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Othercide is a turn-based strategy involving some future event, and the need to produce daughters to circumvent this event that seems to be at some point in the future or past, during the opening of the game. Gameplay involves a good bit of grinding at its core concept. You can gain points to invest into direct abilities, and unlock things in each zone as you go along. Losing a few times is actually not such a bad thing in this game near the beginning, since you will accumulate more to spend on some of your unlocks, which you can then use to give you a slight edge.
I want to make one thing fairly clear though. The game itself is not actually extremely difficult. I do not consider this roguelike either. Permadeath is there for your current run, but it doesn’t really fit many other qualifications for the genre. I would say the difficulty is in a sort of ”battle of attrition”, meaning it’s grindy, and time-consuming to raise your daughters, of which there are several classes with varying abilities. The learning curve is the only problem, then it becomes somewhat clockwork in nature.
Some of the daughters were unbalanced when I played last. The big issue with the way the grind system is set up is that inherited traits of classes are the same for each class type, and you only get one, which is in red on your skills for the daughter that received the benefit from a daughter of a higher level, where the lower level will inherit the said trait. This is why the game is so grindy. You can also pick up random debuffs/buffs to stats that can be permanent, or practically permanent based on things your characters do while in battle. Another thing upon leveling is you gain extra usable battle skills. You can choose one or the other and it can vary depending on which you want to keep, given the situation.
There were several types of situations one might end up in, ranging from surviving all waves, to reaching a goal, or escorting missions and some other various types. You may choose to skip right to bosses, bypass bosses altogether, or do other things depending on how far along you are in the game. I thought some of the bosses were hard, but once you learn what they do in each phase, you can find ways to take certain counter-measures. Most are not too hard to figure out, but there was a bit of randomness and trial and error for me. Supplementing with a guide for ideas on how to effectively play is useful, since the game didn’t really explain it too well at the time I played, in my opinion.
Pretty graphics, with a noir and red style of background. The daughters reminded me a little bit of 2B or something similar, and the music paired well with the game’s overall feel and mood. The setting and plot are hard to understand much about, but things get revealed to you as you go, and there are sections to examine for unlocks, extra enemy information (which I cannot stress the importance of enough, as it reveals attack patterns, weaknesses and strengths to take advantage of), and other such things, which can be viewed in the menu any time once you’ve unlocked them.
You can gain other abilities which can be applied manually to your daughters when you meet the right conditions. They are usually chance-based, but if a condition meets all unlock requirements, it’s possible to get these orbs which can be later added. They are removed after a game ends. Your daughters you lose can be resurrected as well later on as you open up more abilities, so a complete wipe isn’t necessarily a bad thing in many cases in this game. Early on you probably won’t really be worried about specific daughters, and may instead try to get a few with some good overall stats, since these can vary.
While I think the game is good, I also think there is a lot of untapped potential in what is possible with this system and the way it was done during the time I played this game.
Pros
Lots of customization is possible. More is possible with further optimization and unlocks, further adding to possibilities.
Nice graphics, and the gameplay is fun early on, as I got introduced to the game. It can get a little bit repetitive, due to only a few classes of daughters to choose from, thus limiting your movesets.
I liked the counter-attack system, and the attack time grid at the bottom of the screen. This could be somewhat exploited early on, but as far as I’m aware, most instances of this have been hit with the nerfbat.
Decent amount of variations, and different ways to play, based on how you choose to set up your party. Good to strategize, since you can only fight once per day and need a rest with daughters. There is an easier mode where resting gains life. I never tried the other mode as of yet though.
The game could use more enemy types, varied attacks, and different characters and encounters. While the game is fun, it is still tedious and a bit predictable at certain points, depending on how familiar you get to creature habits and how to move your daughters efficiently to get the most out of them.
The roguelite elements are only having to do with earning extra currency to buy more skills as you unlock them with progression. This value only decreases in the current game, and you continue to gain more as you fail.
Cons
Very grindy when I played. This is what ultimately made me take a break from playing. I still don’t really feel like finishing this yet, but I do believe it will be enjoyable to jump back into playing again sometime and see how it is now compared to when I played it in October or November.
The battle speed was a bit slow too. Even speeding things up, it was a bit of an annoyance to wait on everything to finish turns.
Just felt inefficient and unbalanced having to grind and keep levels close, so I could then add stats in sacrifices.
Good foundation here, but I see a lot that could be built upon. I personally felt that this game should have been in Early Access or beta still when I played.
Way too expensive for the amount of material in the game, however it still feels like a higher quality game than many out there, most likely thanks to publishing and development making polished and crisp graphics a big priority. The scenes and action bits are quite nice in presentation, so I did enjoy some of the cutscenes.
Some of the voicing would mess up, be silent, or overlap. Not sure if this was corrected or not. It’s also a bit repetitive since there are not a huge amount of phrases.
No 9S in this game. Why can’t there be some dudes around?!
Conclusion
I’m probably out of room now, but this one is tough for me to swing one way or the other. Paired with the expensive price, I recommend this but with some caution. It’s not a game for everybody, and the tags are a bit misleading. Buyer beware! Still a nice game overall, but I hope there have been some improvements since I last played. I’ll update if I decide to finish the game and go for all the achievements! All in all this one is worth a go, but do not run into it with majorly high expectations!
Game curator review made possible thanks to Simetria League for allowing me to review this, courtesy of Jogos Grátis Brasil!
