A new indie turn-based game has made its way into the desert sun; Dunebound Tactics launches, and with some hands-on time, I can say it’s good despite the sand in the gears, with some of the mechanics falling short. This new tactics game has some major selling points on its Steam Store Page, so in fairness, I’ll expand and review it based on those key points.
Meta Progression
Common to Roguelites and the main crux of the game genre, meta progression is all about incremental improvements to your game either through better baseline stats or equipment upgrades or allowing for better rolls in RNG. This game, however, doesn’t have much in this category, as after a few hours of playing the only, and I mean only, sense of meta progression I encountered was Modules: +1 Stat bumps to things like accuracy, or damage, armor, and movement, which does fit the role of meta progression, but not enough to feel impactful at all.
Turn Base Combat
Another selling point is this game’s turn-based combat, which, to be fair, is the core of the game itself. Unlike games like XCOM and Zero Company, this game almost guarantees hits, but I’ve found that critical hits are incredibly rare across much of the character roster. The combat itself is fast, perfect for me, as I prefer games with a good pace, and this was just right. This does mean that if you make a mistake, it happens faster too, and with how aggressive the enemies are, it is quite punishing. All in all the combat felt good.
Roster Diversity
Dunebound Tactics makes note of its diverse roster of characters and classes, even garnering a main spot on the store page, but it fell incredibly short in play, as many of the classes fall into three core categories: melee, ranged, and magic. Now there is nothing wrong with this trinity. It’s been a main stable in many games, but here it feels incongruous with the selling points of the game, as none of the characters feel particularly special, just hot swappable parts in your journey across the sands. Since you only get 3 spots for your frontliners, I found myself just sticking with ranged and magic, as many of the melee classes felt underwhelming.
Map Reformation
Here is where things get interesting for Dunebound: a destructible/buildable environment while in combat. Many of the magic classes can construct pillars of various elements and effects, and everything in the playfield can be blown up, while much of the destruction simply clears the space. Some effects can happen to hurt enemies and friendlies nearby. Much of this system can be leveraged to hold off enemies or lock them down completely to get you through harder battles and even cause some interesting bugs (I found one boss unable to move after overlapping the effects of several pillars).
So is Dunebound Tactics worth it?
In short, sort of? I’m by no means obsessed with turn-based games; I do really enjoy roguelikes/roguelites, and the game unfortunately fell short of that marketing point, which did hurt my opinion of the game itself. I will note that it is still enjoyable despite the flaws, but certainly something more for Turn-Based fans rather than Roguelike ones, and for a game made in a year by indie devs, it certainly has its charm. For me, though, it’s worth picking up on sale, but not something to jump on right away for many folks.
