Newest entry from Arcen Games, who are pretty hit or miss IMO because they insist on making all their games some niche experimental shit. Regardless, The Last Federation and both the AI Wars were good enough to convince me they can make kino, so is this game worth it? I unironically can't even tell what genre it is --- half 4X, half RPG?

it's niche experimental shit

i'm not sure the devs know what genre it is

to be flippant it's a cyoa with extra cope

>>2058164 (OP)
I don't know what I'd call the genre, but what I do know is that aesthetically it's one of the worst games I've ever played.

>>2058171
>how should we represent the T-800 killbot laying low in a neighborhood? let's have him jump to the top of the roof of the building

This game is so fucking ass. It's a fucking VN wearing skin of GSG. If it at least had a good fucking combat, and you could have some fun playing tactics turn based game centered around streetfighting, but they couldn't even get that remotely properly.
And it looks like shit... And it has dogshit fucking UI with 500 filters for essentially like 5 things... And it has unironically 1000 fucking resources, but almost none ever matter or you're lacking...

>>2058164 (OP)
>>2058171
it defies genre desu

>>2058197
Yeah it's absolutely one of those "let's commit every game design sin known to man" games. The UI lone is comically bad, but as you said the gameplay is atrocious too. Some of the most uninteresting and uncompelling tactical combat I've ever seen in a game, and that's saying a lot given the oversaturation of the market with shitty tactical combat games.

>was hoping to be the ghost in the machine slowly ensnaring the world
>whoops you built a skyscraper this is now a city builder
sigh...

>>2058352
it's really fucking bizarre that you just build a giant malevolent tower in the middle of the city and no one cares about it at all

>>2058352
>ghost in the machine slowly ensnaring the world
Absolutely how the game was presented when it was first announced, with it being up to you when to decide to make your first public move and in what fashion. Instead what we got it one of the most hamfisted bait and switches I've ever seen

>>2058356
the future is just that dystopian man, everyone is so inured and blackpilled. this is NOT a heckin chungus city...... but maybe it could be, if you play your cards right and choose the Paragon [PET THE CAT] option in the Epic Cat Quest of Do0m instead of the Renegade [KILL THE CAT] option?

extremely weird game, the demo of which I did not play for more than 15 mins

>>2058164 (OP)
I always felt that the game was built around just showing the OMG SO COOL massive mech in the city and had nothing else going for it

Do they have a demo up again? Is it patched and different from the one they had a while ago?

at least it confirms my suspicion that AI War's success was entirely accidental

>>2058197
Yeah, there's gazillion elemental damage types that are all entirely interchangeable and as far as I can tell the "tactical" combat, when it happens, boils down to higher number wins, replace bots faster than they can kill them.
It's barely a game.