Future Tactics

"gotcha"

I could write several essays on why I love Future Tactics. It just feels like this game was specifically tailored to my interests.

The game has an interesting take on the turn based strategy genre, and is one of the very few games to pursue this route, if not the first. The gameplay takes place in semi-realtime, with both teams of a battle moving their players, and then taking shots at one another. Where the twist comes in is that -although it is still turn based in nature- the shooting and combat in general take place in real time. For a more popular example of this, one might think of Valkyria Chronicles.

 Depending on the destructive power of the weapon, one of the game's most defining features comes into play: the ability to destroy and shape terrain with your attacks. You can blast holes in pavement, create craters in the ground, and destroy entire footholds your enemies may have used. Not only does this make the game feel more satisfying, it adds an extra layer of strategy, allowing you to destroy specific pieces of the environment to your advantage. How you make use of this ability is a big factor in how interesting the core gameplay is to you.

Perhaps the second most defining feature of the game is how you maneuver around the game environments. Future Tactics takes place in a post apocalyptic world, and as such, there's a lot of cover for you to use. Each player character can jump, which may not seem like much, but opens a lot of possibilities. You can take perch on buildings, hide behind hills, under steel girders or cars, and inside destroyed barns. With the previous feature of destructible scenery, and literally EVERYTHING being destructible, this always keeps the combat moving, especially with you trying to get the best shot in on your enemies. It's a beautiful system, and a few patches of lazy AI and a couple of uninspired stages aren't enough to bring it down.

No matter how fun the gameplay might be, it would be nothing without some proper atmosphere or motivation to keep you moving through it. The game certainly doesn't drag in this section either, as not only does the game nail a desperate post-apocalypse feel, but it has music composed by the genius "Tim Follin", who creates such an atmospheric and beautiful soundtrack for the game that it's nearly inspiring in its rhythms.

Atmosphere would be nothing without an engaging plot, and again, Future Tactics manages to deliver. The story is somewhere between a traditional sci-fi epic and a deconstruction of said epics. It is the future, and there are new overlords. There are survivors, and they overcome. While the story at first seems to lack in depth, it reveals itself later as a humble narrative with some of the finest pacing this side of Arkham Asylum.

The stage designs, story, beautifully done voice acting, and overall sense of scale and progress help give this game legs far beyond its core gameplay, which is all-around fantastic to begin with. If you have a weekend to kill, there are much worse things you could do than pick this up off Amazon for a few bucks.