I’ve been playing Chimera Squad and so far I think it’s a really exciting experiment. My impression of it as early in as I am is that it is a much brisker experience, in part because of what’s mentioned above about having a more reigned in possibility space. But what I think is most interesting about it are the parts that are reminding me of what it felt like to play Darkest Dungeon, where setting out on a mission is a moment of consideration about what is going to immediately help you in this mission balanced against what might be unavailable for you in the next.
Your units can’t die otherwise you fail the game, but the scars they get can be so debilitating you need to always have at least one unit benched, with maybe another unit suffering from a bad scar waiting to be benched after them. Then you also have the research division which, in order to progress at a fast enough pace to keep up with the ramping challenge, requires another unit to cut research time in half. I’m not even bothering with the spec-ops stuff, which sends out one unit on a run that can result in resources and items and maybe even scars. On the harder difficulty I am playing on, at the early state I am at, the game makes me break a decent mental sweat. I like it a lot.
HOWEVER. The damage values in this game are totally upsetting. The worst game feel I’ve ever experienced is firing at an enemy with my weapon that does 3-5 damage and, routinely, landing critical hits that do 4 damage. It. Is. Fucked. Up. Feeling. Worse than missing shots at >80% accuracy I think.