Othercide

 PC
User Score
6.7

Mixed or average reviews- based on 42 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 22 out of 42
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 42
  3. Negative: 10 out of 42

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  1. Mandulum
    Sep 16, 2020
    5
    This game drew me in with its beautiful art and drips of story, used me with its repetitive gameplay, then asked me to do it all over again. I was excited to start but after 14 hours nothing has changed. I've lost interest. You shall join the elite ranks of my unfinished games.

    Date Dropped: 2020-09-15 Playtime: 14h Enjoyment: 5/10 Recommendation: No. There's almost no story, just a    This game drew me in with its beautiful art and drips of story, used me with its repetitive gameplay, then asked me to do it all over again. I was excited to start but after 14 hours nothing has changed. I've lost interest. You shall join the elite ranks of my unfinished games.

    Date Dropped: 2020-09-15
    Playtime: 14h
    Enjoyment: 5/10
    Recommendation: No. There's almost no story, just a whole lot of repetition.    … Expand
  2. blakfayt
    Feb 19, 2021
    6
    I gotta hand it to this game, it looks really neat in trailers. A lot of the reviews here will say the same things, and that's because they're pretty much spot on. The game has a lot to draw you in. The art direction is top-notch, the story they drip to you sounds interesting, and I think this would all play out super well in an action game starring the "Mother" character you get to messI gotta hand it to this game, it looks really neat in trailers. A lot of the reviews here will say the same things, and that's because they're pretty much spot on. The game has a lot to draw you in. The art direction is top-notch, the story they drip to you sounds interesting, and I think this would all play out super well in an action game starring the "Mother" character you get to mess with during the tutorial. After that... you get three classes that may as well negate the whole permadeath thing, dialogue that gets repeated over and over and over and says literally nothing ("When will their suffering end?" I dunno, lady, but you've said that at EVERY LOADING SCREEN FOR THE PAST FOUR HOURS.) and a difficulty curve that makes Xcom look like Skyrim.

    The game's problems start with this description going around. There's nothing scary in the first several hours, if anything at all. There's creepy flesh monsters you kill in one swing that are only annoying because of how many the game throws at you for no reason. There's an incomprehensible plot about the ravings of a lunatic and a pandemic and some supernatural otherworld stuff. It sounds really neat, but the problem is in the presentation. You're going to read a lot of stuff that explains nothing while playing a game that features a meager three classes against about twenty or so enemies from the length of the bestiary at the start, and everything takes far too long to be enjoyable.

    My biggest gripe with the game is how slow it is. Not just the story and learning things, but the gameplay loop. Often I'll move my three characters and then watch five enemies move up and do nothing, but their turns take twice as long as one of mine, as if the AI has to THINK about what it's doing, or the game's loading things needlessly. There's just a certain pause that it shares with Xcom that really grinds my gears and makes me want to skip my enemy's turns, especially the uneventful ones, which is many of them. In the first Era, the game's chapters are divided as such, the game tries to give you the impression there's a lot of depth, but I couldn't find it for all the confusion and tedium. Skill that interrupt enemies cost HP, HP can only be regained by sacrificing a character of equal or higher level, therefore interrupt skills suck and you should avoid them, but they're also incredibly necessary for setting up big damage or saving other characters. Risk/reward has never felt so lame! Imagine playing Fire Emblem, or Xcom, and every time you shoot your gun you take damage. Yeah, it's just pointlessly hindering for the sake of difficulty. Like, they didn't want to copy the Xcom accuracy system, so here's something more annoying. Oh, and there's no other way to regain HP other than sacrificing, and I can't fathom trying to raise more than three characters at a time over level 3, because that's how many you get to take with you on a mission.

    Which leads me to the biggest downfall of the game. There's only three classes. There's only. Three. Classes. You get guns, a sword, and a spear and shield. That's it. Offense, range, defense. Not even, like, a mage? How about you use the damage skills in a more interesting way and make a blood mage that sacrifices HP to heal the other units, but can't heal herself? THAT would be better. But, no, here's three classes, you have three slots, they learn the same moves at the same levels, one swordsman is the same as the next. Yawn. Sure, they get different passives, but that implies you survive. The game honestly may as well reset if you lose someone, because you'll just hit a level wall if you keep going with an uneven party. And again, the stupid healing thing.

    The game has an easy mode, that's probably the better experience, but overall the game feels like it aimed at the Darkest Dungeon fans, and I can't say whether it hit the mark or not. It's not a bad game, it's just tedious and hard for the sake of hard. It's like a Dark Souls clone that changes the formula to make the game "harder" so they can put it on the box. There's nothing wrong with difficult games, there's something wrong when you make the hard part boring.    … Expand
  3. iseeall
    Dec 31, 2020
    6
    An artsy TBS which is just too unapproachable and in the end lacks meat.

    Good: - the art is great. I must say, its limited color scheme (only red and shades of gray) felt somewhat low-budget at first, but the stylish animations, semi-erotic models and overall feel quickly convince you that it's just "Art" with a capital A. Obviously, development of this game was done with an artists as    An artsy TBS which is just too unapproachable and in the end lacks meat.

    Good:
    - the art is great. I must say, its limited color scheme (only red and shades of gray) felt somewhat low-budget at first, but the stylish animations, semi-erotic models and overall feel quickly convince you that it's just "Art" with a capital A. Obviously, development of this game was done with an artists as lead
    - instead of turns it uses initiative of units. It's not very unique (Disciples 1 and 2 used this, and also newer games like Conquistadors and Vikings) however here you can push enemies backwards in the timeline with some abilities, delaying their turn. Also, attacks can have a delay until they are actually performed and can be interrupted. This all provides an interesting core system to play with

    So-so:
    - it uses permadeath, but after each failed run you get slight boosts. While this looks good in theory, it essentially means you'd replay stuff over and over until the game becomes simple enough because of the accumulated booosts (and you've learnt it enough) to beat it. I guess it's still a better system than just normal permadeath. Though I'd probably prefer the usual save/load system and an optional iron man mode which experienced players could try as a challenge

    Bad:
    - the game starts as a cryptic mess and would turn off many players instantly - so I'd guess they have lots of refunds. The tutorial is way too hasty, not giving you any time to understand what's happening. In a similar way, the story is incomprehensible. Not only everything has weird names (and you essentially have to create a renaming map in your head) but also it's all presented in a convoluted manner. There is some "Mother", then some "Veil", it's 1897, then 1929, then there are some plague doctors, many words are capitalized (like they have some special meaning) etc. It's like trying to get any sense from ramblings of a guy in a nuthouse. It's not fun, and the only thing you know for sure is that their writer probably has very high opinion of themselves and wasn't fired because they are one of the owners of the project or a relative/wife/lover of the owner etc.
    - important hints are lacking from the GUI, e.g. you can't see the range of your pistols, or enemies' ranges.
    - with just 3 characters that the player controls and a not-too-large selection of enemies, the game gets repetitive fairly quickly. It would just need more meat to have a greater long-term appeal.

    Overall, I have an impression that there was some pretentious team or maybe even a single person who is an artist and maybe an amateur writer. The dev team probably followed their lead up the point where the game was almost completed. Then they tried to do some playtesting, saw that players don't understand the game but then had to just release it as-is because it would be too costly to change anything, and the players are stupid anyways, so for this great game there will be some small audience of players who are smart enough and can appreciate real art.

    I'd say this game is an unfinished product with some good art sadly wasted, or only usable as a bait to get sales (followed by a high % of refunds). If some proper game designer could take lead here and improve the controls based on player feedback/playtesting + give the story some sense, it could become a proper, playable game.

    Still, 6/10 out of respect to the artist + the interesting core timeline mechanic.

    PS. Btw I know some guy who is about 40 now, and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. I knew him since he was 17. He was an amateur writer, and used a lot of capitalized words in his stores. I don't know if that's relevant to this game, but just feels very familiar.    … Expand
  4. Tailed-Raven
    Aug 1, 2020
    10
    Probably my favorite tactical Rpg game, it is the perfect mix between Darkest dungeon and Xcom 2. Also let's not forget the sublime visual, this game is a treat for the eyes.
  5. demned4
    Sep 8, 2020
    0
    Очень очень очень недоделана. все в зачаточном состоянии. это близко не X COM/Это близко не тактика. это недоделанный RAID в "типануаре". Сюжета нет от слова СОВСЕМ. Даже как бесплатную не порекомендую.
  6. Dovahslayer
    Nov 29, 2020
    3
    Unfair, unbalanced and very poorly executed from the tactial side of things. Also, extremely repetitive.
    The art direction is great, but there's nothing to sink your teeth into.
  7. IcyACH
    Jul 29, 2020
    9
    I realy enjoy the game. It feel like a mix of Darkest Dungeon and XCom and is realy unique.
    A few little issue wite the controlls...
  8. AlexXZ
    Jul 30, 2020
    1
    не стоит своих денег. всего 3 класа. ужасная прорисовка моделей. ign раздает 90 баллов всем играм со словами "это лучшая игра!" it's TRPG! this is not a roguelike/
  9. Sepherim
    Oct 13, 2021
    7
    Othercide sin duda es una buena mezcla entre juego de estrategia por turnos y roguelite. Se basa en una serie de rondas, en las cuales ganas px para tus Hijas y Memorias que equiparles, de cara a enfrentarse al boss de esa ronda. Si vences, sigues hacia el siguiente. Si no, vuelta a empezar, pero con diversas mejoras que vas desbloqueando. El combate la verdad es que está muy bien, con unaOthercide sin duda es una buena mezcla entre juego de estrategia por turnos y roguelite. Se basa en una serie de rondas, en las cuales ganas px para tus Hijas y Memorias que equiparles, de cara a enfrentarse al boss de esa ronda. Si vences, sigues hacia el siguiente. Si no, vuelta a empezar, pero con diversas mejoras que vas desbloqueando. El combate la verdad es que está muy bien, con una iniciativa dinámica que hace que el orden en que ocurre cada cosa, cuando pasarnos y cuando ser conservadores, resulte clave. Los diversos tipos de Hijas que tenemos no son muchos, pero son lo suficientemente diferentes entre si como para que sea interesante combinarlas y ofrezcan diversas opciones tácticas. Lo mismo ocurre con los enemigos y los bosses que, sin ser demasiados en variedad, si que ofrecen diversos retos que debemos priorizar y aprender a contrarrestar (eso si, el boss final me ha parecido un tremendo coñazo).

    Gráficamente el juego no es espectacular pero si que tiene un apartado artístico muy atractivo con el uso del blanco y negro y el rojo. La música no tiene mucha presencia, pero cuando impacta funciona muy bien. Los efectos cumplen y las voces no están mal aunque son un poco irregulares; el problema que tienen, además, es que tienen pocas frases, de modo que acaban repitiéndose mucho. Solo me encontré con un bug en mi tiempo jugando, un error que se produjo de al terminar un asalto y retirarme, pero fue un error grave que me borró parte de la partida guardada y sus datos, lo cual me llevó a dejar el juego poco antes del final.

    Por todo ello, Othercide no es un juego perfecto, pero si uno que vale la pena. Un 7.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

91
#91 Best PC Game of 2020

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 25 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 25
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 25
  3. Negative: 0 out of 25
  1. CD-Action
    Oct 15, 2020
    80
    With its distinct visual style, interesting, complex gameplay mechanics, and merciless difficulty level, Othercide is a treat for anyone who enjoys challenging turn-based tactical games. [10/2020, p.50]
  2. Riot Pixels
    Sep 20, 2020
    83
    Othercide is low-key but stylish, smart, exciting, even though it doesn't have the budget and technologies of Gears Tactics. It does fall into the same gameplay cracks sometimes, yet, unlike GT, it always keeps you engaged and invested in the fate of your team.
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  3. GameCritics
    Aug 27, 2020
    75
    I was drawn to Othercide not only because I’m a fan of turn-based tactical combat and compelling aesthetics, but because of its mysterious premise. That said, the repetitive gameplay and lack of variety made me eventually lose interest. The themes of death, struggle, and rebirth are interesting, but they weren’t enough to override the repetition and and unconventional design choices.
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