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First impressions

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Trajector
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First impressions

In no particular order or importance, here are some of my impressions from playing the game this afternoon:

Hooray! The Sentinels have a video game! This is awesome.

Once you get to the Plaza, make sure you visit the Training Center and configure all of everyone's abilities to your liking. Make sure you think about how to organize your stances: not every stance is going to do everything you want, and managing how you switch between them is a big part of the strategy. I found that the initial set-up stances for the core characters really did not do what I wanted, and a little customization paid off quickly. Especially with Tachyon and Unity; I decided after totally failing a mission with Unity to give her one SP-harvesting stance and one bot-building stance on each mission, and that works GREAT, compared to my initial attempt to have the bot-focused stances include at least some SP-harvesting.

The initiative and vigilance mechanics really changed my thinking from XCOM. (By the way: Xcommunicated is a hilarious achievement, whoever wrote that.) It's cool to have such a fresh take on the genre. Enemy squads like to gang up on a hero, running in to all hit them once before dodging back into cover. Forcing them into chokepoints and responding with your own vigilance moves is big.

Having voice actors playing the core heroes is really neat! But, after hearing them in-mission, I immediately missed the voiceover in comic panels. I wish the comic presentation was a little more dynamic - remember the moving-drawings cutscenes from Homeworld? That would have been extremely cool here.

I keep wondering how they'll handle flying characters. Isn't Beacon supposed to be in this? I haven't met her yet. I'll keep looking forward to it as the plot goes on.

As much information as the game presents me, I keep finding myself wishing it provided *more*. For instance, if I put a move cursor near a goon, I'd love for their vigilance circle to pop up so I can see its radius. I'd also like to preview which enemies are visible from a potential move location. Or I'd like to be able to select my inactive heroes, to remind myself what their attack types are, so I can plan and prioritize which goons my active hero will attack. But in the flip side, I have yet to figure out some of what the game is telling me, like the #/#/# indicators in the attack description text.

"What about the 'and Stuff?'"

Do the Lieutenants actually run the squads of minions? I tried to focus on taking them down, but it didn't seem to mess up the squad. Maybe they are just more powerful minions with area buffs.

For a game where facing is so important, why isn't there a control to face a particular direction after you move? I hate to dodge into cover with my back hanging out.

Brainstorm is amazing. Zap so many guys! Sparks!

As you can see, I'm engaged and enjoying things. The stuff I'm not comfortable with, I'm confident I'll figure out, and the game does a lot really well. I can't wait to bring a few new heroes into the fold, and I'm looking forward to foiling some super villains. And, again, it's just super exciting to have these characters brought to life with voices and animation.


TakeWalker
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If there's anything to be said about this game, it's that it makes such a good first impression, the stuff that isn't immediately obvious also isn't a dealbreaker. I'm having fun despite not really understanding how anything works. :)

I'm also playing on easy, so. <.<

Trajector
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Hehe, yeah, I played so much XCOM and BSG: Deadlock that I decided to jump right in on hard mode. And my impressions are down in the weeds. :) For sure, they nailed all the big stuff and made a fun game!

catDreaming
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Has anyone figured out how to use the experience heroes get?


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An unchanging world as their sheathe
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This is my Origin
- Avalon, The Living Sheathe

Sea-Envy
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I agree i would like to hear voices in the cut scenes- the Thug asking Freight Train about the tracks just has to be Adam
When I heard Unity say "Sparks!" I lost it

@catDreaming I have not gotten that far yet but it sounds like after you go 1 mission with 12 EXP it unlocks the new moves in the menu where you change your moves as Trajector was talking about


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catDreaming
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Oh, so you have to go on a mission while having 12 exp to unlock the new moves. That makes sense. By the by, Tank+Interceptor is a combination that I'm finding to be strangely synergistic. Interceptor let's you handle ranged foes, while Tank can clear them out with a little planning to get them into short range.


A single man
Standing alone in a field of swords
Blades borne to the unmoving air
An unchanging world as their sheathe
Preserved for eternity
This is my Origin
- Avalon, The Living Sheathe

TakeWalker
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Trajector wrote:
Hehe, yeah, I played so much XCOM and BSG: Deadlock that I decided to jump right in on hard mode. And my impressions are down in the weeds. :) For sure, they nailed all the big stuff and made a fun game!

Quick sidenote, is this a game like XCOM? I've heard of it before, but I've never played it, nor have I really played any games like SoF, so when trying to describe it to people, I have nothing to compare it to. :B

Sea-Envy
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Close enough to X-Com that people would throw the label around

move around the map, take cover
Shoot/stab/throw a grenade
set over watch
get to objective points


The mountain watches the freedom of the sea and cries. The sea looks at the stability of the mountain and sighs.

MindWanderer
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The other game people constantly compare it to is Freedom Force, which has been on my to-play list for... probably a decade now....


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Trajector
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The mission where you meet Expatriette is *really* satisfying. It shows off her abilities very well.

It didn't hurt to walk Absolute Zero into a whole mess of bad guys and unleash a triple Coolant Blast, either!