the best levels in this are the quests that require you to beat a stage in 1 turn. they require some level of strategising that the rest of the game doesn’t really need (even on the highest difficulty that i was playing). otherwise the gameplay is not very interesting which is unfortunate as i love a good turn based strategy game. the biggest issue is that all the characters feel incredibly interchangeable, and that there are only a few different goals used in the levels so they all end up playing similarly. these issues remind me a lot of some of the worst fire emblem games (ie three houses), but at least those are part of a series where i have an inherent enjoyment of the basic gameplay loop.

the story is nothing notable, though i do find the use of communist aesthetics to be quite funny considering the near-conservativeness of the game this is a spin-off to. but (due to said conservativeness) that is all they are; aesthetics.