Othercide

Caught in an endless cycle of death and rebirth.

Myles

May.12.2021

I will submit this here and now, this game is way out of my norm but nonetheless the art style was the first thing that piqued my interest into wanting to play this horror-based, tactical XCOM style game.

The ominous and dark world of Othercide is extremely well presented with a classic tutorial of sorts giving you a sparse glimpse into the heart of the game's mechanics. Navigating my thoughts on how to explain this game has proved about as challenging as it is deep as it constantly forces you to adapt to the nuances which it has to offer. The aesthetics as well are very satisfying with splashes of red breaking up the dark black and white motiff of the game. The soundtrack also adds to the dark and eerie setting, coupled with the ominous voices of friends and foes alike.

This is an XCOM game at heart (or so I'm told) and is primarily played via an AP and timeline system coupled with its own unique quirks, and you would be foolish to jump into Othercide expecting it to be as easy as "just another tactical game". You're constantly being forced to sacrifice your daughter's health either in the form of reaction-based skills, healing your other daughters outside of battle or using them as fodder to help other units survive. This game truly is an endless cycle of death and rebirth and when you do finally hit the game over screen it's far from over! You'll find yourself back at the beginning of the chapter to try again with three fresh level one daughters and one resurrection token to use in the cemetery, so choose wisely!

Daughters themselves are divided into three categories: Shieldbearer (Tank), Blademaster (DPS) and Soulslinger (Ranged), with each class having its own unique abilities. These abilities can be customised further upon leveling via a very narrow branching skill tree. Skills fall into two main categories which will either use AP to deal damage or use HP to perform specific reactions or buffs.

Death, death and lots of death await you if you're going to master this macabre outing and by the 'end' of a few game overs you'll probably be left with one or two high level daughters carrying a few low level ones. There's of course always more than one way to skin a cat, but for the most part you'll die in battle, sacrifice like-leveled daughters to heal other ones, and drain your HP using skills in battle until the final inevitable game over death.

Honestly I'm really on the fence with this one! Othercide is a great game but there's a few things that just leave it stale. From a functional standpoint the sacrifice system could use a bit of tweaking. You'll be told that you need to sacrifice a like-leveled daughter to heal another, however you'll still be able to select higher and lower level daughters than the one you want to heal. The in-game tutorial is also extremely vague and doesn't give you the meat of what you need to effectively play the game, nor will it tell you that "game over" isn't actually game over. Some fights will tell you the total amount of enemies to defeat whereas others will not (because infinite enemies is a thing here) while you try to complete an objective.

If you're expecting a story, good luck, it's not really gripping or relevant to the gameplay at all. The menus can be a little annoying to navigate but I feel my biggest gripe with Othercide is the extremely repetitive content. It's challenging, frustrating, and tedious at the same time. When you're in a fight the challenge is there and keeps you thinking but the frustration creeps up on you very quickly because one misplaced skill can make all the difference, and when you finally hit "game over" the tedious nature of repetition comes swinging when you ressurect at the beginning of the chapter.

With all that said I do quite enjoy this game and I'm still trying to figure out the best strategy to progress through the game itself.