TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children

This game is very good. The more I learned the more I enjoyed.
Although there are some issues, it is still fun to play.

I don't know if the developer team copied some ideas from other games but they did a great job at mixing different ideas.

I guess an experienced game player helped them add useful tools. I saw some good ideas I wish I had in the other games.

Well-designed Turn-based Strategy RPG with a ton of different puzzle-like systems to get lost in.
It has a cool, anime/comic-style story that unfolds as you complete missions, and a nice cast of playable characters, and NPCs.
Combat is akin to XCOM, with a "Superhero" vibe.
Progression is pretty slow-paced, so if you're someone who just wants to jump in and blast through, this will feel like the complete opposite, but I think there's something here for everyone.
If you like chess, crafting, min-maxing, puzzles, and a methodical experience, then I think you'll definitely enjoy this game.

Loved the game! Definitely one of the best tactics I've ever played.
The developers are very active also, can't wait for their next game.

I just purchased this the other day and I was super hesitant as I am new to RTS type games...however, I am obsessed! Worth every penny. Also, so nice to see a Korean indie company do their thing here, and I live in South Korea, Seoul so it feels awesome to play at a PC room and understanding some of what the characters say! I hope to play this for a long long time and I hope we can keep getting 100s of hours worth of expansions or DLCs. Lovin' it!! Buy now, you won't regret whether new to the genre or not! (Also I hope for some more handsome cool guy characters, like some Gangnam Apgujeong-Rodeo cool baddie). Fun!

weird korean game featuring new xcom style battles mixed with every sort of rpg mechanic ever devised by man and guys who worship spoons, muscular women, and the devs have a guy who responds to every single review posted, enduring the endless cavalcade of nonsensical waifu recommendations

Very good!

I googled xcom2 similar games and i'm very surprised that this game did not get mentioned on my brief search.
It's been a while since i played Troubleshooter but it was better than xcom2 in every way. Excellent game play and tons of quality content.
Troubleshooter remains king for me.
Well done Devs, but you screwed me. I can't find something comparable to scratch this itch. :(

make the sexy fire man playable

This is an amazing tactics game. Soooo many combinations of abilities and ways to min/max your character, if you're into that sort of thing, but also lots of ways to make the game easier if you just want to experience the story. There's definitely some issues with translation in the story and also the abilities themselves, but it's largely understandable for the most part. It's kind of like a wacky anime XCOM meets Final Fantasy Tactics, and I love it.

Not sure how to say this but this is a great game that I never ever feel like playing.

I don't care about story. I am not interested in plot. In games where I can I usually skip cut scenes.

All I want is a screen with a load out and then a mission to start. I don't need anything else in a turn based tactics game.

I admire what this game is trying to be, and I think it's successful in what it's doing.


If when you play a game you find yourself thinking "Okay, move on already. Less talk, more rock" when there is a slow part then this game is not for you.

But if you are interested in getting invested in a story and some world building with your tactics game then you will love this.

Loved this game - especially for its story. Believable, independent characters who change over time and aren't just faceless groupies in the player's party. Paths of employees, allies and enemies that intertwine in surprising ways. A setting that puts you as "one of many" in a morally gray but not gratuitously violent setting.

The gameplay is fun. Playable characters have abilities related to their story skills but also allow for absurd levels of customization. Story events influence how certain characters will fight together on the battlefield. Watching massed responsive/synergy fire melt enemies is glorious.

I'm invested in my Troubleshooter company and I'm excited to see where the next game takes the story!

Some mechanics and menus are still a mystery to me, and i still feel like it was meant to be a mobile game, then hugely expanded. Some audio is just bad, I'm 7 hours in and don't know why I just have the same 3 missions offered, over and over. The hit chance is ridiculous, I don't get it: with the same allies and enemies in the same position, even in open spaces, it can vary between 19% and 84% and I just don't get it.
Oh well, it's a good game.

1/5 (not worth playing)

I bounced off twice. There are a huge number of sub systems and a weak English translation. If only one is present, the game can still be fun, but when both are present you end up not knowing how to play without wikis.

Might go up to 3/5 (worth playing once) if you don't mind playing with a wiki open to see what the busted translations are trying to indicate.

good game

I recommend... But I do have mixed feelings!

This is often very good game - really the x-com combat and potential build complexity is fairly amazing - but it has big flaws and it totally out-stays its welcome. It also has some (later in the game) sadistic mission design that punishes you if haven't been doing enough grinding (I hate grinding so I did the bare minimum and suffered for it at times. That said, I also played it on hard so maybe it is my own fault :).

The core game play is basically X-Com tactical combat. But on top of that is bolted a clumsy visual novel, some light crafting, some light pet training, some light robot building, and some weird extremely light management sub tasks like feeding your family.... er, troops.

As I said, that core game play is great. But the rest is half-baked and in many cases can be largely ignored - except the visual novel... That will be rammed down your throat.

Yes. The visual novel... It is a very anime silly soap opera. It may be better in Korean, but the translations are fairly poor, so in English it is only semi-comprehensible much of the time. By the end I REALLY didn't care any more and was largely just clicking through the waffle to get to the next fight. This aspect needs a huge amount of trimming. editing, and re-translation. Given how important the visual novel aspect is to the game, it would really be worth hiring some professional writers and translators to overhaul this aspect (or for future episodes of the series).

That said, the story does eventually explain why the game is subtitled 'Abandoned Children', which I was wondering about for about 80% of the game!

The world-building and setting is ridiculous. The city you play in - Valhalla- is a war torn anarchistic nightmare ruled over a by a nasty cabal of self-interested corporations, amoral scientists, jaded politicos and foreign interests. Much of the city is over-run by warring gangs, cults, weird sapient animals(!) and robots. It is defended by a barely resourced police department and what are effectively PMCs, most of whom are only interested in taking relatively safe and profitable jobs and letting the public hang.

Yet the standard of living displayed seems to be equivalent to that of a well developed, stable, first world liberal democracy! How does that work?

Also, no matter how many times you defeat the major criminals they tend to turn up again. They have more lives than cats!

Anyway, despite my criticisms, there is definite soul in the story, and even some warm and memorable (if unrealistic and unbelievable) characters. But possibly I feel that way from a form of narrative Stockholm syndrome :).

Music - it is mostly good but there are only a handful of tracks so it does get repetitive.

Dandelion - the dev - clearly love this game, love their story, and love their work. I do think they may shape into a great dev team one day, they are well on the way. But they need to focus on the core game-play rather than throwing in the kitchen sink, shorten the story, and hire pro writers and translators.

Possibly better than X-COM

Excellent game, so much content, lots of flexibility in character loadouts and roles. If you are a fan of RPGs, XCOM, or tactical turn based strategy you will love it.

GO TO THE END IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ THE ESSAY.


Troubleshooter is what XCOM should be nowdays, hard, customizable, and incredibly fun to play.

Writing

The game is a grid-based Strategy RPG set in an hypotetic future world where, after a tremendous war, Valhalla was founded, an autonomous megalopolis state between the territories involved in it.
Not being able to have an actual army due to its political situation, the crime rate starts skyrocketing, so the government decides to establish the Troubleshooter companies, basically legalizing vigilantism as said companies of talented citizens are allowed to fight crime for money.

The story follows one of these troubleshooter companies in their journey to icrease its "rank", following it in countless missions in their struggle to bring peace to the Wind Wall district of Valhalla, one of the most criminally active of the city.
The story has a very long, almost boring, startup, it gets way better in its middle section, but ends very abruptly, without untagling many of the secrets and characters that are introduced before, some characters don't even have their story arc completely closed, leaving the feeling that there's more to them.
Probably the team understood that they could not make what they originally had in mind or they decided to keep some seecrets for the sequel that is currently in development, who knows, but the pacing problems remain apparent.
Too bad because the worldbuilding is solid and interesting, but the lack of a codex that can remind you names, factions, places, and such can be felt when the game is so spread out.

The main story takes from 60 to 80 hours to complete, depending on the difficulty you're on and the side missions you decide to do, that can each take up to one/two hours to finish.

Gameplay

The gameplay is reminiscing of XCOM, characters take turns depending on their speed stat and move in a grid structure around the maps, if an enemy is in range you can attack with a variety of active skills that depend on the character you're using.
The game also includes a small job system, in fact, despite their standard class, each character can choose between two advanced classes once they reach a certain level, mastering one of them will unlock all active abilities of that class even when using the other one.
New characters will join the troubleshooter company troughout the story, providing fresh and unique gameplay every time.

Difficulty (my experience is on Hard, not the highest)

Despite the simple premises, the game isn't easier than XCOM, despite removing the infamous perma death of the Mythos game, once you lose one pawn, your company can start crumbling quite fast, and i often had to restart entire missions that took me up to two hours because i made a grave mistake.

The Mastery System

The true beauty of this game shows up before taking part in a misson, i'm talking about the "mastery system": Basically whenever you defeat an enemy or complete certain requirements in a mission you can obtain a "mastery", basically a piece of gear that can be equipped to a character and provide (mostly) passive abilities.
This may sound like a standard charm or ring in any other RPG, but the fun part comes in the sheer amount of them you can equip on one character simultaniously (40-50 in endgame) and the variety of available ones (pretty sure there are more than 1000).

The build variety of the game is therefore incredibly stacked, so stacked in fact, that i think i've never seen something like this in a non-MMO RPG; want a tank that can whistand even the hardest of blows? A sweeper that can tear trough the entire map in one turn? A scout that can move long distances? Or an hybrid that can do everything decently? Well fear not, because the limit is only your creativity.

Adding even more sauce to the plate is the "mastery set" system: a set is an additional ability that activates when you have 4 specific masteries equipped at the same time, add this to the regular masteries and the amount of abilities you can have on one character starts going above and beyond what other RPGs do.

Side Content & Endgame

Despite the main missions, there are a massive amount of optional ones you can decide to take on to expand your knowledge of the game world, level up your characters and drop new masteries.
Vendors will also give you side objectives in new or already existing missions in order to obtain more materials for crafting or upgrading, but their level scales way too slowly compared to the story, so the average player will end up ignoring them to avoid doing useless missions 10-20 levels below theirs.
The real side quests are therefore created by the player itself, replaying missions to acquire certain masteries, equipment or materials, leveling characters, and testing mastery builds.

After the main story the game offers a few hardcore missions to complete for the ones who want crave more, with the option to download 2 DLCs, one free, one paid, that add 3 new characters and provide additional content and story bits.

Add up all these features and the game's already long main experience can stretch to hundreds of hours if you ever decided to 100% it.

Other Mechanics

The depth of the game's systems doesn't end with masteries, a crafting system for equipment and deployable drones, a taming mechanic for beasts, a friendship system between characters, online features and a reputation system with vendors will add even more to the already overflowing pot of content this game offers. Some of them can't be completely explored until the endgame or without a substantial amount of farming, and will probably get ignored by many players.

It's probably too much for most people

Despite my excitement I understand that a game this complex could be hard to grasp or even enjoy at all for many players, it feels like Dandylion team kept adding ideas to it without realizing it would be overwhelming for someone who's not very passionate about RPGS to have the will to keep going till the end, in fact as of the writing of this review, only 15% of players have finished the game.

The game fails to find balance between its many systems, some of them being completely optional or straight up negligible from start to finish.
I felt like most of this problems happen to fix themselves in the endgame, where the only thing left to do is optimizing each build to the maximum to take on the hardest stages, but the game is already 100 hours long at that point, and only a minuscule part of the playerbase is going to do that.

TL;DR

Troubleshooter is an outstanding imperfect product, with an incredible amount of subsystems that i've never seen before, not to mention an Indie.

-An interesting worldbuilding that suffers from the lack of a "codex" to remind you of its various aspects when needed, and an overall nice story that ends too abruptly.

-Gameplay reminiscing of XCOM: simple but hard, with an emphasis on the characters' strenghts and weaknesses.
Will keep even the veterans of strategy RPGS on their toes, especially at harder difficulties.

-Character build customization like never before, many options to tune each character exactly how you want it.

-Many subsystems, each having their own complexity, to learn and master, but fail to properly coexist with each other without some of being negligible.

-hundreds of hours of content and a nightmare to 100%, with at least 60-80 of them being needed to complete the main story depending on the difficulty and side missions played.

Overall this isn't a game for everyone, most people will be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of mechanics and subsystems that contribute to the incredible customization freedom this game provides, but i can guarantee that those who do, will find what is probably one of the most unique RPG experiences they've ever played.

Vote: 7/10
Personal: 9/10

Ok this is taking way too long to finish and I am not even in the DLC story yet but I've been wanting to write the review for a while now so I'll just do it now.

It's a GREAT game. I sincerely love it. The gameplay is somewhat reminiscent of the X-Com series, but has its completely unique identity, and in fact based on what other reviews I have read, going into this with the mindset of "oh this is just anime X-COM" will probably ruin the experience for you if anything.

What really captivates me about it is that it is an extremely rare example of a game attempting to blend deep turn based strategy with intricate and complex character building and completely succeeding. Your effectiveness during a mission doesn't just depend on your ability to make good decisions, but to the thought and effort you have put to making a character as powerful as possible. A character's strength will depend on the combination of their equipment stats and buffs, the skills you have selected for them, their subclass, and most importantly their masteries. The mastery system is essentially a board of different passives that you can install on your units, and the amount of combinations you can do is quite gigantic. This gives an immense amount of player self-expression since every character becomes able to play in multiple different ways, and when you add the parameter of team synergy it really does feel like you can create the team of your dreams.

The story is also very refreshing, in my opinion. I've heard some conflicting opinions about it but personally I really enjoy a game focusing on human relationships like this one does, rather than another generic story about saving the world, whose character's bland personality is shoddily covered by their extremely over the top visual design - and surely I can not be the only one who thinks we have had way too many of those in the last years. I think the interactions between characters is charming and realistic. The premise of the overall Troubleshooters universe seems interesting too, although it feels like this is still in the early stages, which makes sense since this is the first game after all.

I also want to mention that I really appreciated how greatly adjustable difficulty is in this game. Instead of just very easy to very hard you have multiple other settings you can use, such as challenge mode. I think that allowing a player to have greater control over the difficulty they have to face is a really underestimated feature in games and it is really nice to see it being given some extra care here. I started out with just hard, now playing cruel challenge mode + high risk high reward and might drop it a little again if dlc proves too much.

The soundtrack was one complaint I had, I think a strong soundtrack can really spice up a game's charm and if I am being honest I didn't really feel that with Troubleshooter, except with Reminiscence, that one is great. I would love it if there was a little more emphasis on this field next time, if at all possible. Also while I like being able to craft my own equipment, it got a little exhausting running around to different vendors for that one thing you were missing time and time again, but to be fair I had missed the "automatic" crafted setting for a large part of the game so perhaps I only have myself to blame for this.

I wish all the best to Dandylion and I really hope their next works are as inspired as this one felt to me.

Game is so fun. Great customization to strategy - beautiful artwork and music, challenging and dynamic. Perfect game!

5/5

This is one of the best games i have ever played!
CANT WAIT FOR NUMBER 2

So I purchased this game because Mortismal Gaming gave it a decent review but this is what I'll say after 40ish hours.

I made it to around level 30 which is roughly midgame.

The combat: my biggest gripe with the game is the combat. Like other CRPG games, elevation seems to not matter. Line of sight does not matter (often times I am shooting through a wall or through the floor).

Turns take incredibly long, especially at the point in the game I am in, sometimes there's 40+ units in play at once, so 1 mission can take over 60 minutes. If multiple enemy units could take their turns at the same time, this would improve the game by a lot.

Melee units feel too strong in small fights and useless in big ones because they die instantly in crossfire. Again, line of sight or having another unit in front of you doesn't protect you at all.

The cover system is a bit strange, if you have cover then you get an increased chance to dodge enemy fire or melee attacks but the game also doesn't show when you don't have cover or where you need to stand to bypass enemy cover.

Enemy units are always like the same 3 or 4 units and I'm 40 hours in, so it's incredibly repetitive.

Overall, I really wanted to enjoy this game, but I just couldn't get into it.

At first glance, the game's 3D modeling is lacking compared to its character illustrations. I mostly play RPG on past periods without guns. I decided to try, since I watched raving reviews on youtube.

Its combat sessions tend to take a long time. Storywise it is understandable, as the playable characters, mostly, join with the regional police squad to fight the organized crime gangs. Still, it is a tactical RPG, and the number of PC and NPC on one combat session are not small. As you play, you might use these police as a spare, or decide to return home all together alive. Though the game let you choose to leave in the middle of the session once you kill a hero-level mini boss. This game does not have a save file to load, but seems auto-save on check points on its own. With that, it provides detailed statistics of the all PCs and their(the player's) company about how well you are doing.

There are too much to do. There is a mastery board on skills for each PC. Masteries are mostly earned from enemy drops and then needed to be tinkered on the board, preparing for the next combat mission. I have few drones and beasts, and each of them also has their own board. I played on normal mode and didn't feel the game was too grindy. I wish there are lesser steps on crafting materials. One can replay past case missions and some provide different story path to choose than before. I recently replayed the game I dropped before to remind me of the storylines again with this function.

The game story is rich. Main character Albus and their companions each has his story. And story and battle gives useful friendship leveling among company members. Police and gang member NPC has their story. Some extras and even the beast herds and lair has its own story to tell. In all that, I think Albus needs to be more impressive main lead than as is. New companions with unique abilities join one by one, enabling to counterattack evolving crime environment. So the game keeps challenging and gripping, as it brings in new things to learn and try. I think there needs to be in-game tutorial to teach how to tame a beast though on a possible moment.

For gamers who can appreciate these in-depth gaming mechanism and can tolerate turn-based RPGs, this game is an exellenet choice. I am planning to buy the DLCs to continue on.

this game is so good. it has so much depth in character building. compared to X this is so much better!

Dandylion's personal vision of hell is a world where Fire Support never ends.
Jokes aside, an amazing game. Can't wait for the sequel.
Alisa is my wife.

An excellent turn based game. The story is decent and the combat is pretty fun.

this is one of the best games ive played if you like tactics games

An absolute gem if you are into turn-based tactical RPGs. The love put into this game is evident, even if not all aspects knock it out the park. All the usual suspects are here - distinctive classes, friendship/bonds, crafting everything from potions to guns to skills, machine building/beast taming, fun skill system and set bonuses, side quest missions, challenge mode and grinding galore for the invested, and (although limited) ways to choose a different path to replay missions to get additional rewards or to tackle the map in a different way.

However, there is no base building element (which is not a knock, it doesn't make sense for this game), and there is a level cap (that goes up once you enter the DLC) which is reached pretty quickly for strategy vets that like to play with the system as much as the combat. Maps are also unique, and while it's been a plus for me given you can see the attention paid to the layout and the tactics/builds that it encourages, this also mean grinding can get repetitive very quickly. Not sure I would prefer procedurally-generated maps over these maps, but just wanted to note for those that prefer a new map everytime to keep the gameplay fresh.

The story/characters are pretty cookie-cutter - regional political and pseudo-religious turmoil and its impact on the lives of our protagonists, who are a rag-tag group of what I *think* can be considered licensed mercenaries that take on government cases when support beyond the police force is needed. There sure are a lot of gangs in this world! You can "feel" the localization into English as not all dialogue is super smooth, but it doesn't really detract from understanding the plot. Overall I think the story gave the characters personality and background, but can be skipped entirely if you are not invested a few chapters in.

Tactical gameplay is where this game shines and I think the feedback loop was excellent. You can come out of missions with a slew of equipment, skills, beasts, and whatnot, spend a few moments regrouping and crafting, then depending on the type of mission you want to tackle next, change up character abilities and skills. Some missions are very long (can take 1hr+, which may be a negative to some folks) and are very satisfying to beat with the right ability/skill configuration. You have distinction between your melee fighters, elemental mages, and long range shooters, and you will *have to* learn to position/build/play them differently to beat the tougher missions.

Overall, I am very much looking forward to the sequel and will definitely be supporting this dev in the future!

This is a phenomenal game, well worth the modest investment- provided you give it the time and attention it deserves.

I am currently at 62 hours and enjoying it immensely. Usually with RPG games I tend to feel slightly jaded around 40-50 hours in, and sometimes rush through to the finish. It is a credit to the game that I am still fully engaged; I have not repeated any scenarios, and each mission is sufficiently different than the others, to keep things interesting. Earlier this year I completed FFX and FFX-2 and was quite fed up by the end of them 😂 Of the various RPGs I have completed, I would rate this one close to the top, with the likes of Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Quite an achievement for a small developer 💪🏻 You are given new and diverse characters at a steady pace and this really keeps the interest levels up.

I would say the game is essentially a combination of Xcom 2 and FF Tactics. I much prefer it to Xcom 2, it is deeper and the theme suits me better. I also really like the Korean sound bites when taking actions 😍

Things I would prefer to be done differently- almost nothing, in truth. A simple tutorial on masteries, as it took me some time to understand the system. An indication as to how long missions may be so I don’t start one with insufficient time. More frequent saves, for the same reason. But these are minor things really.

Although I got the game in the sale, I decided to support the developers and purchased all of the character skins and the DLC missions. Those I am saving for later; I will take a break after completing the base game and come back to them later. And naturally I will be buying the sequel 😬

If you like tactical RPGs and anime and are willing to invest your time, you will be handsomely rewarded with this fantastic title 🙏🏻

Love it so far. Tons of stuff to do.

Troubleshooter is an awesome game! I have completed the main game and just started the first DLC and I'm gonna list some of my thoughts here.

-the visual quality of the game varies but all the main characters have really great stylized models in my opinion. I also really like all of the artwork in the game.
-I actually really liked the story. There were a few rough patches like some of the explanations for Spoonage and the fortress of solitude, but overall I really did enjoy the world building and characters. The characters and their various relationships is a huge reason why the game was so gripping to me. I wish Albus had a bit more character to him and I was disappointed to hear the next game won't be about him. I feel like there is still a ton unanswered that would be hard to cover in these DLCs.
-The gameplay is SO FUN. I really really really liked building the characters. It is super intimidating at first but it is not as complicated as it seems and really rewarding. The worst aspect of the character building is the crafting in my opinion it's really annoying to have to craft a line of materials to make an equipment piece twice so you can unlock the next tier and do it again, especially with drones. I also really enjoyed the beast taming. I made a really awesome Negoori (froggy) and I'm raising a Draki (dragon) right now. The battles are super fun. It makes you fee really smart when you do a great strategy that works.
-The music was fine but honestly I turned it off because you end up hearing the same tracks over and over (especially after 100 hours)

Overall I really liked this game. I am looking forward to the sequel and will be purchasing it day one!

Very fun tactical rpg. Need more games in this genre.

Great turn based tactics game, in the line of xcom and the rest. Hundreds of skills, hundreds of items, full crafting, build and train robots, tame and train monsters, large team assaults, completely customizable difficulty which you are encouraged to tweak at any time to increase rewards, just a lot to do and a lot of fun to be had. Fast and stable to boot. I'm not an anime/jrpg person, but this was a great game even if you don't know anything about or care for either of those genres!

a great tactical RPG - lots of systems to sink your teeth into

Pretty cool game.
I really like the mastery mechanic!

In-depth mechanics and deep customization are the hallmark of the game. Like XCOM but the mechanics are totally different and provide welcome change.

Superb level of content for a reasonable price. Must get on a sale!

This game is like, laser targeted at my tastes. but it unfortunately fails to deliver.Oother reviewers go into more detail about the pros/cons so i'll just leave it to them.

I will say, i like a lot of the ideas put forth and look forward to future games by Dandylion

An absolute hidden gem: anime XCOM with diablo-esque loot and endless class builds...yep.

Honestly, if I could give this game a neutral review I would. It's overall a decent game, though a flawed one.

First off, the obvious - most people are drawn to play this because of the xcom similarities.
However, this is absolutely nothing like xcom other than the cover system, movement mechanics, etc.
It's more of a jrpg, with a wealth of systems to learn and master.

The positives:
1) Mastery system is deep and quite fun once you get the hang of it. The deep customization, skill trees, class system.. all of these were great.
2) Combat can be quite fun (and frustrating).
3) Story is.. alright. Pacing is bad, it gets really draggy, but kinda interesting.
4) I like the graphics - very persona 4-esque, and the 3D graphics have a retro charm.

The negatives:
1) WAY TOO MANY AI CONTROLLED CHARACTERS. I want to play the game, not watch AI controlled enemies move around the map 70% of the time. There are way, way, way too many missions where there are a ton of police and gangsters hogging up the turn queue and you're just watching 50 npcs fight while you wait for your turn. IMO that's frustrating game design, tone it down a little. Put fewer AI npcs in fights. I gave up after I realized I was playing an idle game, not an rpg. Sometimes only 20% or less of the turn queue belongs to characters I can control. I don't mind fighting a ton of enemies, that's alright... but watching the cops fight gangsters gets real repetitive real fast.

2) I don't really enjoy the mechanics of having police join you at all. This is linked to the above point. Just tone down the scale of fights and your sequel will be much more enjoyable. E.g. early game I'd rather have my 4 characters fight 20 baddies rather than have 4 characters + 5 generic police characters fight 50+ baddies.

3) Similar to the above point... the fights where you control random characters are also really disjointed and hurt the flow of the game. Too many characters are introduced early, and you don't feel any attachment to them at all. The translation probably hurts the experience a little here.

As a whole, I really wanted to like this game since I read so many good reviews about it, but I can't bring myself to. The story missions just broke me - way too much "idle rpg" and watching crap happening on screen was way too frustrating after awhile (some missions I spent maybe 20% of the time playing my characters and the rest of the time watching enemy and ally npcs fighting). It was fun at first but gradually it became really tedious. The more generic combat missions were a lot more enjoyable.

I love the complexity and diverseness of the game management, turn-based tactics and mechanics. Not too crazy about some of the graphics, makes some characters too asexual. The males look too fem.

By far the best tactics game I played in my life.

People saying this in "anime x-com" are misunderstanding the game in my opinion, as this is way closer to tactics ogre or FF Tactics.

If you enjoy making OP builds, this game is has insane depth, more than 600 skills, which can be passive or active, and some of them complete a set of 4 skills, there are hundreds of these sets, some of which completely break the game (in a good way), to me there is no greater satisfaction than having my mage destroy 20 guys in 1 turn (and somehow still fail that mission lol)
Each character has 1 basic class and 2 advanced class, mostly unique to them, so everytime you get a new character you can spend hours building them.
And even though you can grind to your hearts content, it's pretty optional until the very late game, difficulty is highly modular, which is always a good thing.

Anyway, highly recommend the game for anybody with a lot of time on their hands, devs are amazing, really hope they keep making games for the forceable future.

Mom, someone put too much game in my game !