Othercide

Style can be a tricky thing, especially when it comes to gaming, because it's far too easy to put style over substance, leaving players with a nice looking but relatively empty experience. Then there's Othercide, a game that manages to take its unique style and flawlessly marry it to gameplay, crafting a unique world that adds to richness the lore and depth to the package as a whole. The characters move with an almost ghostly fluidity and grace that, combined with the eerie black, white, and red color scheme, give every action a haunting and nightmarish beauty.

Othercide is not an easy game by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, failure isn't just a possibility, it's a certainty. Players are meant to fail missions, reincarnating Daughters and equipping them with special skills and items gained from their previous lives. These "Remembrances" open up new options for players, while replaying the mission helps them adjust their strategies. Unfortunately, this can be a double-edged sword, since constantly replaying failed missions can't help but get repetitive quickly. This is at least lightened by the recent inclusion of the Dream Mode on the PC, which makes some of the gameplay easier by lightening the cost of unit recovery, regenerates character health, and smooths out some of the missions that felt designed to make your squad fail until you were strong enough to overwhelm the creatures in your way. It's great to have the option to play on an easier level, especially if you want a better chance at experiencing more of the story, while facing a lighter challenge. It also gives you a sense of perspective before you dive into the harder (or perhaps better stated, standard) difficulty of Nightmare mode. Overall, Othercide's focus on sacrifice and perseverance make for a challenge unlike any that fans of the tactical role-playing genre have seen before.