Summary
You’d be forgiven for not havingTactical Breach Wizardson your radar till now. Despite the valiant efforts of many a journalist (including our own Ben Sledge,who wrote about the demo back in June), indie games don’t generally garner enough attention to be on the forefront of everyone’s minds upon release.
Now that it’s out, though, it’s turning out to be a sleeper hit. The game’s got an 87 percent averageon OpenCritic, is awe-inspiringly near the top ofSteam’s Top Sellers list (developer Tom Francistweeted joyouslyabout being right beneathBlack Myth: Wukongand theSteam Deckon launch day), and has a 98 percent Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam with over 1,500 reviews. If you weren’t paying attention before, you should be now.
Pick It Up, Don’t Put It Down
I have so many unplayed demos on my PC that it’s starting to give me anxiety whenever I look at my Steam library. Each of these demos tops out at roughly an hour in length, and playing them all would take me a weekend at most. And yet instead of doing that, I spent that time playing nothing but Tactical Breach Wizards. Within hours of starting it on Friday evening, I was completely hooked.
Tactical Breach Wizards has been compared to XCOM over and over, because of its turn-based tactics gameplay that’s as flexible as it is compelling. You control a team of kooky and lovable (if morally grey) superpowered characters – a doctor who can bring people back from the dead, a time-manipulating military man who lives with his mother, a failed private investigator who’s also a witch, and more – as they work together to take down their enemies as efficiently as possible, which often involves pushing them out of windows and off moving trains.
That efficiency is the hook. It’s rarely a requirement – very few levels require you to clear a room in a specific number of turns – but the gameplay and strategy are so compelling that you can’t help but want to replay levels over and over till you get your mission done as cleanly as possible. In combination with the optional objectives for each character (completion rewards you with confidence points you can then spend on sick new outfits), there is a shocking amount of replayability wrapped into this game.
As if that’s not enough, there are also optional missions outside of the main campaign you can complete whenever you feel like it.
And the strategy itself is impeccably executed. Since one of your team is a chronomancer, you’re able to plot out your moves and play them out to see how everything will shape up, and rewind your turn to try something else if you don’t like the result. As you level up your characters over time, they get new skills and points to upgrade existing ones, and there’s quite a lot of depth in how you can customise skills to suit your preferred playstyle. You can even go back and play earlier levels with those unlocked and upgraded skills to get those delicious confidence points you missed out on.
A Comedy With Heart And Political Intrigue
Perhaps even more impressive than the incredibly compelling tactical gameplay is how its inherent comedy feels so in harmony with Tactical Breach Wizards’ overarching story. The game’s tone is pitch perfect, holding its irreverent, self-aware characters in gorgeous tension with its rather serious plot.
As the game spirals out into a conspiracy spanning countries, rebel insurrections and political manoeuvring, it takes its own politics entirely seriously, but its characters don’t always feel the same. They have selfish reasons for doing the right thing, but they’re doing it nonetheless. As it tackles the extraordinarily difficult topic of authoritarian, religious oppression in the pursuit of power, it does so while also giving you the giggles, and it never feels contrived or forced.
This is reinforced by a number of mechanics. Before you breach a door and enter a new level, your characters have hilarious conversations about what’s going on in their lives, how they feel about other members of the team, and how much they hate the Traffic Warlock named Steve who is likely going to fling a ghost car at them the moment they get in the room. As your campaign gets bigger and more complicated, you get to move things around on a map adorned with red string and sticky notes pithily describing events, places, and people (a laAlan Wake 2) to keep you at grips with the story, the characters involved, and the conspiracy growing before your eyes.
There are even dream sequences, which are some of my favourite in the game because they feel so creative. One early-ish dream sequence has your witch, Jen, talking to a version of herself as she tries to work out her deep-rooted trauma while also taking down rooms of enemies with her clone. It’s not just self-aware and relatable, it’s tightly written and makes you fall in love with each of these weirdo, girlfail-coded characters.
What More Do You Need?
If the conspiracy board and excellent gameplay aren’t enough to tempt you, here’s one last thing: it’s asteal. It’s $20 at full price, which feels shockingly low for how well-made this game is and how much replayability it sneaks in, but it’s also 10 percent off till August 30. Please buy Tactical Breach Wizards, and you can thank me later.
