The disturbing mood of Othercide extends beyond just the world and waits for you even in the system mechanics.

The severe punishment meted out for every error rivals only the accomplishment felt after a successful mission. As I said earlier, the worst mistake you could make would be interpreting Othercide‘s simplicity for any kind of forgiveness. The only way to bring back your daughters is by sacrificing another. This comes with increased stats and new abilities for that specific daughter, but if she dies, she’s gone. Time Doesn’t Heal These WoundsĪs daughters survive missions, they level up. None of these classes had any way to heal themselves or each other, and this is very much a design choice. In the GDC demo, daughters had three distinct classes: shield bearer (tanky DPS), blade master (DPS), and soul slinger (ranged DPS/support). Each class has well defined strengths and weaknesses, but none encourage you to play back. It’s a game you play on the razor’s edge, and this is reinforced by a permadeath mechanic which means none of your team is expendable. When you screw up in Othercide, you can see exactly when and how you screwed up. One who’s able to see 1,000 steps ahead in the chess game. Set all your dominoes to fall just right and you’ll feel like some kind of genius anime protagonist. The initiative sequence system is both the greatest strength and the most punishing teaching tool Othercide has. As powerful as it may seem to see enemy moves before they’re made, the initiative sequence system helps you break even more than makes you overpowered. If an enemy close to your support has a turn coming up you’ll know which guy to focus down. Such tactics can serve to delay enemy turns, if not outright kill them. This lets players attack the enemy before they get a chance to strike back. It allows for the player to plan ahead two fold not only by watching enemy positions, but also anticipating enemy turn order. This is Othercide‘s initiative sequence system. The initiative sequence system, Othercide’s bread and butter, is one of the most rewarding mechanics I’ve ever played with in a tactics game.ĭuring every battle there is a timeline at the bottom of the screen that displays the turn order for each unit on the field. This brings me to Othercide‘s unique grab and the primary way you’ll be combating the high difficulty: the initiative sequence system.

This is not to say that the daughters lack the capacity to inflict their own damage, but even the most stalwart of your troops is not built to last. Monsters are as brutal as they are terrifying, with even basic enemies putting out incredible amounts of damage. The damage in Othercide can only be referred to as Ninja Gaiden-esque. Mistaking Othercide‘s minimalism for a more simplistic dip into tactics games is a great way to die. If the art didn’t tip you off, Othercide is a completely unforgiving tactical meat grinder. It seems like business as usual, sans highly stylized art, but that’s where the similarities between Othercide and other tactics games end. Things you’ve grown to expect from the genre. The classes play well off each other, with skills ranging from status effects, to jumping to an opponent and attacking. Othercide features a selection of three classes, with each daughter coming preassigned to a role. It has a Devil May Cry meets Bloodborne “dark-but-cool” atmosphere. You can see both titles at play as white haired women fight disturbing legions of beasts. The Blood of Your EnemiesĪrt director, Alexandre Chaudret, mentioned the mangas Berserk and Claymore being big influences. These frail looking women (referred to as daughters) cut a path through increasingly gruesome monsters. With a red, black, and white color palette reminiscent of the Grendel comics, Othercide places you in control of a team of no more than four. Othercide wears its influences on its sleeve, but I’m not complaining. Lightbulb Crew’s, Othercide manages to burn those synapses just right. A good tactics game is able to take the thinky pain of an RTS and match it with the palatability of a turn based RPG.

Othercide classes