Othercide

I bought Othercide, developed by Lightbulb Crew, purely for its aesthetics -- a decision I came to regret. I think at the time I wishlisted the game, I still fancied the noir visuals: the grayscale with one or two colors. But now I no longer find it as attractive.

Stylish turn-based tactics

Othercide is a... I guess tactical roleplaying game is an apt genre descriptor -- stress on the tactical. The game has light roguelike elements as well as metaprogression, meaning that it's next to impossible to beat it on your first run, or 'Recollection', even when playing on the easier Dream difficulty that was added post launch. The game sat on my backlog awhile and only when its turn was about to come up I finally realized 'othercide' wasn't just a funky way to spell other side but meant the act of killing Others.

The story of Othercide is somewhat vague. I suppose reading all the lore entries might help; I didn't bother doing that. I did get enough information from the cutscenes to piece together some level of understanding what was going on. There are year numbers but the game has very little to do with the real world. There seemed to be a child immune to a plague and he was cruelly experimented upon to find a cure -- I guess. One of the antagonists is the Surgeon and another the Deacon. The vibes were reminiscent of Plague Tale -- Lightbulb are likewise a French studio.

The Child's suffering caused the Veil to break, allowing all manner of nightmarish monsters to pour in. I don't know if the Mother character was supposed to be the Child's mother and why exactly you are the Red Mother. You germinate Daughters, warriors to battle the ever more dangerous horrors through a set of eras. Once you run out of Daughters or simply just want to do so, you can start a new run with various bonuses giving Remembrances.

Mistakes discouraged

Othercide is brutally punishing -- one mistake can easily cause you to lose a Daughter. Getting good requires you to learn the enemies: what they can do and whom they like to prioritize. Understanding the timeline, the turn order, is also of utmost importance. You don't want to waste your interrupt, reaction, and delayed actions.

The Dream mode is largely the same as the normal Nightmare with 3 differences, none of them directly affecting combat. Having a bonus Resurrection token and resurrection restoring a Daughter to full health are nice but what makes the mode easier -- and allows you to beat the game faster -- is Daughters healing 50% of their max health between days. On Nightmare, the only way to heal a Daughter is to sacrifice another of equal or higher level.

Daughters lose health not only from enemies but also from using interrupt and reaction skills, which cost 5 to 10% health per activation. On Nightmare you really have to make sure they get used to their maximum potential and that you never give enemies a chance to pull off any antics.

A lot of repetition

I started the game on Nightmare but then restarted on Dream to get it done quicker. It was apparent that Othercide would get repetitive fast. I didn't mind the tactical thinking required but there aren't that many mission types and you fight the same enemies on so many days. You end up doing the exact same thing repeatedly.

On my first Recollection I got to the fourth era where enemies became too tough with the appearance of Corrupted Daughters. I started a new Recollection and with the Remembrances I was able to activate, I beat the game with just one of my Daughters being at maximum level. The first three bosses were much easier with higher level Daughters and the Remembrance bonuses.

The fourth boss wasn't too hard either and the final one: a complete smackdown. When the actual boss spawned in, I had a Shieldbearer charge it and then chain Slam to push it back on the timeline. Three Soulslingers kept casting Spirit Haste on the Shieldbearer to keep her ahead of the boss, and each of the three had Shadow Rounds active to fire at the boss whenever someone else dealt damage to it. The max level Soulslinger also kept casting Spirit Rounds to buff the whole team's damage. The boss didn't get to act even once.

The fifth Daughter I had in the fight was a Blademaster. She didn't get to hit the boss even once but was useful for clearing out adds. Sidestep and Lightning Strike make Blademasters a highly mobile class, and with an armor-granting Memory socketed in Sidestep, they're also durable when zooming around the battlefield.

Blademasters seemed to be -- at least based on the abilities I had locked for the Daughters -- to be the one class you need in the last two eras to properly fight Maggots. Their chain mass root attack can completely lock you down if you have no movement abilities.

Stop with the chromatic aberration already

Grayscale can make scenes hard to read. I observed this in Dishonored 2 when it had a grayscale filter added in some random update. Distinguishing enemies and objects from the environment was harder than normally. Thus it is weird that Othercide also has a strong chromatic aberration vignette to make things blurry on top of everything. The visuals so obviously are an important part of the game, only to be lessened by an unnecessary effect.

Fortunately the vignette is not there in mission. But about every other scene in the game is heavily aberrated on the edges. The effect caused me to blink as if there was something in my eyes. There is no option to remove the CA and the game is not popular enough for anyone to have figured out a way. Othercide's configuration is also located in the registry instead of being an easily editable file. What's up with that?

The game soft-locked itself once -- which instantly reminded me of other turn-based games getting stuck on an endless turn. Highlighting enemy movement ranges and ability areas-of-effect was sometimes fiddly or the area highlight got stuck on the ground, making it impossible to see other areas under it. But mostly Othercide was functional. I've read, though, that the fourth Daughter class may not unlock if you defeat the third boss too fast without it getting a chance to act.