. Fanfics ahoy!!!

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[FPAlpha]

Saw the announcement last week and was surprised as hell as it wasn't rumored anywhere.

I'm not complaining though.. more XCom is always good, especially when it's spritual brother Phoenix Point kinda fell flat (at least for me). It could also be a test balloon for XCom 3 (of which i'm sure it will come someday) to test ideas and mechanics.

Already bought it on Steam and can't wait for it to be released.

 

[Jono]

Played a couple of hours of it today. It's not bad. It's much quicker since you skip that finding pods, positioning, ambush stuff. The chatting between squad members is a fun addition that helps give the game personality, which the other XCOM lack. Struggled with my "economy" compared to XCOM2. In the latter you have more control of how you progress and managing the Avatar project is pretty easy so you can go at your own pace. This you don't seem to have that luxury, so in this run the game seems to be just ramping too quickly. I don't have enough money for stuff or the right research. Thinking of restarting to see if I can...do better.

Had fun so far. Glad I bought it, but given the crazy discount that had on it I didn't see it as that much of a risk. Worst comes to worst all I did was cost me the equivalent of a takeout dinner and pad out my Steam list with another XCOM game I don't play. (I got all the originals as part of something years ago...can't remember what, but I've never played or installed them)

 

[matthunter]

Yeah, playing it through on story mode - any idea how you unlock extra slots on the APC (or if that's possible?). Hate the "Squad Member Idle" messages when I don't want to risk putting a backup member on a 3-day spec op assignment just to keep 'em busy.

 

[FPAlpha]

Just played the tutorial and the first "live" mission after that and familiarized myself with the UI and options and so far i like it.

Graphics are different of course to the previous games and i like it a lot, especially the battle graphics. I love the Breach mechanic, it gives a nice tactical choice on how you want to start the battle instead of just running around a map trying to locate aliens to shoot. But then again this is close quarters combat ( so far) so it's appropriate.

Otherwise there are many familiar elements... research, building/buying equipment, sending agents on secondary missions etc. Familiar but nicely done, i like how you seem more like a special police force than an army/resistance group - you have to apparently jump through several levels of an investigation before it's on the boss battle ( i think).

The only thing not currently clicking is the voice work - it's a bit bland and uninspired but it's also a nice touch to give the game a bit story and have your soldiers have an actual character which is a nice element not present in previous games.

So far i don't feel i've wasted my money and i just started out, let's see how this game does tomorrow when i'm not that tired from the day and can enjoy it more.

I really hope it's a bridge game to XCom 3 and that they are testing out some elements to see how players will react to them - maybe some features will make it to XCom 3 and i hope they continue to tread a new path and take the series into a different direction other than build a team, research and build stuff that you can use to fight aliens on a tactical map (it's stll there but modified nicely in Chimera).


Edit:

Played some more this morning, had my soldiers being promoted and gain new abilities (so far it is an XCom game ) and did a VIP Rescue mission.

Boy.. the enemy reinforcement mechanic sure is challenging. The first mission with it i did okay, had some wounded because i stayed too long but the second one with the VIP i was about to lose my squad because i foolishly engaged in a prolonged firefight and not getting out of there as fast as i could.

Granted i play on Experienced (second to last difficulty mode) but still.. i don't mind and it's a learning curve. At least i have Androids now to support those fallen (though they look like Robots and not the SF standard human looking Androids)

 

[matthunter]

Reached my first sticking point - boss mission where you have to stop a starship being hijacked. If one alien finishes their turn in the launch zone it's mission over. There's a boss with ~12hp (on Story Mode!!) and armour. Plus several others I need multiple shots to kill/incapacitate. Verge's stun ability won't target him, so can't lock him down. He got to the launch zone. I was able to use Verge's berserk ability, thinking he'd move, but he just took a shot at a viper. Then game over.

I suppose I could've tried Torque's tongue grab to move him out, but she was bound by the viper in question until he shot it.

I didn't have Godmother with me - maybe her shotgun would've hit him hard enough?

 

[FPAlpha]

Reached my first sticking point - boss mission where you have to stop a starship being hijacked. If one alien finishes their turn in the launch zone it's mission over. There's a boss with ~12hp (on Story Mode!!) and armour. Plus several others I need multiple shots to kill/incapacitate. Verge's stun ability won't target him, so can't lock him down. He got to the launch zone. I was able to use Verge's berserk ability, thinking he'd move, but he just took a shot at a viper. Then game over.

I suppose I could've tried Torque's tongue grab to move him out, but she was bound by the viper in question until he shot it.

I didn't have Godmother with me - maybe her shotgun would've hit him hard enough?

I'm at the same mission now.. the first 2 encounters were rather easy but the last one you described will be very hard due to the amount of enemies.

On their own each one, even the Praetorian, are not that hard but together it's a challenge. The first try didn't go so well, lost Cherub when i experimented with Godmothers Shotgun blast but i think it's the way to go.

I'll try area effect weapons since the battlearea is quite small (Grenades, Godmothers Shotgun ability, maybe even include Blueblood with his Straigt Line shot ability, Cherub could be interesting too with a charged up Shield Bash) and hope for the best.

 

[matthunter]

I'm at the same mission now.. the first 2 encounters were rather easy but the last one you described will be very hard due to the amount of enemies.

On their own each one, even the Praetorian, are not that hard but together it's a challenge. The first try didn't go so well, lost Cherub when i experimented with Godmothers Shotgun blast but i think it's the way to go.

I'll try area effect weapons since the battlearea is quite small (Grenades, Godmothers Shotgun ability, maybe even include Blueblood with his Straigt Line shot ability, Cherub could be interesting too with a charged up Shield Bash) and hope for the best.

I reverted to an old save and tried a couple of other missions first, but am now locked in on it. Got Godmother back from training and two of the others got promotions, plus I nabbed a plasma grenade as a reward from one of the missions, which may help (only had the one frag before).

That mission is a bugger though as you absolutely cannot have LOS on the Muton boss in the Breach turn...

 

[FPAlpha]

Completed the mission and it was tense but manageable.

Team Makeup: Cherub, Godmother, Verge and Claymore

Claymore lobbed as many grenades as he had and mopped up an enemy per turn (or did serious damage to the Praetorians), Godmother got off a lucky scattershot that damaged 3 enemies well for the price of one shot.

Cherub placed Kinetic shields on the ones most likely to be the target of the next attack which saved them a few times

Verge used Berserk on a couple of guys to further deal damage.

The first part on the bridge was tense but manageable as described above until the Sectopod came through the door when i advanced. Fortunately Godmother took the lead, did some good damage and was then protected by Cherubs Kinetic Shield (finally figured out what he's there for and how to use him, he's awesome). As i hoped the Sectopod fired on Godmother and the Kinetic Shield took all the damage. I then focus fired on the Sectopod, took him out and moved to the second part

The second part is not that bad too - you just have to take out the enemies that are marked as a priority as they are apparently the ones who will rush to the console, Godmothers mobility and high damage output is key here (as always protected by a Kinetic Shield).

The rest of the team deals with the other enemies as opportunity presents and then focus fire on the Boss Praetorian, Mission done.

Good luck!

 

[matthunter]

Yeah, I may have been unlucky, but the boss was always one of the first two to move to the console, and I couldn't take him down in one turn.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Been playing my second campaign.
Finished the first on normal difficulty to learn the mechanics and at least some of the characters.

Moved up to I possible difficulty.
Don’t yet go to Ironman, mostly because of the constant game freezes and crashes.
And no Hardcore where a squad mate death is campaign ending.

i am switching up the investigation order and surprisingly enough the choices of dark events seem to somewhat influence the boss fight mission configuration.
So, replay value baked in.

thumbs up.

 

[FPAlpha]

After the first initial impression i have to say that the game seems a bit limited.

At first the Breach mechanic is a nice new element and still is, they should definitely keep this in some form in XCom 3 as it's a good idea. However after having unlocked some new crew members and levelled them up i kinda am in a rut now (somewhere close to closing the second investigation, still first playthrough).

All my agents have Epic weapons now (which in fact "only" grant you a bonus skill), have a good variety of skills and gear and it's always the same in the tactical element - Breach, kill 1-3 enemies and then slowly mop up the rest and on to the next encounter.

It is ok for the price paid and it was refreshing to get an XCom game out of the blue but i don't think i'm in a rush to finish this anytime soon because i am like a small kid with ADD who has recently bought Gears of War Tactics which is an overpriced AAA title and it simply shows - presentation is awesome, there's tons of skills via a Tech Tree (4 different branches you can skill up and fortunately there is a Re-Skill option if you think you have skilled wrong), tons of Weapons/Armor mods and i have only played this 2 hours or so.

Man - after seeing Gears XCom has it's work cut out if it wants to come close or surpass it and i wouldn't mind paying equal money that i paid for Gears ( i'm weak and just couldn't wait a few months for the price to go down ) if they are able to reclaim the squad turn based strategy game throne.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I beat the game on Impossible. Not so impossible, after all.
Just slightly harder than.

i may actually look at Ironman hardcore mode eventually.
It‘s unlikely no soldier will ever go down, but, usually you can stabilize them pretty easily.
I played Impossible even without Patchwork.
So, no remote healing.
But most of my soldiers ran around with a medkit anyway and enjoyed that sweet sweet poison immunity.

One of the most fun aspects is discovering ability combos between different characters.

for now I started a just for giggles run with a crew equipped with tranq rounds to have a super high arrest quota instead of killing everyone. Not sure I‘ll finish it.