Units can be upgraded with up to three offense, defense, and support modules as well as gain experience over time, but a unit with three late-game mods doesn’t do a lot more damage than one with three early game mods, they just have more roles available. It’s true that almost every node of military research expands your toolbox, but it's mostly side-grades for what you already have. While the unit variety available through the tech tree is strong (not even factoring in the wild and wonderful neutral units you can recruit on each map to change things up further), I felt I was missing a sense of meaningful progression at times. I loved how each army forced me to change my thinking and develop new doctrines. The Kir'Ko couldn't be further from that, dishing out high melee damage and hive-mind abilities that encourage you to attack in clusters. The Vanguard feel like a pretty typical XCOM squad, relying on firing lines and overlapping fields of overwatch to gain ranged superiority. Battles are long enough to build some excitement and allow for fun and tactical decision-making, but quick enough that each turn doesn't get bogged down.Īnd the battles are a lot of fun, too – especially considering how different and interesting each of the factions are once the plasma starts to fly. Other hybrid 4X games could learn a lot from Planetfall in that department. This is long enough to build some excitement and allow for fun and tactical decision-making, but quick enough that each turn doesn't get bogged down with several XCOM missions' worth of combat. Developer Triumph Studios has triumphed in striking a tricky pacing balance, with battles usually lasting around three to five turns. On the bright side, getting to the end has a great flow whether you’re on story or random maps. There are a variety of victory conditions, from political unification to deploying a doomsday device, but without those meaningful storylines steering me toward them I just wasn’t as excited to get there. The one downside is that once I looked beyond these hand-crafted scenarios (of which there are 13 in all and take anywhere between one and several hours to complete) the random maps that make up the meat of Planetfall felt lacking in comparison.
I found these to be the most entertaining part of Planetfall, challenging me to explore ancient ruins, get to know named and voiced characters, chase forbidden secrets, and navigate sometimes complex politics that often pit different ideologies within the same base faction against one another.
You can get to know each of the factions through a handful of well-written, quest-driven story scenarios set on pre-made maps that help flesh out their place in the galaxy. But if you want to get weird, there are plenty of intriguing alternatives, like the melee-focused insectoid Kir’ko, and the creepy-as-hell cybernetic Assembly. The Vanguard are standard-issue humans who have been in cryosleep since before the collapse, and they offer a great starting point both for their familiar style of conventional warfare with guns and tanks, and the fact that they know about as much about the current state of things as you do on your first campaign. Hundreds of years ago, the galaxy-spanning Star Union collapsed, and each of the interesting and distinct factions of Planetfall represents some splinter group of survivors that went their own way in the aftermath. The far-future setting has layers of complexity without feeling overly complicated. A little more sense of tech progression and deeper base building wouldn't have hurt, though. From its six over-the-top sci-fi factions spewing lasers, acid bile, and personality all over the randomly generated planets to the way it manages to finely balance its pacing between a traditional 4X campaign and XCOM-style tactical battles, there is plenty to praise. It didn't take long for me to take a liking to Age of Wonders: Planetfall.
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