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Review [Quickie Nr. 006] Jack Dandy’s catch-up on – Voidspire Tactics

Crooked Bee

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Tags: Quickie; Rad Codex; Voidspire Tactics

Thanks to Konjad's persistence, "Quickies" have become something of a not-so-proud and not-so-venerable tradition here on the Codex - to the extent that other people submit them now, too. A quickie is essentially a loose and very cursory presentation of a game that the author wants you to try, but is too lazy to do a full review.

This time the game-done-quick is Voidspire Tactics, a niche and not too well-known indie tactical RPG that has been generally favorably received in its dedicated thread on our forums. The write-up belongs to esteemed community member Jack Dandy, who also conducted a brief interview with the developer to complement his piece. Here's an excerpt from the quickie:

Now, the most interesting aspect of this is that you can switch your character’s class at any given moment (outside of battle) AND have a Primary and Secondary class. This means that you get to mix and match the skillsets of any 2 classes you have unlocked, PLUS you can combine up to three of any of the Passives your character has unlocked among the different classes.

Customization is the name of the game here. You can make each character really stand out and not risk a penalty for experimentation.

Want to make your guy a standard melee damage dealer? Take a Warrior/Blade.
Want to make a ranger who’s able to fire off a variety of elemental crossbows without reloading once? Take a Sharpshooter/Rogue along with the Scout’s passive “Quick hands” perk.
Want to make a monk who can punch people’s faces just as well as toasting them with a fireball? An Elementalist/Brawler is the way to go.

There are lots of creative ways to build your team, and it’s all done in an intuitive, enjoyable way.​

And here's one from the interview:

- What inspired you to develop your own game?

My inspiration is basically from playing and enjoying other games - especially games that are really great, but have a handful of small issues. I always want to see what the game would be like without those issues - and the only way to do that is make my own.

Voidspire Tactics in particular was inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics and Ultima VII. I wanted to try to eliminate the weaknesses of each - specifically, FFT's systemic oddities & imbalances, and Ultima VII's uninteresting combat. Dozens of other games had a minor influence as well. Some that come to mind are Zelda (for its exploration), Legend of Mana (its thorough customization), and Dark Souls (its open, you-can-handle-yourself attitude).​

Read the full article: [Quickie Nr. 006] Jack Dandy’s catch-up on – Voidspire Tactics
 

Siveon

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Man, this definitely makes me want to buy it already. I have no cash dammit.
 

4249

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Thanks for the review, from what I've read, the game deserved one.

I've been wanting to buy and delve into it for a while, but I still have like 10 games waiting to be finished and don't want to start anything new before I get some of them out of the way :negative:

I want my next game to feature a larger player party (max 6 characters instead of 4)

:bounce::bounce::bounce:
 

Visperas

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I have a crappy laptop but I was hoping this would work better. There's a noticeable lag when clicking on stuff. Is there any way to improve the performance?
 
Unwanted

Bésame Mucho

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Why is Telepath Tactics (which is fucking feminist, i kid you not!, flash garbage that fucking slows down to a goddamn crawl after 10 turns) on GOG while Voidspire isnt?
 

Eldiran

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I have a crappy laptop but I was hoping this would work better. There's a noticeable lag when clicking on stuff. Is there any way to improve the performance?

It's a bummer to hear that. What's your resolution? The game performs better at lower resolutions, because it has to render far fewer tiles.
 

Sarastro

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I've recently finished this game and really enjoyed it. It's definitely among my favorite games of the last year.

Yet I might add a bit of negative criticism:

The encounter design is good, but it could be even better, if your opponents where using a bigger variety of active and passive skills.
There are some classes, which are not used at all by the enemies. And most of them only use one of three possible passive skills.
Especially fights against non - humanoids become rather uninteresting, because the monsters your battling don't have many options, but do always the same things.

You can also amass lots of gold, but there is not much worth buying. Your loot is just as good or better than the stuff the salesmen offer you.
I don't think I bought even one item in this game.

The neat thing about this is that you can unlock up to 18 new classes.

A small correction: There are 18 classes in total, 3 at start and 15 to unlock.
 

Jinn

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A really great review Jack Dandy! I agree with most, if not all the points you made throughout it. Voidspire Tactics is clearly a project of passion and it deserves much more praise and attention, particularly around these parts. One of my favorite games of 2015 for sure.
 
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