Tactical Breach Wizards

It is tempting to compare this to Xcom, but you couldn't really say that. More like a second cousin. Beating the levels is more like solving a puzzle, which is annoyingly limited for the first couple but by the end you have so many cool people and powers that you can get real creative.
The written dialogue in this game really is rare quality, as others have pointed out. I think in video games is dialogue is not entirelly terrible, we are OK with it because that is not what we come for. So when actual fun dialogue comes up, it's refreshing.
It's a very solid game, deserves the A.

I went in expecting a fun quick little puzzle game. I did not expect such fantastic writing, particularly the characters.

This may not be my GotY but it was Pleasant Surprise of the Year.

Truly great! Effortlessly blends serious and silly, with both the tactical gameplay and the narrative remaining consistently satisfying until (and through) the end credits. Highly recommended!

As soon as it feels like it's losing steam it picks back up again by introducing new mechanics and characters and throwing some really interesting levels, taking full advantage of the unorthodox magic abilities the main cast has.
The story is simple but effective and the world of the game is actually kinda interesting, making for very unique characters and setting, everything in this game oozes personality.
Extremely well designed game, if you think a certain combination of abilities might do something interesting it probably will.
Big recommendation if you are looking for something shorter (13h-ish with no side challenges) that you can play at your own pace.

In short - a gem. One of the best games I played, ever. Brilliant writing, story, worldbuilding. Everything from hilarious to heart wrenching, sometimes all at once. And always extremely witty. Love the visual style (and trying to find Darrell the Cat in every cutscene!). Soundtrack perfectly on point. Gameplay is very well balanced, with the additional objectives pushing it a bit more towards a puzzle game. Maybe someday I will write a better review; probably not. This game brought me a new appreciation of playing as my hobby.

A unshockingly well designed puzzle tactics hybrid (this is a BIG positive for me, was expecting and got great design)
what blows me away is the quality of this fucking writing man. Worth the full price (the dev commentary is also fascinating) I would KILL for more of this setting

Into the Breach the obvious comparison but Tactical Breach Wizards is much more approachable. More forgiving of mistakes and opportunities to reset more plentiful so you don't get stuck in analysis paralysis worrying about tanking hours of progress. As such, experimentation is more rewarding and results in a challenging yet pleasant experience overall.

I thought the characters and dialog were cute.

Super great game, hilarious writing, fantastic gameplay, highly recommended.

Just a wonderful concept executed brilliantly. Charming characters, compelling narrative, clever dialogue, and intriguing worldbuilding, tied up neatly in a tight, streamlined tactics-puzzle game. Perfect synergy between sight, sound, story, and gameplay.

Absolutely awesome gameplay, story, and design. The writing is funny while also being serious when it needs to in *most* cases. I really recommend this game

Tactical Breach Wizards is one of the best games I’ve played all year. Part of that is definitely personal taste, but it has a lot of smart stuff going on under the hood too. I love the thoughtful gameplay, and how the very design of the game encourages experimentation. That makes each level a joy to play, and even replay if you miss any of the various side objectives.

The story, and character writing are also spot on. Tactical Breach Wizards has some of my favourite characters of any of the games that I've played all year thanks to the grounded writing style that was used to portray them.

If you like tactical games then you need to give this game a look. I'm fairly certain you won't be disappointed.

Full review here: https://frostilyte.ca/2024/11/26/lets-get-tactical-tactical-breach-wizards-review/

Don't go in expecting a full XCOM-style strategy/tactics game. TBW is more like a linear puzzle game with some tactical elements. Enemies are in the same position each time in a given level, for example. That said, the game is extremely good. It has a very smooth difficulty curve, and is very generous with difficulty settings. The writing is also comedic, but doesn't undercut serious moments with jokes. The worldbuilding is also good, giving you just enough information to get hooked while not revealing everything at once.

Really fun breaching game with fun environmental mechanics and interesting enemies which make each battle different from another. Dialogue is superb and gets you feeling for characters more and more as the game goes on.

Fun tactical game, though more of a puzzler if going for all the confidence bonus objectives. Great and genuinely funny writing and a nicely paced story.

Tight combat, the puzzles are so fun. A lot like Into the Breach, but with a very "Suspicious Developments" twist. If you like their other games, buy this one already!

Cool story and flow, nice mechanics, great side-quests to sink time into, overall very balanced game. I give it a big like, 9\10

While I haven't play much of the main game, I have played through the demo twice.

If you are looking for turn based tactics action, with some magic spells mixed in, and a truck load of knocking people through windows, you can't go wrong with Tactical Breach Wizards!

A wonderously charming experience crafted with an absolutely astounding amount of care, from the gameplay balance of the various characters enemies and encounters, to the soundtrack that gets you in the urban fantasy headspace, to the charming writing and worldbuilding that leaves you craving more at every moment.

Not a game to be missed out on by anyone who enjoys turn based tactical experiences, nor by those looking to experience a story uncovering a conspiracy of cataclysmic proportions.

Get out your pins and red yarn for this hilarious investigation, and get ready to get attached to some of the most compelling yet disparate character's you're likely to meet this year!

Both Wizards and Tactics. May contain trace amounts of rewind. 10/10 would recomment.

Breaching the wizarding world of comedy

Overview

Story

Presentation

Gameplay

Summary

Great game! Very cool in idea and ivisiuals. Well balanced and well crafted missions/puzzles.
Indie game of the year contender in my book :D

Amazingly witty writing, while still having an engaging story and lovable characters. To top it off, TBW has super fun gameplay that's easy to pick up, yet has a surprising amount of depth. There are countless ways to finish most levels with plenty of room for experimentation. My GotY for sure!

It's fantastic game. I would call it puzzle-tactical and it's great fun. While not super hard, bonus objective can be challenging.
The writing and characters starts on incredible strong, it's witty, clever and charming. Unofrtunately later on it takes very strage turn, like it is from differnt game, Act3 with its psedo Iran, feels out of place and hollow. I would probablt overlook it but it is stark from how great it starts. Still, this writing fumbling along the way, it's my only complain and probably still my GOTY. 9.5/10.

This is one of those games that comes around and reminds you what life even is worth living for. Could recommend to anyone, absolute triumph. The perfect mix of thinking, comedy, pathos. It literally does nothing wrong and it is literally my job as a professional nitpicker (philosopher) to find flaws

I'm not into tactic games but this one was very enjoyable. Great gameplay and witty writting!

Very good if you like games like Into the Breach or chess puzzles where positioning and combining your team's skills is more important than individual abilities and numbers.

a great fun puzzle game with a great sense of humour and world building

Gameplay is great, and a fun premise but god the writing on this game is so fucking good. Worth every penny, highly recommend. Take your time reading the story if you can, it's amazing.

Pains me to do it, but, after finishing it, this is a thumbs-down.
Why? The writing. It's very funny when dealing with light themes, but when it tries to deal with some heavy stuff, it comes across, for me, as very dissonant.
And everything beyond the first 20% of the game is heavy themes. It's not that the writing style is bad, but rather that it's mismatched to the story being told.

Also:
- The game is filled with pep-talk containing psychological advice that both rings strange in the writing tone, and is, at most, soap-opera level.

- At the end, a character the squad met two days before gives them insightful personal pep-talk. It is the time for that story beat, to congratulate the player -- but it feels forced, as two days of constant fighting don't make that level of personal knowledge plausible.

- Major plot hole, story spoiler:
Sorry for the long-winded explanation, but it's multi-dimensional time-travel stuff:
The way to survive the unbeatable Evil Boss is to let your necromancer escape into another dimension through a Death Door she can create. It is explained that people come out of the Death Door 1 hour after they're pushed in. This way, your necromancer comes back to revive the dead squad mates, as she has the power to time-reverse a dead body 1 hour, back when they were alive. Everyone needs to die and get into the Death Door in sight of the Evil Boss, otherwise they won't be seen as dead, and the Evil Boss will keep coming after them.
So, in the same fight as the other squadmates are killed, the necromancer pops into the Death Door, and comes out 1 hour later. She then time-reverses the squad-mates 1 hour ... and they're alive. They should have been freshly-killed. Even if you allow for some variance, like the Death Door keeping people in a bit less than 1 hour, and necromancy reverting bodies back to a bit more than 1 hour back, they don't say that and, from their discussion planning the whole thing, have no way of knowing if such margins exist.


The gameplay kept being relatively easy, and I got some 2/3 of bonus objectives on first try. I skipped some bonus objectives because I found better things to do - for instance, instead of defenestrating 3 people by turn 2, I finished the whole breach in turn 1.
The character power interplay was the main contributor for crisp and fun gameplay, and this remained constant throughout the game.

So, if you don't care about the story, yup, this is still a thumbs-up.






Original, thumbs-up review:
Outstandingly funny and well-done Squad-Tactics-lite game. Small teams, great gameplay, fully predictable. More Into The Breach than X-COM.

The skills are impactful and creative, they work together well, and the game is surprisingly low-stress. The required objectives are reasonable, while the bonus objectives are quite challenging.

If you've played XCOM, this might be a nice, relaxing, and very funny game. If you haven't, it could be a great entry into the genre.

Awesome tactics game, enjoyed from start to finish. Great music, characters with modifiable abilities and a well paced story missions. More puzzle (like into the breach) than Xcom, but very satisfying!

This one is a bit of fun even though I don't think there's much in the way of replay. The game is quirky and fun. It plays decently well, and it functions just as much as a puzzle game as it does an action game. Didn't encounter a single bug through my 17hrs with it. Overall, I'd give this one an 8/10

Tactical Breach Wizards is a wonderful little gem. Anyone who enjoys strategy games in the vein of XCOM, Into the Breach, or Invisible, Inc. owes it to themselves to buy and play this. I will not talk about the story or spoil anything in this review, but I will talk about the writing later on.

The gameplay is straightforward: you control a team of wizards and are tasked with breaching and clearing out rooms. The mission parameters and objectives from engagement to engagement may change according to the story, but for the most part you're using your wizards' skills and abilities to deal with enemy threats and move on to your goal. If you make a mistake, want to undo the last few actions, or even reset your turn entirely, you can rewind time to your heart's content. After you choose to finish your turn you can "Foresee" what the enemies will do before you commit to your actions, and then the next turn begins in earnest with no possibility to rewind to a previous turn, short of restarting the level. This makes experimenting with your team and combining abilities with each other a cinch, and I applaud the level designers for not having a single-track mind or one-true-solution to any particular battle. And if you're truly, really stuck? There is a "skip level" function that just straight up lets you bypass that troublesome portion, no penalties or questions asked. Lovely stuff.

I was able to clear the game with all achievements unlocked (having to look up some secret ones, mind you) on "Hard" difficulty without much trouble, and players have the option to change difficulty or customize it at any time they wish to make the game easier or harder, without any interruption to the story or disabling achievements or anything like that. The accessibility makes this gold: any developer who balances their game for anyone to enjoy gets five stars in my book. The battles are puzzles more than true grit combat, and you can take your time poring over the map and options while enjoying a great soundtrack.

The writing in this game is fantastic. Your characters are... well, characters! The setting is clever and plausible, making it all the more entertaining when your wizards interact with the world. There is comedy, drama, pathos, levity, and political commentary in this game, and it all resonates with our own world as well as the game's. There are even choices you can make in dialogue to get new responses from other characters! Who doesn't enjoy a little bit of roleplaying from time to time? I would have loved if there were more optional "chats" your characters could have between missions and amongst themselves, as well as maybe a "story mode" that allowed players to play only the dialogue portions before room breaching or in-between missions in the four acts.

Speaking of missions, there are a lot of them! Almost every story mission has a series of rooms to clear with optional objectives, as well as extra dream missions to complete. There are no tangible benefits to doing all the bonus objectives or missions other than to get "confidence points," which allow you to unlock cosmetics for your characters. You can replay them at any time to pick up missed confidence points later on in your campaign when your characters level up and have more perks that strengthen their abilities, and you can also customize your perks in these replayed missions to adapt your playstyle and get those missing confidence points.

The last thing I want to touch on are the aesthetics of the game, namely graphics and sound design. The graphics are comical and the character and enemy designs are distinctive, and I got big "Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker" vibes when I played, except the characters are all regularly-proportioned. The soundtrack and sound of every level, ability, and story moment are calculated for effect. With all the flexibility in mission selection and difficulty adjustment, I wish there was a sound test mode or the like to let us customize the soundtrack that played in each level, or to jam in the main menu!

In closing, Tactical Breach Wizards was worth every dollar I paid for it. The difficulty is fair without being too punishing and the abilities and decisions you can use and make are fairly deep, making it great for anyone who would like to dip their toes into the turn-based strategy game genre before committing to a more complex title. I hope to see more of this team's work, but not necessarily a sequel to this as the story concludes in a very satisfying way. Kudos to the developers for making this such a binge-worthy title that had me hooked from the start to the finish!

Whoever said this was like xcom 2 doesn't know what the fuck they are talking about. Its chess. Its a bunch of levels of chess with select units. It couldn't be farther from xcom. No unit recruitment, no variation. Just specific chess mission after specific chess mission. Yes the story is funny but the game play is not what I wanted at all. It's the most on rails game ive ever played. zero variation in dealing with the missions too. the farther you go the less you can fuck around. I can't recommend this game.

I mostly played turn-based tactics games in the context of CRPGs in fantasy settings. Games like XCOM couldn't quite captivate me; however, I really enjoyed Tactical Breach Wizards. Some people say this game feels more like a puzzle game than a tactical one, which might actually be the reason for my enjoyment. The characters are so unique from both gameplay and personality standpoints, and their dialogues are written in a tone that's quirky and fun but not over the top. The story is like an old action flick. It wasn't anything too special, but it was enough to keep me engaged for the length of the campaign.

Once you get past realising it's a puzzle game and not a tactics game it's pretty fun for a while. The whole try-fail-rewind-try method of solving puzzles is pretty good for a bit, and going for the optional challenges is pretty good for a bit too, but for some reason I just suddenly got deeply tired of the formula towards the end of Act 3. I found the writing to be really grating as well - the small pieces of 'real' stuff makes all the nonstop quipping that much harder to bear.

It's really good, Not super long, but a fun and tricky puzzler. Also, defenestration.

A linear story driven turn based puzzle tactics featuring spec ops team with magic and somewhat non lethal weapons.

Game progression wise, this is similar to Showgunners, you play one mission at a time while slowly uncovering the story and unlocking new characters but there is zero exploration here, almost all narrative being presented via character dialogues between levels. The story in this game is much more complex than Showgunners though, but also being written in that contemporary Marvel tone, don't worry though, it's not that juvenile or on the nose nor it pushing liberal talking points like other contemporary games.

The gameplay itself is more of a puzzle tactics game than traditional turn based games because there are levels where you can only pass by doing specific kind of moves, also the game feature rewind system per turn where you can rewind every move you made in a turn, hence why the levels are set up more like puzzle games.

There is one aspect of the gameplay that occurs between after several levels during big story event progression that annoys me, it's that you're given a board with characters and talking points and then you have to connect the points in conspiracy theory meme style, at first it was intriguing but by mid game I wish I could skip that.

Visually the game is using low poly art style that is everywhere these days, I have no complains though as this kind of style can feel cozy and the best of it is that it mean performance is not an issue, although yea that still depends on the game.

On the audio side it's also somewhat cozy, complementing the game nicely, although it would've been nicer if the dialogues are voiced, yep there's zero voice acting in this game.

21:o aspect ratio is supported, nice, these days it has become more common for indie games to support ultrawide but still not guaranteed.

Overall, this game is in similar category with Showgunners, a nice indie turn based tactics game that doesn't overstay their welcome, this one is better priced and has better contents than Showgunners though, that's all I can say.

Gamepad control are godawful.
Have you guys ever held one of these things in your hands? I could barely move through menus, I'm not about to torture myself with the gameplay.
I'm sure you have a good game there, but whoever "designed" gamepad controls... good god, man. Get you sh together.

I would describe this game as more puzzle than strategy based on the emphasis on rewinding, but that's not a detractor by any means. If I had do it all over again I would probably would wait until there's a sale. Dialogue feels like it was written by a quirky teen at times, but more often than not it was endearing instead of annoying. While there's technically a good bit of replayability with the optional objectives it really doesn't justify the cost per hour of gameplay in my opinion; accidentally left the game on during work multiple times and was still able to beat the game get most of the high-cost outfits at time of review.

Overall, had a great time and would recommend to others if they want an XCOM-lite experience that doesn't take itself too seriously

Takes the loose cannon detective character archetype from Gunpoint and throws it into an international military campaign with gameplay similar to XCOM. The worldbuilding heavily includes a unique magic system that is a joy to learn about as you progress, and from a gameplay perspective it allows for a lot of very unique mechanics that you wouldn't see in a typical tactical strategy game. It leans into this very heavily. Of all the actions you can take in the game, there are only maybe two (or three with upgrades) that are pretty much just "apply damage directly." Most abilities instead use repositioning and knockback, and you have a LOT of very clever magical methods to apply them. This system is carefully designed so that your moves can combo into each other and play off of each other, giving you a lot of flexibility with your strategy without letting you spam your way through everything. It makes planning a strategy very approachable with its generous rewind system, which would also make the game very approachable for those who haven't played something in this genre before.

I had about 13 hours of gameplay for the main campaign and a bit of extra levels, but there are a lot of extra levels that I haven't played yet, many of which only unlocked after I completed the main game. I suspect they will take a similar amount of time as the main campaign. There are also optional objectives on every single level, which add a good level of replayability. On top of that there is apparently a level designer with workshop support. I think even without all of this I would still heartily recommend this game since the main campaign is very strong on its own, but I'm definitely not complaining about all the extras for people who want more.

Overall this game was a lot of fun and I felt I would miss the characters and the world and the gameplay itself when I got to the credits. Would recommend.

Tactical puzzle game. Not especially difficult, although there were a few headscratchers when trying to do all the optional objectives together on the first try. Writing is good -- they go for a snarky tone and it lands where so many games it would just grate.

very refreshing to play a game that is actually genuinely funny and not just by video game standards. entertaining and endearing from front to back - all killer, no filler. it rules.

What a perfect puzzle/tactics game. Great humor. Fun story and characters. Great game play. Loved it.

11/10 Best turn-based tactics game I've ever played.

Possibly some of the best contemporary squad tactics writing I've ever seen. Ridiculous, irreverent, and authentic. Puts all the Call of Duty and wanna be games to shame.

Come for the charming and wildly inventive setting, stay for the touching trauma and wholesome explorations of leadership and geopolitics.

I genuinely don't know what's better, the excellent tactics game that doesn't get too clever and abstract puzzly but still feels like an authentic situation, or the writing. OMG the writing!!!

If you are at all even mildly intrigued by this game... you will not regret buying it!

This lands in my favorite games of all time list.

One of the most enjoyable games to be released in the past few years.

Snappy writing that could be straight out of a Discworld novel along with a setting that leaves you wanting to learn more makes for a great first impression.

Add onto that a slick XCOM-esque combat system, it's tough to find many faults with this game.

My only gripe would be that with Act 3 and 4 the plot went in a direction that I didn't entirely want, but I was already too engrossed for that to be an issue.

The writing in this game is fantastic. Delightful surprises in every conversation.

Tactical Breach Wizards. Really odd title, and yet the best that you could give this game.

Apart from excellent gameplay this game shines with one of the best writing that I have seen in the past few years. It does not try to be serious, and it works really well. The story is told mostly through dialogues, they are executed flawlessly. I even found myself laughing aloud at several times. As direct consequence of great writing was that I actually cared about the characters so the choice of their future was fairly impactful... just lovely <3

Mechanics, are at first glance similar to XCOM, and yet they are alien. Most of your attacks do NOT deal damage, but instead knock enemies back. I found this pretty absurd, but through ~20h campaign this damage dealing I understood that this change makes this game a true masterpiece.

There isn't too much more to say about this game, just BREACH!

bought this, played it for the first time, and only stopped when the automatic lights in my house went off at 1am an i realised i had a tension headache from focusing on the screen intently for a solid six hours.

addictive gameplay, excellent characterisation, genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. definitely one of the best buys i've made this year.

Okay so,
even for the games I love, i don't publish comments. But I really think this one deserve it. I dunno if the devs did get back the money and time invested but again, they deserve it.

First, the story and the dialogs are REALLY insane. This might be best the aspect of the game for me. I laugh at every discussion the characters have, each one of them has a unique personnality and it's really fun to be part of their team. The story is a classical action movie plot but the mix with wizardly universe is really cool !

The gameplay is kind of classical, but the powers of the characters justify some nice mechanics and the level design serve the point. All levels are little puzzles and all the characters capacities needs to be used and give you several possibilites, but I think this is designed to have one are few perfect orders to give to your units. By the way, there is a bonus objectives system that permit you to get new outfits for your tac ops.

The artistic direction of the game is, as you can easily see, something that have been seen before but works perfectly. The cell shading and bright colors are really appreciable. But the best part is for the character design. All the operatives have nice, unique and pertinent design, correspondigng to their powers and the mix between military corp (wich isn't my jam at all) with the witchy/wizardly style (wich is totally my jam) is REALLY a good job. GG to the artists team !

Get this game and enjoy it !