What cames after this event is that humanity is accosted by pelagic horrors emerging from the depths and as world governments fall, the remnants of humanityhave decided to pool together into one of the three emerging major factions in a desparate bid to survive.
It starts with you taking the reigns as the new Commander of the Pheonix Point Project as the previous lead has gone missing and the project has fallen into disrepair in the chaos of not having an operational command structure.
The first order of business is to establish yourself, by making contact with
the three factions and reestablishing the project back to functional
operations. The foundations of the project are well-founded in universe and
has developed a reputation as an organisation that functions as a forward step
into the understanding of the unknown. As such, it starts out as a neutral faction
towards all the others and it is in the player's hands how they wish to run
the project going forward.
In service to this, the player must complete research into the so called "Pandora Virus" and develop a better understanding on what it is and what is happening to the world as it begins to threaten humanity again. The increased concern appears as effects of Pandora Virus have become far more aggressive in its operations, acting almost sentient slowly enveloping the world in a red mist, and it is up to the Phoenix Point to get a handle on this and develop a means to save humanity.
The factions are also striving to come up with their own solutions to what is happening and it is the player's choice to either help or hinder these ambitions as each faction has their own bias' and prejudices towards one another.
The three factions are:
- New Jericho
- Synderion
- Disciples of Anu
Deciding to form an alliance with a faction has its perks as the deeper a bond with a faction becomes, the more they are willing to share with you. Co-operation allows Phoenix Point to trade resources, recruit faction units, haven location data and, with greater trust,unlock the ability to co-op research and learn the technology and production secrets of a faction.
Alternatively, if one chooses, one can decide to go it alone and raid havens for their technology, resources and, if one is docked. aircraft. It is not recommended to go overboard with it though as once one offends a faction too much as it can lead to war and having your bases be attacked by the offended parties on a regular basis adds unnecessary challenge with the pressure of the Pandora Virus looming.
The population of humanity is represented and concentrated into locations called "Havens" which house, train and produce goods for its respective faction.
Scattered amongst the main factions a player could also stumble upon a
few independent factions that usually offer a quest, which usually
supplies a decent reward when completed
The over-world is not so deep as to emulate logistics, but what resources they do produce and where they are located help decide it's attrition rating which is tied to a "Doom Counter" of sorts.
The Doom counter in Pheonix Point is a measure of the projected estimates of the remaining human population in the world and will result in game over if it reaches a critical point from which it would too much damage to recover from.
This counter is always counting down with successful enemy attacks, especially on havens reducing populations further until it reaches a point where a haven becomes unsustainable where it be abandoned the remain population distributed to nearby associated faction havens.
It can be discouraging with the timer constantly ticking down, but it does convey that this is a problem that cannot be beat back conventionally and that without an appropriate response humanity is doomed. This isn't helped by the factions eventually falling out into war with each other once certain technologies are put in play.
The general missions are randomly generated but still tend to feel samely which can be a bit frustating once one gets into a familiar rhythm of completing similiar missions as they are generally the same general concepts repeated a lot over the course of a campaign.
The story missions, however do feel better designed and one can see that at
least see some care was put into its creation and this with the competent
voicework that generally asks questions of the player help define where one
stands on shaping the future.
The story beats are also presented through the elements of research and this further adds to the plot by building a profile of sorts for your playthrough as one decides what they think is best with it pleasing some groups and displeasing others. Your actions do have a chance of branching, speficially in regards to a Synderion that the player's decisions can lead to a slightly different outcome. The system is not too deep but the voice work does a well in trying to sell the perspectives of the various groups with the appropriate tone fitting of what they represent.
The stand-out feature is the combat and in that I can see that most of the development time was placed with a targeting system that is a proper modern take on the one old X-COM had. One can choose to target in at way where one takes their chances with the standard shot at an enemy or one decides to "free aim" at an enemy to target specific body parts.
How it works is that there are two targeting circles and each shot will
either fly between one of the two zones. This way of targeting can be
indespensible in getting an edge against the many threats one faces in the
game as it makes use of an injury systems where limbs can be critically
damaged which then causes adverse effects. This works both ways, however one
can use it to wear away and weaken a far stronger monster with tactical
applicantion of the removal of key body part functionality.
An example of this is when one fights a Pandoran with a shield arm and a machinegun arm, with a good angle. one could target the shield arm and/or the gun arm and blow it off to remove the associated benefit that each part provides and essentially remove the threat off the battlefield without killing the target.
It becomes increasing important to get familiar with this as the enemies become more ruthless as time goes by, as technology is integrated into the hands of both the factions and Pandorans. This is further compounded with the Pandorans who gain an additional layer of difficulty through evolution that iterates upon their strengths.
The targeting expands on the tactics which then leads to gameplay that feels enjoyable to engage with as one its not as hard focussed on alpha striking so much and instead being encouraged to look at how one can reduce an enemy's combat ability and leverage that to victory. Although, it is probably advised to speed up the animations to save on one's sanity as the moment-to-moment gameplay does feel sluggish if one comes off playing Firaxis' XCOM.
It isn't perfect mind you and there can be moments where either your view is
blocked by an obstacle or shots fired hit enviromental objects it
shouldn't but overall it is something that should probably be implemented more often and improved upon as it makes misses feel more "fair".
In order to make the best use of the system, one needs to understand the classes and how each one brings something useful in their own way as each one has its own specialisation in weapons and armour types that provide benefits fitting to its role.
Phoenix Point starts with three base classes and can unlock an additional four class types that one can earn or steal from the factions.
The classes are:
- Heavy
Trained in the use of heavy weapons, armour-mounted weapon packs and the use of the jetpack.
Their armour focusses on thicker armour and health values, at the expense movement speed and accuracy.
The weapon that they use, when its hits, hits hard and can range in variety from area denial, grouped enemy combatants or a focus on overwhelming and punching through the tougher enemies with high inate armour values.
The Jet pack helps alleviate some of
its movement problems and because of the inheritant weight of their weapons
makes their melee combat feasible.
- Sniper
Specialised in the use of sniper rifles and pistol use.
Their armour is light with a focus on accuracy and movement. They are great at targeting distance accurately and extremely useful at targeting troublesome spots on enemies that need to be hit.
With training their rounds that can some of the best armour piercing and damage per bullet but it is also limited by this power.
They excel at eliminating weaker foes and contributing to
weakening stronger foes but lacks the pure damage to outright kill the
tankier enemies.
- Assault
Can make use of Assault Rifles and Shotguns.
Armour takes a balanced approach of protection and utility with it not having any defining features besides being well-rounded for its intended role.
They are the
work-horse of your forces and with support can do well at either
bursting down enemies or provide support fire and stripping enemies of
their armour with weapons that focus on multi-projectile fire per
action.
with the unlocked tiers being
- Techinician
The New Jericho speciality unit that makes use of PDW, robotic arms and turrets.
Their armour can be considered heavy-medium and are great at
holding ground and supporting a group, can perform repair on functioning
vehicles and can learn the ability to restore function to critically
wounded limbs
- Berserker
One of two Disciple of Anu specialities that focusses on close range combat with melee weapons and pistols.
They are lightly armoured to maximise speed to get in range of a target and to make use of a class kit that is geared towards stripping a target of its armour and dig in with strong melee attacks.
Has access to general and researched
mutations to enhance its abilities.
- Priest
The other class that the Disciples of Anu specialises in and makes use of viral weaponry that works at weakening the willpower of the target.
Their armour is light with a leaning toward perception bonuses and are best used as support units wearing down enemies mental defences with their weapons and using their abilites to wreck havoc on their mentally weaken foes.
The learnt abilities are powerful when used at the right
moment and this is can be further enhanced or leveraged with its own
line of specific head mutation lines that offer a different ability
based on the selected head.
- Infiltrator
The Synderion specialist who fights with a crossbow and can launch special spider scout drones.
It's armour is light but its greatest strength is its optical camouflage capability that makes the unit near invisible in combat.
As long as the weapon is silent then it won't break this effect and can be used to attack enemies with impunity if one can avoid detection, this becomes especially deadly once it gets its damage passive special ability.
The spider drones are mobile bombs that do good
damage and can be used for scouting or to draw enemy attention
Additionally, each class has access to a random selection of personal perks and when they get appropriately experienced can dual class with any other class, which can create some truly broken builds in the fight to save earth.
Each faction has their own set of equipment and weapons that specialise in their factions niche and one can mix and match to get either a desire look or desired effect from the gear and weapons that the factions use.
A benefit of Phoenix Point being considered "neutral is that they can spearhead the development of a few hybrid technology- inspired weapons and equipment that combines elements from factions into something new once one has the relavant research.
The games music is a bit of a lower point but somewhere there are glimpses of moments that catch one's attention but it feels dwarfed by the vocal performance of the cast by comparison.
I acknowledge that I am
probably judging the music harshly but compared to X-COM UFO Defense it
feels like it falls into the background and doesn't carry the same type
of weight in service to its setting.
Another critism is the way in which the DLC content is introduced. It is somewhat jarring the way in which it is frontloaded to the player and can be overwhelming in a way that encourages the player to pursue less than noble pursuits to somewhat get ahead of the curve, but unfortunately getting too far ahead can lead to some negative consequences as your enemies "evolve" alongside your research.
It is recommended to first playthrough to go light on the DLCs to check as active as I feel its implemented clumsily in game. One can get use to it, but it could have been implemented better.
The first three DLCs are bundled by default in the base game, with the
other three being expansions upon the base content with new mechanics
and upgrades and they are:
- Living Weapons is a collection of a few weapons with unlimited ammunition and an armour set that offers decent protection that one collects by doing a series of missions.
- Blood and Titatium is the introduction to Cybernetics and an enemy faction called The Pure, who are heavily armed and armoured cyborgs that force a player to make use of precise targeting and flanking to kill. The faction feels introduced too early for the level of survivabilty its units bring to the field but completing its associated missions fast tracks the player into grabbing the cybernetic designs to create their own, if only in limited form.
As a player is restricted to only selecting a combination of two from a selection of three body segments to enhance from a selection of head, torso and legs. These upgrades are expensive and require maintainence on your resources to repair damage but do offer powerful bonuses when installed.
It is probably in one's best interest to wipe out the Pure as soon as possible as their ambushes can be a pain to deal with in normal gameplay.
- Legacy of the Ancients provides powerful weapons that require no ammunition but requires the player to rescue someone, complete a series of missions to collect these weapon blueprints, build facilities and construct probes, send these probes out to search for ancients sites and then clear out its powerful ancient guardians to mine the necessary resources with a manned aircraft to be able to eventually have the means to build these weapons.
- Festering Skies which introduces aerial combat,gear, a new annoying enemy and overall the affect on the game's pacing feels a lot better without it. It does does provide a lot of resources if one is able to get to grips with its systems but the difficulty takes a nosedive once one takes care of the boss called the Behemoth and admittedly completing it does feel good with a decent celebration video reward for doing so.
The air combat though, is disappointing to say the least as is it similar to X-COM UFO Defence but somehow feels like it is implemented more poorly even with its clearer graphics and systems.
It feels like something cooked up during prototyping phase of design and then shipped out as good enough once it could do what it promised to be. It is challenge to like and once one gets range advantage it is a game of plinking away and retreating to deal with enemy fighters.
It is difficult to want to extend into late game stage of enemy fighters as the Behemoth can make it feel like a game of "whack a mole" with its detachments to force it to retreat and if you cannot do that then it can outright destroy a haven or infect it which it seemly chooses at random on emergence.
It is almost in the players best interest to kill the behemoth as quickly as possible and once that has been settled then Phoenix Point has essentially has won the air game as the systems and weapons help it to steamroll ahead towards victory.
The myrmidons feels overtuned in the sense that it does too much damage for its size - it creates dissonance when a relatively small flying crab flea does more damage with its little pincers than some of the dedicated melee enemies one fights against. This only gets worse when one gets into poison variants that like to drop in right next to your soldiers and explode in an area covering everything in an acid splash on death.
Infected Haven missions are probably the best addition to the content as
one has to work their way towards a Pandoran control node and destroy it
to bring it back into human hands. One will find mind controlled NPCs on
the map that one can liberate and offer limited support and the node itself is quite dangerous but
is balanced by being immobile.
- Corrupted Horizons, gets credit to allow the player to take it at their own pace as it introduces the corruption mechanic that trades a willpower penalty for a damage buff when one fights in Pandoran infected locations, a new enemy called an Archeron and a new reproducable mutagen powered operative called a Mutoid.
- Kaos Engines is a content expansion pack that brings with it customisation options for all the vehicles, plus a new vehicle belonging to the new faction. Access to this faction's marketplace allows one one to purchase vehicle modifications and kaos weapons directly.
Images Source:
Class Icons from: Fextralife Wiki
Videos Source:
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