Comments on: Thoughts: Desperados 3

By: mebam

mebam — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 19:58:15 +0000

Almost every review told that Isabella is op, but honestly I didn’t find her so overwhelmingly powerfull. Kate on the other hand felt a bit unbalanced. I think the spy character is the most fragile piece of the system of a commandos-like game, and the limitation of them is essential for a good balance. The single little thing that Kate can keep her disguise while squatting and she can knock out enemies undermined the most powerful restriction (the samurai-like characters who are immune to the disguise).
Maybe it’s just me and my playstyle, but I found her overwhelming compared to the others.

By: innokenti

innokenti — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 13:13:44 +0000

It’s a play-your-way kind of things, but I guess the fantasy here is pulling off a lot of careful actions which you might not be able to do on the fly. But the game is perfectly happy for you to tackle a lot of problems more head on and with guns if you want.

Ultimately the genre is about solving chunks of the problem at a time, working out the way to crack it open. From my experience of the genre, and Desperados 3 is no exception, there are genuinely lots of different solutions available because the chunks that you have to solve will always present in different ways. The level design is key, and in a good one you’ll rarely be presented with just one weak spot to start with. Specifically with Desperados 3′s level design, a great number of levels have at least two explicit routes, but even tackling those can be done in lots of ways (and all this beyond just going guns blazing).

It’s very satisfying to experiment with.

By: innokenti

innokenti — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 13:09:23 +0000

I really really enjoyed this, a lot more than Shadow Tactics which I didn’t quite get into despite being a fan of the genre from back when.

Desperados was one I had played and enjoyed, so it kind of makes sense I got into this version as well. You’ve got everything down about how good and enjoyable it is but one more thing to mention:

There is a bunch of challenge modes and level objectives that let you up the challenge and give a bit of replayability to levels. It’s something I’d consider coming back to, seeing the levels remixed or approached with certain restrictions.

I really enjoyed combing through and coming up with wild and implausible solutions the problems presented by the levels. There were some very cool things you can get away with.

By: ilitarist

ilitarist — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 12:09:14 +0000

I very much like the idea of those games, but it always strikes me odd how they basically require savescumming. Shadow Tactics is surprised if you haven’t saved for a full minute, you mad man. Most mistakes end with reload, you never have to improvise on the fly. It’s like a puzzle game with a single right solution, even if it looks like a cool simulation like Hitman. The best experience you can get from a game like Hitman is playing those no saves or single save challenges, and you learn to live with small mistakes you make. Same for XCOM-likes that are similar to Shadow Tactics in their core idea. XCOM2 seems to want you to reload and makes Iron Man a challenge for streamers to be emotional about. Feels like a lost opportunity to me. But I guess people want a perfect play even if it means constant save/load, so it makes sense for devs to follow.

But I see you say this games allows for some freedom of expression, so maybe I should check it out.