Hey, remember Phoenix Point?

Such an awesome video, such an awesome song =)

On release I was kind of disappointed with how it played out however, I came back to it a year or two ago and I really enjoyed it.

It’s a distinct play style from similar titles.

The only reason I bought it was this first demo. It was an interesting fight, showing some far more advanced gameplay then XCom2 (that I was having ... fun... playing, and the first one). And it was fun within the first hour. And then it is all turns out to be a mess, getting boring, complicated, tasteless and repetitive. Damn, give me the sources and I will make it better in few months.

Phoenix Point just sucked compared to X com graphics wise and all

A Myrmidon doinb 125 damage in a hit to a fucking vehicle still bafles me to this day. What the fuck is that balance my dude

The gane was fun, until it required me to pump over 600 paralysis to one target to progress.

That is just lame as fuck.

War of the Chosen did not invent the idea of allied factions. Both XCOM 2 and Phoenix Point crabbed it from UFO: Aftershock (which maybe were inspired by X-COM 3), as well as the approach to the geoscape layer in general. I understand the obvious comparisons to XCOM titles cannot be avoided, interface, action economy and all, but you haven't done your homework on this one, I'm afraid.

The main issue for me, even to this day, is that there is no drive to improve the weapons of troops.

The starting gear is as good as anything else you can make with minor differences.

So i never feel like im making notable improvements with my gear.

Take my updoot for the song my man!

Ahh crap I was going to try it until you said it was like a deck builder game and I hate those games. TBH Xcom2 War of the Chosen nailed it, that's the best Xcom gameplay for me without question or competition. And I am old enough to have played the old ones at release lol

What disappointed me most was the lack of promised mod support, but the game was so disastrous from beginning to end through it's life cycle I wasn't surprised when they didn't keep that promise. I was hoping I could use mods to fix certain things that put me off the game, like being able to use only 2 cyborg upgrades.

Decided to give it another try. It's still the same unfun, unbalanced incoherent mess. A shame, it had so much potential.

After I saw my first team being a proud DEI squad and then I learned that two RUSSIAN scientists who lead a “communism finally worked out” type of faction were gay.
I was really disgusted. Thx god I didn’t have to pay for it.

I re-uploaded that game recently (Aug 2024)
Currently there's a bug. You'll explore an area and nothing happens. You'll respond to a settlement under attack and can't deploy.
So, you'll save and load the game. When loading the save, you'll be greeted with all the exploration events and missions that didn't pop-up since the last time you loaded.

"Epic exclusive" means I'm not buying it.
Ever.

Good video Rycluse, i have a minor complaint though, the music you chose halfway through the video, the one with the piano sting, can get a bit grating eventually. I don't know if this is because it's too loud, or that it's different from the rest of the music's tone, but i found it grating eventually.

Otherwise good video!

Maps are bland and boring even compared to XCOM EU

I dropped Phoenix Point when I realized snipers couldn't land any hit because EVERY GODDAMNED PIECE OF BACKGROUND ENVIRONMENTAL DECORATION COUNTED AS A FULL HARD OBSTRUCTION.

Yes. Still playing Terror From The Void on Steam

Noo

I am from the future
I am so surprised that Embracer has not shut down the studio that made Phoenix Point

I was eagerly waiting for Phoenix Point, obsessing over the lore and following all the releases. Then I just forgot about it. Strange how that happens.

The fact that this video is now 2 years old, and the game is now 100% forgotten makes this video even better.

As for the intro of the video you've missed a very important point: It's not just that they took the Epic exclusivity money, it's that they had a crowdfunding campaign, took everyone's money to make a steam game, and then... they sold off the now funded game to Epic, telling every backers in the process that the game they already paid for will now be an epic exclusive game (right at the peak of the anti Epic Exclusivity sentiment).
The backlash was so bad they had to refund people, but they didn't really care since Epic was now bankrolling them anyway.

I myself got a refund and never looked back as I never felt more disrespected in my life as a consumer.

I remember on launch you could actually just raid the bases of factions you're hostile with basically anytime you want and straight up steal resources, gear, and technologies from them, so I ended up maxing out a single faction and then just harassing two other ones for free stuff, like actually stealing the mist shield generator building tech from the science faction. I wonder if they removed it later?

Good but misguided game. I have a lot of hope for a sequel

Overrated indie game running on unity, so nothing happened besides the expected.

I was curious, started watching a playthrough. It looked cool, but oh so boring and I got frequent headaches and migraines from the ambient sounds.

The thing with the new XCOM games is that they have character, cliché but fun support personel, unique customizable characters you get attached to.

XCOM 2 doubled down on it, you get to make propaganda posters that you find on maps, you get guerilla factions, your characters form relationships, there are bosses who are so cliché, it is fun, it is engaging and it is heartbreaking.

Phoenix Point got a rather cool setting, but it is so... empty, where's my guy on the radio, my crazy scientist, my tech guy, my pilot?

"faction relations like war of the chosen"
Has this niguy not played Apocalypse?

Run by Elon Bezos 💀

It's unfortunate where it ended up. Epic isn't terrible, but many people don't want to get games there because you don't have workshop support (for mods) and the DRM is a bit suspect. I didn't get far when it first came out, and let it simmer for quite a while before I came back to it. I think that is quite a common experience. I did enjoy it a bit more when it had more meat on the bones but ultimately it didn't quite hit the spot in the same way X-Com 2 WOTC did. It's not terrible, but I feel like some elements were botched. I love the Geoscape (it is chef's kiss). I like the ammunition running short (chef's kiss). I like the aiming system even though at times it can be jank. I hated the armour sets (especially the Phoenix armour which looks like something wrestled out of an American Football stadium locker room). I wish that more time had been spent on making the soldiers (who were in scant supply) feel more like part of the family. With a bit more background. I loved those customisation options in X-Com 2. I realise you can't compare apples with bananas but still.

Honestly, the main thing as a casual gamer who likes Xcom and even Xenonauts i dislike is the premise.
It's just not the same as having something you can ground your "Reality" to. Fighting for earth against an overwhelming threat from outer space feels much more real then giant crab virus.

See, i was SUPER hyped for this game.
When the timed epic exclusivity was announced, i was frustrated for those who backed it (and the principle of making a kickstarted game exclusive after the fact), but otherwise i was pretty happy to wait for the exclusivity to end and just buy it from steam.
But in having to wait so long for it to "release" on steam, by the time it DID release i was no longer excited. Not for any specific reason, but it just fizzled out over time.
So i still havent played it

I remember posting on the XCOM subreddit about how Phoenix Point was being funded on Tim "Take the money and run" Schafer's Fig website, which basically insta-killed the game for me. I got a reply BY GOLLOP HIMSELF saying Schafer's not included, but I was like y'know, it's still on his website. When I later learned it was gonna be on the Epic Store, I felt real vindicated.

its a very good game. it was appreciated by the right people.

I love this game, the elements of strategy feel so good to me. To be honest, I've been struggling to return to the XCOM style of no free aim and no locational limb damage, these just feel so much better than "here's the chance. glhf"

This game is a whole bunch of interesting ideas wrapped in a bunch of fart sniffing crap.

Heh your song about deploying your units on missions was great. 😂

heh, remember phoenix point (video posted two years ago)

Yo guys, i got some cool ideas for an future XCOM like game if anyone wants to spite whoever owns the XCOM ip, medival XCOM but not XCOM., cavalry, berserkers, werewolf, undead knights, vampires, monsters and other things as allies, archer's, banner carriers as support, armor and weapon tiers, upgrade with Alien stuff but it's crude but also cool looking, alien power core as an shield for your castle (which can be upgraded), an medic class, witches and warlocks as psi troopers essentially, and lots more customization.oh oh and seige equipment.


More modern XCOM, like with piloted mech suits and apcs and tanks and planes and helicopters which would be pretty fricken awesome especially if we could build turrets or something.

(Im Happy and not sewerslidal)

The issue i had with the "Horizontal upgrades" as you put it is, lets say i play a souls game and want to go for magic, i can take a guess that ill have a magical dagger in the game at some point, so i just play with daggers and then eventually find it even without the wiki. Here, i have no idea what and how to get to the "magic dagger" or if it will even fit into my playstyle once i get it, hell if it will even exist.

Also all of the soldiers feeling like they are completely useless is JUST AWFUL. Like try hitting a tiny worm with a heavy soldier, i bloody dare you, and when they spam those in the early game it just sends the message that you shouldnt even use the heavy soldiers at all, its really frustrating.

Virus weapons made me quit the game. It made the game super easy and hyper annoying at the same time.
Giant enemy crab? Just panic it with virus. Oh no one of your guys got shot and now have a 20 stack of the virus. Better forget extracting them since they are basically useless for 10 turns.
Game had so much potential... I like the shooting mechanic and ability to aim at different body parts. Equipment was cool. Skills and abilities were nice. If I could mod out the dumb virus shit It would actually be pretty alright.

Also I think Phoenix Point can be best summed up by describing it as a game that was designed by a group of people who have no familiarity with game design, led by a has-been who got lucky once and still doesn't know why or how.

Yeah I remember Phoenix Point, it was a terrible game.

There were some good ideas in there, but its execution and design was a complete mess. While most people playing seemed to fail to grasp a lot of its basic concepts (somehow) properly, and struggled with every little damn thing imaginable for the dumbest reasons, they all felt justified about complaining about their struggles. That alone was infuriating, and sadly the devs even listened to some of those morons. Everyone else though could easily see the hollow shell of an "Xcom" game it was, both old and new. It tried to combine old stuff with new stuff with no fucking idea how or why any of the things from the old or new worked. Let's list the real issues:

* Shallow base/building and horrible/repetitive defence missions aside where you defend a single chokepoint with fire and everything dies
* Horribly balanced in regards to skills/weapons/tools. You could literally complete more than half the game on the hardest difficulty by merely driving around 3 naked lvl1 troops with melee weapons and bonking everything on the head by ejecting your soldiers out the back for the whack, and then pulling them back in before driving off and ending the turn. That's all there was to it. But once you decided to cave and actually level up your guys, you're literally ending nearly every mission before the end of the first turn. Wow, what a tactics game... and it's not even in fun and interesting ways, it's just spamming a few abilities and running around bonking one thing after another with a single soldier. Fucking pathetic! Never addressed. No difficulty, no puzzle, no fun for anyone but a 12yo or someone else brand new to tactics games.
* There were problems with continuity in its story in regards to how the player affected it "because I want to be able to see and do everything" no matter how it doesn't make any sense whatsoever
* Terrible mission design "Steal their technology!" "Oh okay, what do I have to do" "Spend one turn with a maxed out speed soldier to run to 3 different squares, you win!" "Oh... is that it?" "Yeah! And better yet, you can just keep repeating it without time passing! Feel free to farm whatever you want, load, click click click, load, load, click click click." You get the idea. No other mission was any better, they were all flat and boring.
* Antarctica is apparently a jungle, because global warming for 20 years. No, the answer is they didn't have time/money to actually finish this game, so there were no snow assets. They had to make sure they had DLC content ready.
* Speaking of which, 3 Shitty DLCs that did nothing but add more pointless boring shit to do, that if anything, was harder than the rest... but gave nothing worth doing it... so the best idea was to avoid doing DLC stuff even if its installed unless you're looking to challenge yourself by hamstringing your progress. Waste of time, as time makes every enemy constantly stronger every in-game week (or two?). What the actual fuck? (The game can be completed within 8 weeks pretty easily, but I'm aware most people took like 12-16 weeks for some god damn reason and complaining about difficulty. Probably because THEY'RE WASTING THEIR TIME ON THIS RETARDED MEANINGLESS BULLSHIT because they can't see value before making decisions, and the devs can't actually design games)
* Due to NUMEROUS oversights, you could essentially farm infinite resources and XP with no effort by stealing from other factions with 1-turn move missions. Costing nothing, and consuming no time.

What was good? Oh yeah, you got to point at target dummies and shoot, like in a Call of Duty training mission. Satisfaction guaranteed. Basically, if you're NEW to this planet or these types of games, yeah you might like it. You might like a lot of worthless shit for those reasons though, and eventually if you ever come back and give it another shot once you've got some skill and familiarity with these types of games, you too will see it for how shitty it is. It's like playing chess, except you're allowed to sweep your arm across the board and declare victory. Hooey.

It was the Epic exclusivity that killed it for me, because of that I honestly haven't thought about Phoenix Point until just now. PC gaming doesn't need to import the console wars culture.

XCom has one thing that all these games fuck up, and its just the ability to overwatch an area.