Just off the top of my head, in no particular order, vastly superior TB RPG/Strategy games:
XCOM (orginal and new ones) I enjoyed the old ones (Terror from the Deep and Apocalypse) but I completely despise the new one. I bought it and tried it a couple of times. But the removal of the action point system just cripples the game far too much for me (bad cover system, bad to hit calculation and so on). Combined with nice graphics, which make it extremely unclear.
This
picture and
this picture explain very well, why I dislike the game.
This video is another perfect example.
Wasteland 2 Had a horrible, horrible character system with lots of useless skills, missing retroactivity and a horrible combat system. Game was still decent overall but man, it's mechanics were bad.
Here is my Review
Eador Played Eador. Masters of the Broken World for about 20 hours. Had some neat elements, but the combats were much longer than they should have, very tedious. One of the few games where I lost interest before finishing it.
Tale of Wuxia (including the prequel) Never played it, can't judge it.
Torment Very bad game mechanics and a character system which is 100% irrelevant. A good writing, but tons of text, not all of it really contributing a lot to the game. Good game, but to me far from being aweome.
Also got a
Review for that.
D:OS Played the original version (not EE): Good game, but imho a bad story, and the combat was so trivially easy, that on hardest difficulty I chose not to use any items like arrows and not let anyone die at any point to make it somewhat challenging.
My Review
UnderrailGreat game, great mechanics. Only the last part of the game wasn't really polished. But this one was one of the best games I played during the last years. Got a
Review as well.
Mordheim Never played it, but wasn't that a multiplayer game?
Valkyria Chronicles Never played it. Wasn't this the one where you play a bunch of school kids who drive tanks in some World War and where the Computer speed determines how fast the real time part of the combat goes?
Transistor Probably one of the biggest disappointments I had in the last years. I can't think of anything good about this game. The combat was especially bad. But also had a horrible interface. I stopped playing this game in frustration and my
"Review" is acutally more of a rant.
Shadowrun (all three of them) First one was okish but had some problems with it's saving options and shortage (and find a place for a usw for all skills in the game).
Second one was quite good. (
Review)
Third one was worse again. It lost itself in tons of dialogues which contributed nothing to the game besides of having more text. (
Review)
King's Bounty (all four of them) Never played it seriously. Cannot judge.
Blackguards 1 What a horrible game. I love The Dark Eye, and I think the character system is great. Also Daedalic is a great company. But they adapted it horribly into a computer game. You go from battlefield to battlefield and basically have to solve puzzles. Puzzles with a huge luck factor (playing on hard difficulty) and in addition very bad mechanics. I even got the physical collectors edition which had completely overpowered items and could not be activated on steam so that you had to buy the digital only expansion on some unknown third party page.
My Rant-Review
Blackguards 2 After the desaster Blackguards 1 was I couldn't have cared less.
Dead State Lots and lots of great ideas. And all of them were implemented with the use of horrible mechanics and game systems of which not two of them worked well together in any way. Man, I would have loved to see a great game here. But it just wasn't. And even the latest version is horribly unpolished.
Review
Krai Mira Haven't played. Only read that it was horrible. But cannot judge.
Hard West Unlike most of the media I actually liked this one quite a lot. Not a roleplaying game in traditional sense and not a "sandbox" tactics game like xcom either as you basically play a different person every chapter and start from zero.
Mechanics weren't really good, but worked. The story was something very unique and fun. Recommended.
Review
Warmachine Tactics… Never played, cannot judge.
One other game which I want to add here as it never gets any attention is
Halfway. Basically an X-Com-like game without basebuilding, tactical combat with "decent" mechanics, and a great mix of writing and combat. Great music and great artstyle.