First things first: So far I have played Fort Freiheit once and four times the random encounters. Also, I’ve played very differently from how I would have in a persistent campaign, as I was more willing to sacrifice soldiers.
So far, Phoenix Point looks to me very promising. I understand that this is early alpha, so I won’t go on about the odd bugs or balancing, since everything is subject to change anyway. However, there are a few things I still wanted to adress.
Free Targeting:
I love the idea of free targeting. To be able to shoot and destroy cover, or (roughly) target limbs on enemies.
However, as of now, it is too powerful. Being able to disable specific limbs even on the crabman with everyone made the firefights pretty easy, as everything you have to do is shoot at his gun/pincer and he is essentially out of the game. I feel like this should be an ability, usable only for certain classes, or cost willpoints (it takes more mental energy to aim down instead of just firing in the general direction). Again, I love the ability in and of itself, but right now it simply feels too strong.
Classes:
Aka: “The walking tank”, “What a nice gun you have there, would be a shame if someone shot your arm off”, and “The grenade lobbers”
While it is probably moot to talk about classes at this stage, I still feel like it should be adressed.
The heavy was in all games my main working horse. In three of the games I played he was the last man standing and still managed to win the mission. The Sniper has pulled his weight too, disabling enemy weapons with pretty good accuracy. The assault however … I tried to keep them alive until the queen arrived, they threw their grenades… and after that point they became glorified decoys. While the other two fill their roles as specialists pretty well, the assaults felt … lacking. They did all, but nothing really well. Mostly they were running around, opening crates, before they got killed. Which brings me to my next point.
Inventory system:
Again, I am aware that this system is probably just placeholder, a very basic version of what will be in the final game. Still, I find it odd that, while enemies drop their weapons on death, I cannot use the equipment of fallen soldiers. Or at least, I couldn’t find the equipment, if they dropped something. I feel like it should be possible to loot the corpses of fallen soldiers for their weapons and ammuntion, to retrieve any equipment so it’s not lost.
I’ve had, and still have, alot of fun with this very early version of the game, and I’m looking forward to the next iteration!