Seemingly simple but surprisingly challenging

***People are complaining about a change to TOS/EULA - recently, these needs to be taken into consideration before purchasing and playing it. Seems like invasive Information Collection and Usage. Likely to monetize your data.
***Check the TOS, and Privacy Policy before using this software.
XCOM 2 is a tactical top-down turn based game, with grid-based movement. In the game you have to complete missions, where you select your squad, gear them up accordingly, then drop in and get the objectives done.
Positioning is everything in this game, as you have zero cover, half cover, or full cover depending on what your squad members are standing next to. Same with the enemies. By positioning carefully before a fight breaks out, or before you are discovered (you typically start off not being seen by the enemy and have some time/turns to get into position, or scout around) you can minimize damage and casualties to your squad, and maximize damage and kills at the start of the encounter. This is imperative to do properly, as you can and quite likely will lose the whole game. Yes this is a game you can outright lose, if you are not efficient with your turns inside missions and in general. For instance, if too many of your squad members get wounded, or killed in a mission, you may not have enough left to field for the next one, and on higher difficulties this can result in a total loss pretty easily.
When not in a mission it is tactical in how you build your base, what missions you take on, and how you tech out your base/squad etc. You have to plan carefully and not waste turns, otherwise you will find yourself hitting a wall, and having to reload previous saves, or possibly find that it doesnt matter, you may perform so badly that it makes more sense to start the game over and use different approaches.
I played on veteran difficulty, and got in to a situation my first time through where I could not progress, my fighters were not strong or plentiful enough, and I was being ambushed by both a UFO and a special monster character at the same time, it was quite literally impossible to beat or avoid, so I restarted from the beginning to use what I had learned to do a better job avoiding that situation, rather than backtracking saves, as I felt I had made too many mistakes from the get go. Also made sure to save far more often, and replay missions went poorly, so I always had a strong enough squad going forward. Though it does feel a bit like cheating, save-scumming so much, it was necessary for me to beat the game on veteran mode, since I had 0 prior experience in the game.
Veteran is not the hardest difficulty, so I was a bit shocked at how poorly I performed, thinking myself a strategic genius. There are just too many things in missions you cannot account for, your first time through. Like where enemies will appear, how reinforcements come about, and how to optimize positioning to not only survive the fights, but get the mission objectives completed. Due to this I recommend playing through on an easier difficulty your first time through it, so you don't have to be near perfect in your execution. Otherwise you will end up restarting missions several times to pull off perfect runs, or close enough.
Grenades are your best friends, use them wisely.
Each squad member starts off as a recruit, and levels up as they get kills and complete missions, the first level you get to choose between a few different types of unti you want to spec them as. Such as sniper, engineer, ranger etc. There is further customization by finding or teching up items, and each level after choosing their spec has decisions on passive bonuses and abilities you can pick from, like improved sniping, or movement, hiding, healing etc.
You can keep purchasing recruits and training them up, but your funds are limited and are necessary for upgrading your base/tech, so you have to decide on how to spend those limited resources and balance building your base and your forces. Also have to prioritize what missions you tackle well, and what sites you visit, as you cant do everything, you wont have enough turns to do every mission so every choice needs to be carefully weighed.
Seems simple enough, but having a turn limits BETWEEN and DURING missions really cranks up the difficulty and makes the decision making each turn quite critical. Also, unexpected situations can really force you on the back-foot and make you really think about how you proceed, to get out of sticky situations.
I found this game to be quite fun and a bit addictive, even though I was definitely outclassed on Veteran difficulty, it became something I HAD to beat. Good for replayability as well, from what I understand some people can play this game near endlessly. For me, its something I might revisit after a long break, and attempt it again on a harder difficulty to test myself against.
I purchased a bundle on steam, on sale. which gave me tons of content for an affordable price, including war of the chosen, which seems like the same campaign, with slight variations. I can't quite remember though, would be worth researching exactly what you are getting, because just getting the base game is probably more than adequate for most players.
The story.... Exists. To give you a sense of direction and to set the stage for the game. It's obviously not a story game/masterpiece, but it's adequate enough to make you feel like you are doing something. Resisting an Alien takeover of the planet, and the complete subjugation of mankind. You are the resistance, and... Well.... Don't fail!
✓What I Liked
- •Addictive and Challenging
- •Replayability
- •Critical thinking skills put to the test
✗What I Didn't Like
- •BEWARE INVASIVE TOS/EULA -
- •INFORMATION COLLECTION & USAGE
- •Too hard/unforgiving for lots of people