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Tactical Breach Wizards review: humour, heart, smarts and playfulness conjure up an instant genre classicWhen god breaches a door, he also blasts you through a window
When god breaches a door, he also blasts you through a window
Image credit:Suspicious Developments
Image credit:Suspicious Developments
Tactical Breach Wizardsis a tactics game for people that don’t like tactics games. Magically, it’s also a tactics game for people who love them like nothing else. It’s permissive and demanding; playful and tense. Its globe-spanning plot covers conspiracies, PMCs, and brutal theocratic dictatorships. It also features a traffic-summoning warlock named Steve wearing a hi-vis robe. It’s finding thatone absolutely, perfectly ridiculous XCOM turn, every turn…and at the same time knowing it’s absolutely, perfectly fine if you don’t. In short: it’s one of the most enjoyable tactics games I’ve ever played, and the only tactics game with a pyromancer so rubbish he relies on making his enemies pass out from heatstroke.
As all critical operations must, Tactical Breach Wizard’s story begins with a door getting blasted open. Some bad dudes have a hostage, and Navy Seer are here to extract. The Druid Mafia’s shrublord is wearing a ghillie suit. That’s despite him - as chrono-crumpling Liv Kennedy points out to single-second soothsayer Zan Vesker - already being a tree. He’s also tough, so Zan’s rifle isn’t enough to take him down a single turn. Liv’s left wide open, so Zan’ll have to scry the outcome to learn whether she can dodge the shot. In the same way, you’ll be able to foresee the consequences of every action before committing to it. And if you decide later it was a terrible mistake, you can rewind - one move at a time - to the start of the turn.
Image credit:Suspicious Developments
Zan saves the hostage, but things get complicated for Liv, and we’re whisked away from the scene to meet storm witch and private investigator Jen Kellen, getting chewed out for butting in on police business. It doesn’t take long before the office suddenly catches fire - a fact Jen brings up to the cop the same way you might tell someone their pasta’s boiling over. A scrap with the inept pyromancer leads to a Jen and Zan reunion, a police shootout, and eventually a conspiratorial rabbit hole that takes them to the other side of the planet.
Image credit:Suspicious Developments
There are plenty of optional challenge maps for when you’re done with the 15 hour campaign, or just want to brush up on your spellcasting. |Image credit:Suspicious Developments.
And yes, this does all mean that TeeBeeDubs isn’t a difficultstrategy gameto progress through, but the even the ability to skip levels entirely is besides the point. Such a bulging bag of rule-shattering wiz-tricks mean you’ll likely never even be tempted. It’s wizard 101: you’re already dangerously powerful enough to whisk up tempests, the game is to harness it with enough finesse to make soufflé.
Image credit:Suspicious Developments
