Super Dungeon Tactics could look like a mobile game or a game for kids, but it got me by surprise, I played a great game and replay it is as great.
It's coming from a tabletop but with some key changes in rules they transformed it in a great Tactic RPG.
It's a very original game because of two points and a half:
- The combat system is rather unique, with a nice depth, and a system that counters very well a classic problem in turn based combats, routine.
- The party building is rather bizarre but again rather deep, and the game design fits well the approach of designing the party before each quest that is a series of missions, even if it's not mandatory.
- The half point is the equipment, beside consumables it's only unique items, and many items gain one or two characteristic depending of the character, there's 15 characters but in general those items can be used by 3 to 5 characters so have 3 to 5 variations.
Another pleasant aspect is despite it's a "nothing special" story and characters, it' still very pleasant to follow and it achieves make you curious to know "what's next".
Combat system use two designs I never saw before and quite smart:
- It mixes an initiative system and a system allowing player to choose the order he plays characters in party. The first element helps make combats more living, the second element increases significantly the tactical depth.
- At beginning of each turn all dices are thrown and their result is to activate active skills, passive skills, give damage reduction, damage bonus, speed bonus, or a malus that will depend of the character and his equipment. And then player set a dice result to each character as he wants, except it follows initiative so some special enemies will pick a dice when it's their order for turn initiative. And then the turn starts. Imagine XCOM2 giving all the random result at beginning of turn, and you choose affect each to each soldier. It's very interesting and increase tactical depth, and it makes each turn a specific problem, so it counters a lot any tentation to play routinely.
To reinforce the turn depth, the game uses a nice trick, armor take hits so low down from damages and all armor need be destroyed before to make damages to health, except for some special attacks and for effects (poison, fire, spikes). And at next turn armor is restored if the unit isn't killed.
Then some comments about party building. In fact there's no level up, character building is only based on equipments that are all unique. They provide different bonus and they provide some active and passive skills that are different for same item and each character and no item provide the exact same skill(s) to any character. So in building your characters for a party they are concurrent because items are unique, and it's rather complex as many items have specific effects for each character. So despite there's only 4 slots per character, party is from 2 to 10 so it can be rather complex and there's plenty variations and approach, even if for sure some are better than many other.
The game UI is well setup to allow build your party before a quest that is a series of mission, so you need choose characters for party picked among a roster and for each choose the equipments. As equipments available is constantly evolving, and characters roster evolves, it's constantly a different equation, so if you like build a party, it's almost paradise.
Im' quite in love with the game and I can't say it's common, so I could wrote and wrote about it, but ok that's enough.
I hope I made you curious and a few will try it. Or if some played it it's fine to beat each other in some arguing, or conclude a peace agreement from shared opinions.
EDIT: One more design element I would like highlight, aggro management is visible and predictable. It's an amount from 0 to 9, kill an enemy increases it from 1 to 3 depending of enemy strength and perhaps 4/5 for mini boss. Enemy will attack character in range with highest aggro. Aggro decrease by one for each enemy attack of the character. Plus some items will increase aggro at each turn, some other decrease it. So aggro is another element to consider and exploit when defining your tactic for the turn, and your strategy to manage the combats.
Could be a developer without much experience (didn't checked) but it seems some in the team have some extra imagination and skills for tactical design.
It's coming from a tabletop but with some key changes in rules they transformed it in a great Tactic RPG.
It's a very original game because of two points and a half:
- The combat system is rather unique, with a nice depth, and a system that counters very well a classic problem in turn based combats, routine.
- The party building is rather bizarre but again rather deep, and the game design fits well the approach of designing the party before each quest that is a series of missions, even if it's not mandatory.
- The half point is the equipment, beside consumables it's only unique items, and many items gain one or two characteristic depending of the character, there's 15 characters but in general those items can be used by 3 to 5 characters so have 3 to 5 variations.
Another pleasant aspect is despite it's a "nothing special" story and characters, it' still very pleasant to follow and it achieves make you curious to know "what's next".
Combat system use two designs I never saw before and quite smart:
- It mixes an initiative system and a system allowing player to choose the order he plays characters in party. The first element helps make combats more living, the second element increases significantly the tactical depth.
- At beginning of each turn all dices are thrown and their result is to activate active skills, passive skills, give damage reduction, damage bonus, speed bonus, or a malus that will depend of the character and his equipment. And then player set a dice result to each character as he wants, except it follows initiative so some special enemies will pick a dice when it's their order for turn initiative. And then the turn starts. Imagine XCOM2 giving all the random result at beginning of turn, and you choose affect each to each soldier. It's very interesting and increase tactical depth, and it makes each turn a specific problem, so it counters a lot any tentation to play routinely.
To reinforce the turn depth, the game uses a nice trick, armor take hits so low down from damages and all armor need be destroyed before to make damages to health, except for some special attacks and for effects (poison, fire, spikes). And at next turn armor is restored if the unit isn't killed.
Then some comments about party building. In fact there's no level up, character building is only based on equipments that are all unique. They provide different bonus and they provide some active and passive skills that are different for same item and each character and no item provide the exact same skill(s) to any character. So in building your characters for a party they are concurrent because items are unique, and it's rather complex as many items have specific effects for each character. So despite there's only 4 slots per character, party is from 2 to 10 so it can be rather complex and there's plenty variations and approach, even if for sure some are better than many other.
The game UI is well setup to allow build your party before a quest that is a series of mission, so you need choose characters for party picked among a roster and for each choose the equipments. As equipments available is constantly evolving, and characters roster evolves, it's constantly a different equation, so if you like build a party, it's almost paradise.
Im' quite in love with the game and I can't say it's common, so I could wrote and wrote about it, but ok that's enough.
I hope I made you curious and a few will try it. Or if some played it it's fine to beat each other in some arguing, or conclude a peace agreement from shared opinions.
EDIT: One more design element I would like highlight, aggro management is visible and predictable. It's an amount from 0 to 9, kill an enemy increases it from 1 to 3 depending of enemy strength and perhaps 4/5 for mini boss. Enemy will attack character in range with highest aggro. Aggro decrease by one for each enemy attack of the character. Plus some items will increase aggro at each turn, some other decrease it. So aggro is another element to consider and exploit when defining your tactic for the turn, and your strategy to manage the combats.
Could be a developer without much experience (didn't checked) but it seems some in the team have some extra imagination and skills for tactical design.
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