I mean it's XCOM gameplay, so it's fun, but it's WAY too easy in my opinion. All of your heroes and their special abilities are OP (like -- they're all immune to poison? Am I missing something? I never once got poisoned).

It didn't give me that signature XCOM headrush of barely scraping my way to a completion after losing 3/4 of my squad, and its base-building is too shallow to be truly satisfying. Fun writing and character design, and fun gameplay, just didn't quite scratch the itch I wanted it to.

Done with this after about 16 hours, having taken a big break in the middle of that to play Elden Ring. I enjoyed it, because I enjoy XCOM combat, and I like the idea of the more Hero Shooter esque thing that's happening here, but there's not enough synergy between them to really make that worthwhile. Also the timeline turn system is kinda clunky when one is used to normal XCOM turns. Not for nothing, my laptop could barely run this, so it never looked great either, and that may have colored my impression.

Não posso negar que esse jogo como um "spin off" da franquia até que diverte e entretém nas suas primeiras horas de jogo e sinceramente ele não é de todo ruim, ele tem muitas ideias interessantes que tentam fazer de diferente dos outros jogos anteriores que até poderiam ser agregados nos próximos da franquia, como por exemplo: o sistema de invasão das áreas fechadas terem uma estratégia a mais de entrada e de posicionamento da equipe, essas ideias fazem com que o jogo tenha seu estilo próprio, mas o maior problema de XCOM: "Chimera Squad" é toda a "bagagem" que a franquia carrega consigo fazendo com que esse aqui seja de fato a ovelha negra da família, é um jogo totalmente esquecível, com uma história tão rasa quanto a uma piscina infantil cheia de Bolinhas Intex onde remove toda a densidade realista e sombria que os reboots vinham trazendo com toda aquela tensão e medo de errar qualquer coisa e acabar perdendo o seu querido personagem ou até mesmo o seu save, ah e falando nisso, lembra de toda aquela customização que tinha nos dois reboots onde você criava seus personagens e afins? Então... Basicamente isso foi removido completamente para fixarem personagens já desenvolvidos na trama, que para mim era toda a graça que XCOM tinha e fazia de diferente de qualquer jogo tático, de fato, minha conclusão é que o maior problema de verdade desse game é que realmente ele não era necessário de existir, muito menos de ser um jogo próprio, funcionaria mais talvez como uma DLC...

the game is enjoyable, and if i didn't have other games that i wanted to play, i would have continued. but after beating the first faction (~7h of gameplay for me), i felt like i had seen everything the game had to offer.

the tactics gameplay is as good as ever, and i think the breach mechanic is a neat addition. the "board game"-esque strategy at home base is still fun, albeit a bit leaner than XCOM2. but the story (plus its delivery, mostly from static images) and the characters just didn't draw me in enough to keep going.

It was about halfway through the game that I thought it should end and the last quarter of it was just going through missions with characters far to powerful to ever come close to losing (it was an easy enough game even before that on the hard difficulty).

The characters have some good ability synergy, they have improved the rag doll style deaths from the previous games, and the breaching mechanics are in theory a good idea, hurt by the nonsensical auto cover taking done by your characters which wouldn't be a problem if not for the new turn style of the game where each character and each enemy take turns instead of switching side to side. So, it's great when they run in completely surrounded and leave themselves flanked by multiple enemies who will move before them.

The overworld gameplay of paying intel to create field teams that do nothing narratively but get you resources and managing city panic is basically pointless and offers nothing interesting (at least it isn't actively bad like the original XCOM's randomness). The close quarter style of maps means that you will fight in very similar locations (sometimes literally the exact same map, once even twice in a row). Some elements of the game feel unfinished, you can capture enemies with nonlethal melee or tranq rounds but they do nothing but give you extra intel, even capturing faction leaders does nothing. Equipment seems extremely limited, androids that can fill spots in your team if someone is downed are basically useless and unless you are playing on a difficulty higher than what you should be should never be used.

Mostly dull equipment and poor and extremely limited mission objectives, most that don't even work due to the small size of the maps. Disarm the bomb isn't very difficult when anyone can spend one turn walking to it to instantly disarm it. No idea why so many missions have enemy reinforcements, ever seen a robbery where after the SWAT team goes in reinforcement robbers start breaching through the walls and crashing through windows?

They likely launched the game early to beat Gears Tactics because in addition to usual XCOM visual issues and feeling unfinished in some areas there are a very large number of bugs, AI, and UI issues. I've had loaded games cancel enemy reinforcements or saves change into other past saves until the game was reset. It removed people from training when I put other people in the second. APC slots vanish, menus would open the wrong menus. Overwatch has shot downed enemies that would have moved if they were alive. Enemies that run into corners and do nothing. Enemies that flank with one action then do nothing with the other. Enemies that use attacks that can't effect (or that might even heal certain characters) only to spend the next two turns doing the same thing again. Terrible ability descriptions on top of abilities and achievements sometimes just not working correctly.

The lack of variety is not helped by each playthrough only allowing you to recruit four additional characters on top of the four that you start with preventing you from having the full roster of 11 character. Losing the ability variety and one of the only amusing things about the game which is the personalities of the characters. It even does that member selection incompetently by giving you three to pick from each time, so if you might not be able to choose who you want when you want them and because there will be four left on the last pick it might not even give you the option of the one that you wanted.

Despite being a budget spin-off XCOM title, Chimera Squad has a good portion of the ingredients that make XCOM games fun plus some new welcome additions. Most of the development staff that worked on XCOM 2 worked in this game.

Adding permanent characters to the roster is a welcome addition giving each character its own personality and skills, making it fun to explore different team combinations and upgrades. The story is not great but not bad either, it provides continuity to the previous XCOM games' story.

The game is overall on the challenging side even after playing in just the Normal difficulty. You still have rage-inducing elements from previous games such as 'misses' when your probability % is very high but I guess this wouldn't be an XCOM game without some of those annoyances.

Overall this is a very solid turn-based tactical game in the XCOM universe, and for its price point it's definitely a must own if you enjoy games in this genre.

While keeping mostly to the XCOM 2 formula, I have mixed feelings about the game play.

At first the breach mechanic felt pretty fun and fresh compared to just dropping into the map and playing around stealth in 2, and it of course plays into the whole cop thing. But after a while, they just felt they where there to justify segmenting the missions into two to four small zones. Separating a mission into smaller segments made the combat feel less rewarding, as the danger seemed smaller. A big thing from this the that you have your guys relode automatically after clearing the room. And while that makes sense, I felt like it harmed the game play because ammo management was basically unneeded as I could clear out the room without having to relode with few acceptations (I played on normal difficulty BTW). A big reason why I liked XCOM 2 was that every action you choose felt like it needed to be thought out as it could come back to bite you for many reasons. But in Chimera Squad, that feeling is gone as you only have to focus on the short term of surviving a room.

Having a small set of agents with specific skills was a good idea but some where just way better than others (Claymore and Terminal MVP). And also, why do I not get all of the agents by the end of the game? According the the wiki you don't get three out of the pool of agents, witch is kind of stupid considering that there are only 11 total that are in the pool.

The story is okay, you are this special force tracking down a conspiracy. But it falls flat when there are only two missions after taking down the last of the three faction leaders. Making the ending feel rushed as they kind of shove you into it after doing the a minimal amount of build up for it.

The thing I dislike the most about this game though was the agents as characters. The closest comparison I can make is they act like Marvel charters, as they don't seem to be taking the situation seriously and keep making the same one liner jokes. I understand that they are like elite soldiers compared to the makeshift military of 2, but I feel like they would be acting a little bit more seriously about the situation. Hell the soldiers in 2 even panicked in both the game and in their voice acting when things start to go wrong. But in Chimera Squad Terminal yells at you to make sure your almost near death bullet wound dose not get infected.

Even with that said it was a alright game, but I think XCOM 2 was better in terms of game play.

Also why where there Faceless in the game, but they never disguise themselfs? They missed the chance of having a hostage mission being a ruse with one of them pretending or something like that.

GER/EN:
In principle, you get an Xcom 2 in a slimmed-down version: shorter story events, more focus on the missions, less meta-game (base building). I think that "Chimera Squad" is the significantly worse version of "Xcom 2". But as an introduction to the series or for a quick session, it is still recommended.
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Im Prinzip erhält man ein Xcom 2 in einer abgespeckten Variante: kürzere Storyevents, mehr Fokus auf den Missionen, weniger Meta-Game (Basenbau). Ich finde, dass "Chimera Squad" die deutlich schlechtere Variante zu "Xcom 2" ist. Aber als Einstieg in die Serie oder für eine kurze Runde, ist es dennoch zu empfehlen.