Man, I feel like an idiot :D Before picking up this game, I had no idea this was a roguelite. Yeah I know, how can you not know but I usually refrain from reading up too much on a game I'm even slightly interested in. I knew this was a grid-based tactical game with mechs including stellar pixel-art, great music and interesting worldbuilding.

Well, I was right.

What I didn't know was that Subset Games have created one of the most addicting and fun roguelites out there. They basically developed a game as complex as Chess (yeah yeah, let me exaggerate a little^^), put a post-apocalyptic, hyper-capitalist mecha spin on it and put everything into a super addicting game loop. If you're like me, you're gonna spend hours customizing your team, planning moves and figuring out the best strategies to reach your mission goals. The game is dangerous that way, it's a real time-sinker :D

It's a bit of a pity that the game has so little to offer in terms of story. Don't get me wrong, the writing is good when it comes to worldbuilding. It can be very on the nose but also has its subtle moments that I came to appreciate. However, the "plot" is barely existent and you don't really form any relationships to characters...which is probably for the better since they are all going to die anyway :D But anyway, I can't help but feel that there was potential for more in this regard. I see this game in my mind that uses the gameplay, art, and worldbuilding of Into the Breach but in a linear, more story-oriented game. This is not that game. It's still a banger though.

Systematically hyper-elegant and aesthetically pristine—a blend of the grid-based tactics of XCOM with the casually-accessible addictiveness of, say, Candy Crush. Infinitely replayable, with a smorgasbord of different mechs to try and achievements to unlock; and there was even recently an update to include more enemy types, pilot abilities, and scenarios… as if the game even needed them.

Though there is a hint of RNG in the defense mechanics and enemy spawns, dice rolls are thankfully mostly absent, and so failures and successes feel 99% player-owned. No map feels unbeatable from the outset—every possible outcome is there in plain sight, to be poured over; every mechanic is explained using only the lightest of touches, and a refresher is only ever an R-button-hold away. There’s essentially nothing to frustrate, or confuse. The fun is triple-distilled.

Really, it’s the kind of video game that makes you want to make video games; and if you already do make video games, it’s the kind of video game that makes you pissed off that YOU didn’t make it… and likely never will make anything as nonchalantly fucking brilliant.

Into the Breach chega muito perto de ser um jogo tático perfeito; tão perto que a única coisa que me impede de classificá-lo como tal é a hesitação natural de rotular algo como "perfeito". Dois elementos chave o fazem ser tão bem-sucedido: seu foco em fazer mais com menos e sua quase total transparência com o jogador.

Uma consequência muito vantajosa do primeiro ponto para um jogo tático é que tudo importa. Por mais que eu goste de jogos de estratégia maçantes e cheios de bilhões de sistemas, admiro essa abordagem minimalista de Into the Breach. São poucos mechas, poucos inimigos, poucas armas, poucos tipos de missões... Até aspectos mais abstratos, como os atributos das unidades, é diminuto - nunca vi uma com mais de 7 de HP e as partidas nunca duram mais de 5 turnos. Por conseguinte, cada movimento em falso ou dano bobo é potencialmente catastrófico.

O segundo ponto reforça o primeiro. A cada turno, o game mostra quais movimentos os inimigos do mapa vão fazer com todos os detalhes, eliminando a necessidade de antecipar as ações do adversário. Assim, Into the Breach consegue ser um jogo quase puramente tático. Boa parte do meu tempo com o jogo foi olhando imóvel para a tela por meia hora e pensando "e agora, qual meu próximo movimento?". Finalmente achar a resposta para essa pergunta e executar minha tática com perfeição, exterminando o esquadrão inimigo com maestria, fazia-me sentir-me um verdadeiro gênio. Isso é muito mais um reflexo da inteligência dos devs em criar cenário táticos tão bem montados do que do que qualquer forma de esperteza minha, claro.

Mas o mais impressionante de tudo pra mim é como um game assim minimalista e transparente ainda consegue ser tão variado. Já que literalmente tudo importa, qualquer mudança, por menor que seja, faz uma enorme diferença. Cada um dos esquadrões que o jogo te dá acesso abre um novo leque de oportunidades táticas para você experimentar - e a geração procedural de conteúdo garante que nenhuma partida seja igual a outra.

Tl;dr: ItB é como aqueles puzzles de xadrez em que você tem que descobrir como dar xeque-mate em 1~3 movimentos, mas com mechas e insetos gigantes.

Chess, but for killing monsters with awesome robots.

Probably the most returned to game I've ever played. It is fun, accessible but challenging, and keeps you wanting to complete every achievement – completing specific wins and unlocking bonus squads.

The design is beautiful, the soundtrack is perfect. Such a great game.

Gameplay: Great
Story: OK
Controls: Great
Graphics: Good for what it is.
Length: Great
Replayability: High

this game makes me feel like the dumbest motherfucker alive.

and i love it. never has a strategy game so beautifully crafted a CONSTANTLY tense experience without making situations feel completely hopeless. every single turn in this game feels like the odds are completely against you, but never is there a situation that you cannot get out of. every randomly generated playthrough is refined to where you can perfectly beat it through your own cunning. this game makes me feel like the smartest motherfucker alive.

every situation, every element, every aspect of this game is equal parts smart and fuckin' cool. you can technically beat this game in 5 hours but due to the amount of things in it and the sheer joy playing it gives me, i can (and certainly will) put way more in. this game makes me the happiest motherfucker alive.

Has some of the best mechanics in any turn-based tactics game, with units that attacks can be used to move enemies out of favourable positions and allies into them on top of dealing damage. Players have multiple objectives to consider while, such as preventing unit damage, preventing city damage, collecting upgrades and preventing enemies from spawning. Sadly, the game is very snowbally, so the better you get at the game, the less interesting it becomes, and the game isn't particularly hard so that doesn't take long, but it still has a solid foundation for a TBT game.

Com a entrada dessa versão atualizada de Into the Breach no catálogo de jogos da Netflix, decidi jogar de novo, o que tinha sido um dos melhores jogos que joguei em 2020.

E esse é um dos jogos com o design mais funcional e perfeito que já vi, praticamente um Xadrez 2077!

Into the Breach se encaixou muito bem no mobile, quase como se tivesse sido pensado para ser assim desde o começo. Excelente!

I should start by clarifying that I think that Into the Breach is more or less a flawless game. I docked this one star for purely personal reasons - namely, that puzzle-based strategy games like these generally don’t mesh with my tastes. I have immense respect for this game’s design, yet I can’t quite find it in me to love it. Thus I ended up as a person who played this for 25-30 hours and moved on instead of one of the numerous people I’ve seen online who continue to put in hundreds or even thousands of hours.

The general hook is fine enough (especially true if you are more into mechs and / or kaiju than I am): you guide a team of mechs in grid-based battles against giant alien bugs called Vek. As with the best strategy puzzlers, what at first seems simple is in fact deceptively complex. The degree of complexity is deep without being over-complicated or obtuse. Most impressive of all, much of the game’s complexity is determined by player opt-in. There’s the typical choice of difficulty level, sure, but you can also choose to proceed to the final fight having beaten only two of the game’s four islands (having trouble with the Ice Island?? Being stuck doesn’t mean that you can’t still beat the game). As you play more, you can also unlock different mech squads, with varying levels of difficulty based on the squad’s abilities. I find the base squad well-balanced and appropriately challenging to play with, but those looking to pilot a different strategy (i.e. damage over time, using movement abilities, inflicting status effects, etc.) will have plenty of options. You will also progressively unlock new mech pilots who have unique perks throughout the game. Some perks, like the ability to move after firing on an enemy, are straight-up overpowered, while others are more specialized. Choosing islands, mech squads, pilots, and upgrades makes for an very impressive array of interesting decisions for each run-through. It also makes for a game that has probably the best example of player-selected difficulty that I know of. When I just wanted a quick, relaxing run, I would choose my preferred mech squad, the best available pilots, and probably finish out with the final fight after only two islands. On the other hand, when I wanted a challenge, I could test out a newer squad, take some of the harder-to-use pilots, and try play through all four islands before the finale. The degree to which the game allows you make it quick and breezy or punishing and tense depending on player preference is genuinely outstanding.

I know I’ve talked a lot about difficulty - logically enough, that’s because this game is hard. Thankfully, it’s hard in a satisfying way. This is a game that will force you to make sacrifices to achieve your goal. You will run into situations (especially on higher difficulties), where you will be forced to put your best pilot in the path of a killing blow in order to save the mission. This can produce a lot of tension, but it never became frustrating for me. I think the key to this is that the game gives you perfect knowledge of what the enemy will do on their next move. Now, this might seem like an unfair advantage for the player - it is the rough equivalent of knowing what your opponent’s next move will be in chess, after all. But having this information is actually necessary for the game to work, because the enemy is stronger than you. The Vek have more units, more movement capabilities, and sometimes more health or damage capability than the mechs - the only way make these advantages not seem totally unfair is to offer the player clear information about what they will do next. It ends up working so well - again, I can’t really overstate the sense of tension that this game generates without ever tipping over into frustration.

Puzzlers and strategy are not my thing. Doubly true for mechs and kaiju. But Into the Breach’s beautifully tuned mechanics ultimately made me toss aside my reservations. It’s a hell of a game, one that even a skeptic like me can’t help but recommend.

Mech. Chess.

With dozens of unique abilities and a heavy emphasis on unit manipulation, Into the Breach takes a comparatively stale turn-based tile strategy game and makes it an absolute hell, where every turn becomes about taking precise tools to strategically turn an overwhelming enemy swarm against itself. On the highest difficulties, every turn feels tense, every motion feels deliberate, every cost feels calculated. Every moment where you think you're going to lose a building or core resource, only to figure out the perfect dance of attacks and movement to solve the situation, is a gem. I have never, never played a game more consistent at rewarding you for Eureka moment solutions.

If I have any complaints, it is that the balance of some of the classes are a bit off, but that feels nearly insubstantial compared to how good the rest of the game is.

If you liked Advance Wars or Fire Emblem, play this game.

The more I play this, the more I love it. An elegant little game with exactly the right scope for a tactics game to make it near endlessly enjoyable. It has become my go-to game when I've got a few minutes (see: what I do during every Webex meeting I have to sit through in a work day).

Would call this a perfect game except there is something about the randomness of the first turn that drives me a little crazy. Just for instance: playing the train maps, especially on the later islands, feels almost like a crap shoot as to whether I will have any chance of saving the train. Four or five enemies and they all either target the train or post up in its path on the first turn? Oh well! This doesn't happen in the majority of instances, but it's really frustrating when it does.