Like many of you I have been getting bombarded with adds for the mobile game Tacticus. After I learned that my brother also played the game I thought I would dive in and give it a try. I have been playing for about a week and have some mixed feelings that I will explore below.
Gameplay Loop:
The gameplay of Tacticus revolves around leading 5-person teams in missions to eliminate your opponents. There are several variations on this:
- Campaign: typically revolving around some narrative (Indomitus, Cadia, etc.) that pits one faction against the other. Also included is a mirror campaign from the other sides point of view. The narrative is very light, pretty much completely ignorable.
- Arena: Pit your five man team against an AI controlled team of another players. You can have a mix of any characters fro many faction here.
- Salvage Run: Basically run around the board grabbing in-game currency before the time limit runs out
- Onslaught: Survive waves of enemies, good for leveling up, missions and getting some in game currency.
- Guild Raids: When you join a guild you can fight bosses that give (yet more) in game currency.
- Seasonal Challenges: These are event based and change through the year.
The gameplay is pretty fun and battles are over in a few minutes. The missions have a mechanic that allows you to auto-replay them instantly to get rewards (at a small cost) and are challenging. The game does a good job of not punishing you for getting wailed on by better players/hard events which is nice. Getting used to the in-game currency is confusing as there are at least eight you need to regularly track. Newbie tip: always save your requisitions until you get 10 as the rewards are significantly better!
The Grind and Monetization:
This is a classic gatcha game that tries to lure you in before getting you to spend money bit by bit. Unfortunately, this game is heavily monetized in that they constantly bombard you with deals of very dubious value. This is also one of the grindiest games I have ever played. I have been playing for a few weeks and still feel massively under-powered. The developers do give out some codes to help, but are so tight-fisted as to make it almost laughable. The funny thing is this game is set up to be so resource intensive it makes it harder to justify making purchases. Your best bet are to unlock specific characters, but even then it will take a week of grinding to get them into a usable state. New players, expect to struggle and get locked out of unlocking character in events until (I hope) a few months in. If you are a patient gamer and don’t worry about the power imbalances, it can be a rewarding game to play for 30 minutes a day and then comfortably ignore until the next day. There is little to encourage long playing sessions, though playing daily is highly encouraged.
Feel and Theme:
I wanted to end on an encouraging note, and I think Tacticus does do its setting justice. This game feels like a 40k game (although, perhaps a little hero-heavy.) They are starting to release the Tyranids and have a decent swathe of factions available, especially the major ones. By not being PVP focused, it allows you to build a team and buff them based on your own whims which is good. You rarely play against other people, and can buff most units to be really strong.
Final Verdict:
Overall, I would rate the game as “Okay”. It has more potential then I thought when going in, but it is held back by in-game currency management, over-monetization and stingy devs. The game does have some fun potential when combining characters, and is structured to reward single-player modes which I really enjoy. If you are looking for a low-key game to play once a day, or a game with challenging content you have to grind for I can recommend it. If you get put off by a lot of repeat missions, or slow progression I would look elsewhere.
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