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.

Reviewed on Nov 13, 2022


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