This Game Is Better Than It Sounds - Reverse Collapse Code Name Bakery
76You can grab the game Here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1127700/Reverse_Collapse_Code_Name_Bakery/
P.s. At the time of publishing the game is getting review bombed by the Chinese market giving it a Mixed review score. This is due to ongoing shitslinging regarding one of the waifus in Girls Frontline 2: Exillium getting messed with in a way the fans didn't appreciate.
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Reverse Collapse: Codename Bakery enters a long line of games that have atrocious names, although fails to take the crown from void* tRrLM2(); //Void Terrarium 2.
Bakery has such a bad name that the character it's named after immediately points that out in a way I presume the writers were hoping would be self aware enough to shield them from criticism. As you can tell by living in this very moment it ain't working.
Codename Bakery is a turn based tactics RPG on PC set in the Girls Frontline universe. Girls Frontline is a series I have actively and loyally avoided for years now but I was pleasantly surprised by what I got in almost every regard with bakery.
Fights take place on decently sized grid maps with scatterings of environmental props to be used and abused. We're talking high ground, regular ground, forest cover, chest high cover, houses the same size as people cover, all of these mess with hit chances and defence. It's nice and snappy and bad positioning can mean a swift end to your units if you aren't careful.
One thing I wasn't expecting was stealth sections avoiding unit alert ranges as well as environmental effects like fog which can occlude units from view. A sneaky kill will result in AI going to your last known location, giving you a bit of time to sneak off into the woods.
I got a review code for this game in my very first email addressed to "hey bigrathole". Which is a very exciting milestone for this little channel. I hope that anyone who ever has to write my name into an email questions how they got to this stage in their life.
After my last review I didn't fully comprehend the mental toll the bad translation of Ex Astris had had on me, so being immediately presented with yet another anime game with a hint of mobile origins low key gave me PTSD. Fortunately the translation is rock solid and well written and the story makes sense right out the gate. Apart from the “nations are mad at each other” lore dump In the intro It starts small and grows from there giving you time to get to know each character and the bizarre sci-fi situation they're in. The cutscenes are low budget, but the game is polished where it counts, which is uh what counts.
before we move on from translation stuff, in my review build they did mention there might be some issues, the only ones I came across were some dialogue warnings that cropped up entirely untranslated, and one or two typos, but nothing game or brain breaking. Although thinking about it now, in the very first tutorial scenario there was a gunshot.mp3 which played constantly on loop and that alone almost put me in the grave. I'm not sure if it was intentionally bad ambience or just a glitch.
Scenarios are couched with a preparation phase where you can use the materials won during the last encounter to level up character abilities and forge new equipment or upgrade to do more damage. There's no free roaming, it'll hit you with A story beat and immediately chuck you into the next encounter.
Characters have a pool of action points each turn to blow through and the variety of kit available gives you ample amounts of strategies to fiddle with. You can roll back a turn if you've messed up so misclicks aren't the end of the world.
Each mission has a number of subgoals to be achieved for a perfect clear, and glowing points around the map contain bonus gear to be used at the next preparation. There are also documents dotted around. You'll need to collect all these if you want more game later. I won't explain further. At the end of a section you can go back to replay missions for better results, I personally just lived with how bad I was, which is something I've been practicing my entire life.
There's a deluxe edition with some bonus art, soundtrack and outfits, but you know what if I have my waifus fighting on the Siberian tundra I want them in their appropriate rags and tactical gear and not tuxedos and cocktail dresses.
A completionist run for full collection + getting to all the endings is around 100 hrs.
So should you get this game? I don't know who you even are but I will say that this, I feel like this games marketing does it no favours, but if you get past that there's a pretty great little story based tactics game to be found.
Ok great I'm going to make like a newborn and go head out.