Telepath Tactics

Unfortunately, I can't recommend this tactical, turn based, fantasy game with character leveling up mechanics. There are inventory bugs where between missions your sword or crossbow turn into a lance. Very important, because weapons are rare and you need class specific weapons for combat. Ultimately, what turned me away was a bug where I couldn't finish a level where I killed a bandit called Gulch. The ending screen appeared but wouldn't take input to continue. I was stuck moving my mouse.

My 1st play attempt ended up being 5 restarts and replays getting used to normal mode. Making sure I get the loot dropped before the bad guys and also getting the 2 recruitable characters at the start. Missed them 1st time. Then only got 1 then finally got both.

BUT that early hardship didnt get any easier....It was Really annoying that I got to the 3rd map AFTER the 1st and only shop to realise that there was no shop b4 the battle and all but 2 of my 8 troops had weapons.

BEcause WEAPONS DETERIORATE. Do not forget that if u bother to play the game. Buy lots of swords.

However, sadly no matter how I started to enjoy some decent turn based battles, AFTER I restarted again for the 6th time... I get to the next battle, the one I got up to before with no weapons, this time with loads...only for the game to decide my 2nd persons inventory should be EVERYONES inventory.

Wouldnt be so bad since he had 2 bandages and a shiny new sword...alas, that also meant my 2 archers could not fire a shot in the battle, ruining any chance of completing it.

Its just too buggy. It could have been great.

I would stay clear alas.

If you love Fire Emblem, you will probably love this. If you hate Fire Emblem, you will probably hate this.

The design decisions that are likely to be controversial are
* permadeath
* durability
* grinding is (almost) impossible
* simplistic leveling

Fire Emblem makes most of the same controversial design decisions.

You can turn off permadeath by selecting "Casual Mode" when starting the game, just like in recent Fire Emblem games. This acknowledges that nobody actually plays Fire Emblem with permadeath. The games are too long for such setbacks to be acceptable, so you always retry the battle until all your characters survive. Choosing "Casual Mode" (thankfully) does not make the combat easier.

You (unfortunately) cannot turn off durability. There is nothing so anticlimactic as having your equipment fail mid-battle so that the character equipped with it is useless. Finite money with limited access to vendors makes this worse.

The number of battles are finite, just like in Fire Emblem. I enjoy not being required to grind. People who like fighting easy battles over and over so that they can win battles that were intentionally imbalanced to pad play time may object (these people exist).

The simplistic leveling cannot be excused by the Fire Emblem ancestry. Fire Emblem allows characters to be customized. This should probably be improved, but you can command a large number of characters at once and there are a large number of classes, which helps to reduce the perception that characters are generic.

Some people are complaining about the graphics. The portraits are static, but that is not unusual. Appearances are reused, but that is not unusual. Most of it looks like typical western animation style. The graphics will impress no one but are not offensive to me.

Some people are complaining about the user interface. Movements and attacks are communicated with colored tiles and icons, as is typical in turn-based tactical role-playing games. Most icon choices are reasonable, and they all have helpful tooltips. I am not seeing the problem, or even the difference from the norm, here.

I agree with the reviews that mention the music is good. The style is what you would expect in a fantasy setting, but it is well above average.

What I have seen of the plot is average to above average. Daughters on a quest to rescue their father is a pleasant diversion from all the teenage boys on quests to rescue women.

The text is far too small in the user interface and conversation dialogs, and it is not possible to adjust. This is likely to be an accessibility problem for almost everyone middle aged or older and a significant portion of youth.

That you cannot save at will is a legitimate complaint.

Combat that is won via reasoning ability instead of who ambushes who first, stat bloat, build hard counters, or luck is a very nice thing to see in a genre that is often dumbed-down in those ways. I also love the ability to (de)construct the battlefield and move opponents.

I look forward to the author's engine improvements and future games.

I have been in 2 minds about this game and plugged many lockdown hours at it and my final conclusion is its a good game but way to short.

The game itself has great potential, it reminds me of Armies of Gielinor (fun orb) Shining Force 2 and Final Fantasy Tactics all rolled into 1 with a much more friendlier combat system. Love the concept of being able to push characters for quicker kills. Really good combat system, a must for all TRPG fans.

The combat system is good, easy to follow and very addictive.

Cons
very very laggy during a battle
No way to save a battle.....hurts when the game slows down to virtually unplayable
storyline to short
nowhere near enough battles

I think the game should be about 20 times larger in gameplay, more characters, more missions, more chance to visit the shop and a free roam map rather than set battles.

Really great idea of a game and take my hat off to the developer, thank you

Was not impressed. For the price I expected better. The gameplay felt clunky, the different characters all seemed way too similar, the battles were difficult without being rewarding, there was no choice in what abilities were gained or what allies were available, and it was honestly very boring. I'm sad I wasted the money.

This is an amazing game in the style of Fire Emblem which I unfortunately could not finish due to cripping slowdown bugs. These unfortunately get worse the further you get into the game. I've emailed the developer and he says he's remaking the game in an entirely different engine, but who knows how long that will take. Still giving it a thumbs up because what I was able to play is amazing, but still, the game as is is so buggy it's unbeatable and you get 10fps sometimes even with a monster $2,000 gaming PC.

This game focuses entirely on one thing: combat. And it succeds briliantly! TT is a game where positioning is a key to succes. AI is relentless, it will nearly always find a weak point in players defense and concentrate attack on it. Encounter design is really well done, nearly all battles will have multiple objectives, some of them may arise naturally as an emergent gameplay. Player controlled characters all feel desitinct and their choice will affect the battlefield substianstially. Game is reasonably challenging and charming.

Its one of the few games on PC that feels like Fire Emblem. That's all I ever wanted, so for me, its perfect.

This is a well executed game, which harkens back to its Fire Emblem inspirations If you're a fan of tactical games, then pick this up.

Pros:

1. Great 2D art. It's clean, well animated, and beautifully colored. Again, very close to its FE roots. Some people might compare it to RPGmaker, but they'd be dead wrong. The art direction could use a bit of help on the intro screen, but overall, it's crisp and pleasing to the eye when playing

2. Tactical Depth. If you haven't read his take on RNG vs. deterministic play then check out his blog. Regardless, this is a game that punishes bad tactics, has RNG elements in the right places, and gives you the tools to beat levels in different play styles.

3. Great encounter design with varied maps. From my understanding, there are a variety of maps that are procedurally (sp?) generated, but most are hand crafted encounters. and it's easy to tell. The difficulty is ramped up as you find yourself normally outnumbered, so positioning, movement, and tactics are key to try and beat the enemy


Cons:

1. No in-game save. The battles are tough and long and having this missing is the biggest weakness of the game. My understanding is that the dev is working on it, but it's still a big eyesore in an otherwise nice gem.


Overall, I'd recommend anyone who is a fan of Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, or X-Com to pick this up. If the lack of in-game save is an issue with you, then I'd still pick it up but would shelve it for a month or two. It's worth it, If you have enough time where saving is not an issue, then pick this up immediately. Highly recommended.

For tactics lovers, this game is great. The difficulty is hard, and the battles are (mostly) deterministic. I've grown to hate the randomness in strategy and tactics games, so this game is a good change of pace. You never die because you just rolled poorly.

I'm still playing through the campaign, but I think I've played enough to write a mostly complete review. I haven't played any multiplayer games, nor modded it at all, so I won't be reviewing those aspects of the game.

Summary:

Telepath Tactics is a strategic turn-based RPG, with many ways to complete each mission. The game has no random chances* (e.g. critical hits, varying damage/damage reduction), and so the only unknown variable in the game is pure strategy. With a variety of different classes, weapons, armour, and items, you have to out-think, and out-fight the enemy AI. Once you learn more about the AI through fighting them, you can start building new strategies to combat the AI more effectively. But the enemies get more tricks up their sleeve as they go, so it's up to you to do your best and keep your troops alive and fighting effectively through superior and adaptive strategy.

*Technically there is one random element; psy attacks have a 50% chance of inflicting their respective status effect (see below)

Pros:

+ Through the varying classes, equipment, and items, almost any strategy you can think of is possible to defeat the enemy:
· Destroying bridges, or making your own bridges, or barricades to direct the enemy to where you want them to go
· Weapons of varying lengths/ranges allowing multiple characters to attack the same enemy from a line formation
· Psy abilities causing varying statuses (50% chance of effect) based on their element (as well as their base damage) (Light = Blindness, Dark = Softness/Slowness, Ice = Freeze, Fire = Burning) which can be taken advantage of to great effect if planned well.
· Creating a completely defensive position with healers and ranged units protected by strong melee units in front or surrounding them.
· Using flying characters and/or high mobility characters, you can rush the enemy and try to defeat small groups before they have a chance to gather against you.
· Using Emma Strider's Motivate or Inspire abilities grants other units a second turn, which can be, and usually is one of the best abilities in the game, allowing for many more strategic capabilities.
· And so much more can be accomplished with what's available to you.

+ The campaign's story is straightforward and quick to the point, and is much more down-to-Earth than most game's stories (where the starting characters discover some inner hidden talent and end up being key to the world's survival against hordes of enemies in an endless war). This story is simply about two sisters escaping from the slaving Shadowlings, and trying to return one day to save their father from captivity.

+ The music is very nice, with Classical and Medieval tunes to fit the game very well.

+ Lots of replayability; if the mission didn't turn out the way you would have liked, you can restart, and try out other strategies and see what works. And once you've learned more about the AI, you might decide to start another new campaign and see how much better you'll do now.

+ The Sinister Design forums for the game ( http://sinisterdesign.net/forum/index.php?board=35.0 ) allow you to interact closely with the game's development, to report bugs, and suggestions which all get looked over closely and/or implemented if they look good.

Neutral points:
= The art of the character portraits is hit-and-miss; some are done fairly well, but for some (e.g. the golems, the art looks very messy)
= A number of small (and some not so small) bugs. However, the creator, Craig Stern keeps close tabs with his forums and address and fixes all bugs and issues very quickly.
= No in-mission saves; the only saves are just before events and missions. While not good or bad in of itself, it should still be noted. I believe the game is best like this, otherwise a player could save and reload once they know what will happen.
= There is no wandering in towns, or random encounters. The game simply goes from mission to event to mission.

Cons:

- Some persistent bugs, such as an equipment-swapping bug, and animation slow-downs over long missions can cause some inconvenience.
- Sometimes a bug may cause your game to crash, losing your progress of the mission. It's not the end of the world if it happens though, just press 'L' to produce a log, and make a bug report on the steam forums or the Sinister Design forums, and Craig will fix it as soon as possible.
- The fact that there are no in-mission saves means that if the game crashes, or you decide a mission is taking too long and you want to finish it another day, you aren't able to keep that mission's progress.

**Overall I would currently rate this game a 9/10**

While this game does have some kinks to work out, Telepath Tactics is an exciting, mentally-challenging constant struggle against the AI. I personally love how this game has turned out and how unique it is, in that all damage is static.

For people who don't like a tough challenge but still like the game's concept, the Casual difficulty is strongly recommended, where killed characters don't die permanently, but lose some permanent maximum health instead.

For those who like a good challenge, and who like to think tactically and outsmart their opponent in various cunning ways- this game is definitely for you.

~Thaecrasis

Besides a few 'new' gimmicks like the push pull mechanics and traps Telepath Tactics really doesn't do anything to stand out from other strategy RPGS. There wasn't enough happening to keep me interested, the story didn't grip me at all and the combat was tedius. There are many other RPGs for the same price offering so much more. But this didn't feel close to the quality of other games in the same price bracket.
To sum up, Telepath Tactics has good ideas but very badly presented. Unless you are a big fan of the genre I would steer clear of this title

This game needs a LOT of time in the oven, nothing worse than 30 minute long missions, and then the game freezes and you need to start over. Will definitely be worth your time in 6 months to a year.

The art style is a bit awkward and mismatched, the interface is a bit clunky, the game is pretty buggy (usually not gamebreaking), and while I understand permadeath the fact that I can't even save in the middle of the battle if I have to turn the game off and return later is very annoying--you can lose an hour of playtime if you have to leave for some reason. I can't tell if it's a bug or not but there seem to be features missing (there's talk of classes being promoted to prestige classes and a number of weapons that can only be used by these expert classes but I never came across a way to actually promote my soldiers. Maybe I just missed it, but the general bugginess of the game makes me suspicious some script just didn't trigger). And my final gripe is that there is no workshop support so downloading custom campaigns is a pain (not that there are many available as of 4/25/2015 on the developer's website).

So...why do I recommend you buy it if I have so many complaints? First, it's an indy game made *nearly* entirely by one guy. Some slack is cut for that. But more importantly because the game is FUN. The creator really understands strategy and it is legitimately difficult and entertaining in a way I haven't felt since I played Fire Emblem. I love that the different classes actually have powers which dramatically affect strategy options like Engineers which can build barricades (Fire Emblem should take note!)--leveling up your little soldiers is very fun and the fact that they usually have personalities and a role in the plot is great too. You don't notice the hours going past because making the many little strategy decisions in evolving battels is so engaging. Basically, if you want to scratch that tactical RPG itch this is for sure your game. I was sad when the main campaign ended and given the riduculous backlog of games I still need to play it should tell you something when I say I played this and only this for several days straight. The story was charming. Not amazing, but I enjoyed it. Oh, and the music was pretty good.

In sum, you should pick it up! I don't regret my purchase. Once some of the...bugs get squashed and some costum campaigns appear (awkwardly on a random forum page? Which I don't have time to visit regularly? Workshop support please...) then I look forward to returning to Telepath Tactics again.

It took around 22-24 hours to complete the campaign. I am sure there will be more to come.

There's a map editor in which you can make your own battles/MP maps/Campaign (I believe). You can download more campaigns at the main forum (http://sinisterdesign.net/forum/index.php). I only saw one small one (5 battles), but I haven't really explored it yet, as I came to write this after finishing.

I haven't tried MP yet, and I do not see how to access it from the main menu. I didn't buy it for that, so we'll see about it later.

So, the game is fantastic; I truly enjoyed it. I didn't think the final battle was the final battle though, as the story alludes to a more sinister design, but I'll leave that be, as to not spoil it (also, in that battle, you get some items that can't be equipped on any unit you own, so I figured that there might be class promotions or something). *Edit* - Apparently units automatically promote @ lvl 20, I never used cavaliers much, as they are weak-as-hell, so the items I had gotten couldn't be equipped on them, due to them not being 'Mantis Knights' or what-not (figured this is good info for anyone looking to play, the auto-classing).

There are quite a few bugs, nothing game breaking, some can be a bit frustrating. I'd advise restarting the game every few battles, or after a really large one (takes like 20 seconds). That seemed to help a lot for me. I don't mind the bugs so much considering this was pretty-much-wholly made by one guy (Mr. Stern - cool cat). I've played his previous games and they are all very solid.
*Edit* - Most of the bugs have been patched, the Dev is still working on the memory leak issue, and some exploits have also been patched, but you can look on the forums to learn how to change them back.

If you like Turn-based tactical combat, SRPGs, and/or indie devs I would highly recommend it. The Dev is active and loves this style of game which is very apparent when you first start.

Also, skip the 'tutorial' - you have to go through it on the main campaign anyway, so it is a waste of time. =D

This game has neat ideas but isn't executed well. For starters, every sprite looks the same (this makes it hard to talk and befriend a former enemy because they look the same as all the other archers/fighters/etc unless you right click on everyone to see their name/stats) which leads to confusion, the game gets incredibly slow at times...I'm talking you see every single frame--It's not object limit--it's probably memory leaks or something because the more enemies I took out the slower the game became. The explanations of the skills in the game are kind of poor, it would be nice if it would tell you if you still get an extra turn or not afterwards (pushing/pulling takes a full turn but casting 'sprint' or building barracks doesn't). As far as I could tell, it doesn't show what the attack range is for enemies just where they can move. The "instant" setting for enemies moving isn't really instant, it's just a faster version of them moving. If you surrender you have to read the dialogue all over again (a retry would probably be better where you just start with where you position your units). I think if a lot of these problems were cleared it would be worth playing (the memory leak slows especially), but I can't recommend this to anyone who likes these types of games.

Anyone who knows me will know that RPGs and turn-based strategy are what I like the most and that I primarily go for stuff that is stongly story driven. This game handles both elements very well and it's a testament to its strategic depth that, for once, I can honestly say that the combat is more engrossing than the plot (even though said plot is humorous and well written). I was very sceptical at first due to the recent FLOOD of indie rubbish and that the screenshots don't exactly make you want to rush to buy. Don't be put off by the graphics, the gameplay is SO good that it renders them irrelevant.

If you only buy one indie game this year then I would strongly suggest it be this one.

*edit* It can be unforgiving too. Only skip it if a strong cerebral challenge is not for you.

Haven't gotten too far into the story yet, however, I can say that the battle system is excellent and quite rewarding. Be warned that the battles in this game are tough! Carfeul thought and planning are required to defeat your enemies, not blindly charging in. I also like the fact that they include a casual mode where characters defeated on the battle map are not permanently dead. This removes the frustration of repeating levels to ensure that all your characters survive.

I really like the artstyle of this game. Don't let the simple graphics fool you, there is quite a lot of charm and detail to the characters, especially when attacking. If you are a fan of Fire Emblem, as I am, then this is defintely worth the purchase.

If there is one thing that annoyed me somewhat - though this is an entirely personal preference issue - it's that you get rushed from one battle to the next. I like the pacing of Fire Emblem games more, where you have a chance to catch your breath, equip and talk to your party members between battles. So far, I've only come across two instances where that happens. Then again, this is most probably a design choice by the developers.

Pros:
+ Excellent battle system that rewards thought and planning.
+ Levels that are tough but fair. A good plan will see you through.
+ Very nice graphics and art style.
+ Good story so far.
+ All this in merely 200 MB, which is fantastic!

Cons:
- Some slowdowns on larger battlefields with lots of effects.
- No saving. The game automatically saves between battles. If the battle ends with a victory, but you're not satisfied, you can't go back and replay it (I think).

Definitely worth the price for any turn-based over a grid fantasy RPGs lover - where tactics really matters to win the battles. A lot of classes, environment intereactions, very nice mechanics, and an OK story.
It's definitely a great tribute to FFT/Vandal Hearts/Tactics Ogre, considering the whole game has been written from a solo developper. Buy it and support the game..so we may get new campaigns ;)

Great game from a series that has come a LONG way. I remember playing Telepath RPG via the Armor Games site years ago, and even then I really liked the originality of the setting and the tactical feel of the combat. Fast forward to this game, and I am really impressed with what the author has done. This game feels very polished and fluid. The world is well-concieved and enjoyable to be a part of. The portraits/graphics are great (for a lower budget indie game), the music is also stellar as well, but what really stands out is the strategy and tactics! It also reminds me a lot of Battle for Wesnoth more so than SSB, but to each their own.