I recommend: Into the Breach

 Once more old Friend

You know I am a sucker for not taking advice. I cannot count how many times I've heard people sing the praises of Into the Breach, even watched reviews were people played the darn thing, and yet it seems I never listen because I didn't play it. I looked at the thing and somehow managed to convince myself that it looked too 'complex' and 'intimidating', but now I think about it that must have been self conjured roadblocks that I decided just from hearing the premise. But now I'm in a more enlightened state, and more importantly I've started watching Neon Genesis Evangelion, this mech themed rougelite seemed a lot more accessible. So yes, I literally only started playing 'Into the Breach' this year and am in the middle of having my extended delayed adoration for it, but this is a series built for just such moments and so here we are. For anyone who still hasn't given it a shot, let me tell you why this inexpensive indie romp is worth your time.

First let me get to the premise and you'll start to understand why I assumed this game would be a lot more intimidating than it it. (Or maybe you won't and I'll just end up looking like a big baby, either way) The world is currently under attack by subterranean insect alien-monsters called the Locu- I mean the Vek. You're job is to protect a chain of corporation-run islands that are researching a way to defeat them by piloting huge role-specific mechs and having tactical battles in populated city areas wherein you try your hardest to limit civilian casualties. It's a unforgiving battle where mistakes can cost you hundreds of lives as well as precious resources and the cost of failure is the end of the entire world. In such a scenario there is nothing you can do but pick anyone surviving of your crew to travel back in time and try the whole thing again. Yep, the stakes are that huge. You're literally dealing with the destruction of the entire world across multiple timelines. Sounds pretty heavy, right? Well, actually I'm being honest when I say that Into the Breach is one of the most accessible and easy to play Rougelites I've ever touched.

Straight away the game gives you a set of easy to understand Mech units and a comprehensive checkerboard to fight your enemy on, and the game never really muddies it's mechanics for that point onwards. (With some slight exceptions, but nothing that felt truly fun breaking.) As a unit you have two actions, a move and an attack, (in that order) therefore you're incentivised to use those moves in order to destroy the enemies in your area over small 5 turn battles across very manageable battle boards. The quirk comes in that you also have to protect the many civilian buildings on each map which the monster will aim for pretty much just as often as they'll aim for you. Subset Games ensured you'd care by attaching a global energy meter to the top of the screen which goes down with every destroyed building and once it reaches zero, your mechs can no longer function and the timeline is doomed. That bar is pretty much your only total balance check, and you can get away with any other blunder as long as that bar doesn't hit zero. Thus, you have your game pretty much laid out.

Units are very easy to come to grips with but, in the manner of all great gameplay systems, intriguing and rewarding to master. Take the starting units for instance; you have a Mech that simply walks up to the enemy and punches them, forcibly moving them a square in the process; another which is a tank that can fire once in a straight line to a similar knockback, and a final artillery mech which can also fire in a line but can do so over buildings, and it's shot knocks all surrounding enemies away from the damage site. Very straightforward, as I find myself belabouring quite a bit, but the nuance comes in the utility and complications of this moveset. For example, all of the attacks for these mechs just happen to knock back enemies, well that can be used to move an enemy that was lined up to destroy a building so that his shot goes wide. What's more, if that enemy is pushed against another object, be that building, mountain or another enemy, they take extra damage. (And so does the object)

As you'll likely have been picking up from the screenshots and my description, this all makes the grid layout of the game extremely apt and useful, because you'll be spending a lot of time figuring out ways to, not necessarily kill all Vek, but manipulate them so that they're no longer a problem, or even so that they attack each other. And considering that over the 5 turn matches new Vek Units pop out of the ground all the time, you'll be needing to be thinking bigger than just brute forcing your enemy anyway. This is when strategy starts to take over as the complicating factor in the game design, and it creates a experience that's intrinsically enjoyable. I suppose that's what I'm coming to really appreciate about the Rougelite genre of games; it's all about intrinsic skills that you carry through, with the extrinsic baubles just becoming bonuses.

That being said, there is that randomised element which makes these Rougelite games so unpredictable and thus fun. On the base level there's the map themselves which change each run, but even deeper than that you have the bonus challenges for each map. Bonuses are the beating heart of the gameplay, because as much you want to balance killing Vek with protecting the public, having to take a hard decision for promise of spendable currency can really stick a backbone behind the whole thing. The Currency, reputation, is only spendable at the end of each island and used to buy new tools for your mechs and upgrades for old ones. It's perhaps the most important resource you need to rely on if you want to shift the tide and face the ever more difficult waves of enemies, thus juggling these challenges can sometimes override your obligation to protect the defenceless as heartless as that sounds. It can be as insignificant as choosing not to knock an enemy out of the way of a building in order to destroy a dam with that shot, but it'll reward you with reputation and cost almost a hundred people their lives. The real question is whether you can sacrifice that hit to your energy, and that's another way in which this game manages to keep concepts simple while the ideas behind them give them legitimate weight. (Of course, once you've abandoned 12 timelines straight and are autopiloting the first two islands; that's also the kind of decision you'll make without batting an eyelid. Oh, desensitisation...)

The best part of Into the Breach is how pick and play it is. I can literally go through a full playthrough of the game in under 50 minutes, maybe even less if I'm being particularly stupid this run and get everyone killed. (Or rather, abandon the timeline the second things get a little too out of hand.) Replay value is lent simply by the randomised elements to the bonus system and maps as well as the unlockable new Mech squads who completely shift up the gameplay in ludicrously significant ways. I particularly love the Rusting Hulks who specialise in generating smoke clouds that instantly cancel enemy attacks. They get really interesting in the way that a storm generator can make these clouds do damage at the end of each round, thus making them a great passive-damage class. (Plus, I love seeing a map fill up with so many clouds that the enemy has no choice but to stop targeting buildings and come after me. It makes me feel like I've really managed to stump the AI)  But then there's also the Blitzkrieg that rely on chain attacks, the Frozen Titans who are masters of locking down the enemy or the Hazardous Mechs who damage themselves as much as the enemy. (And more, of course) So many different playstyles lie in the squad you pick alone that the diversity really throws hours more playtime onto this already fairly rich game.

Into the Breach is like a game of randomly generated puzzle solving, and if you've read my several Hitman blogs you know how much I love a puzzle game. Whatsmore, the game looks great with it's classic stylisation and fun use of colours. (Saving the world from it's impending insectile doom has never been so fun!) As with Heat Signature, playing so many games of different genres ends up making me really appreciate these smaller games that offer a great bite-sized experience that I take a chunk of whenever I want to without having to sit down and mark off an entire night to it. I still love my hundred hour RPGs, don't get me wrong, but quality variety will always have a place around me. And Into the Breach is one of the most high-quality, ingeniously crafted indie games I've ever played. I definitely recommend you give it a go and see just how much mileage this deceptively simple title can grant you,