I have never been good at chess. I just cannot get my head around thinking a few steps ahead or predicting my opponents’ next moves. This means I usually steer clear of games like XCOM or other turn-based tactical strategy games. However, while playing through Tactical Breach Wizards for review, I realized the genre might actually be a lot more fun than I thought.

Dripping with character

Tactical Breach Wizards has set itself apart from other games in the genre thanks to the creativity and imagination of the team behind it. Everything from the setting to the characters has been fully fleshed out, resulting in a game with significantly more charm and personality than many other games in the same genre.

Quite the yarn

What really stood out to me about Tactical Breach Wizards and made it such a fun experience is the story the team has managed to weave between the various set pieces. Despite being a turn-based tactical strategy game, there is a lot of personality and humor thrown in.

The various characters have their own backstories. Each one comes with their own baggage as the team slowly gets put together, dragged from whatever dingy corner of the mercenary business they were embroiled in. All the various wizards have a story, and there are no clear good guys or heroes. Vanity, greed, sloth, and insecurities all play a big part in the hilarious dialogue shared between them.

The writing in Tactical Breach Wizards gives the characters a chance to be fleshed out. Motives and doubts are explored through optional dream sequence levels, small side quests, and dialogue inside and outside of the gameplay. None of the characters are without fault, and they each have their own agendas, but through the rich and very humorous writing, we begin to understand them all.

Stylish spells

A simple yet effective art style keeps things minimal but engaging. The basic, blocky illustrations are full of character and fit the writing to a T. Despite their simple designs, each of the wizards is able to portray a lot of emotion and perfectly convey the humor of the dialogue. The amount of scorn carried in a single head movement is a testament to the team’s writing and animation.

I didn’t ever get bored of staring at the various, varied stages in Tactical Breach Wizards. In my 12 hours of playtime, the team managed to squeeze in all sorts of imaginative and engaging levels, varying from trains speeding through icy mountains to tight, back street brawls.

The design of Tactical Breach Wizards is key to its simplicity, but that does not represent the gameplay. I was thankful for the mellow yet artistic designs. They were easy to take in quickly, and I understood just how the various environments could be used to my advantage.

Tight and tactical

As I mentioned before, I am not the biggest fan of long strategy games. A board game like Risk can get right in the bin. However, I found the pacing, gameplay, and strategy of Tactical Breach Wizards to be absolutely spot-on for my social media rotted attention span.

Breach and clear

The premise is simple. You are in control of a team of wizards, each with a select set of skills. These could be anything from being able to morph into a dog to having the power to resurrect people, provided you shoot them in the face first.

Using these skills, it’s up to you to move each wizard through a stage filled with enemies and other hazards. Various challenges and objectives must be, or can also be, completed during each stage. Not every wizard is always available for each mission, meaning you need to play the hand you’re dealt.

However, before you commit to a whole turn, every move can be rewound. This means that you can plan out a play, test to see how it works, and then if the outcome isn’t what you want, rewind and start again. This may sound like it makes it all too easy, but you’d be wrong.

Bite-size battles

I rarely found myself frustrated or locked down in Tactical Breach Wizards. Instead, each fight, although often challenging, could be cleaned up in just a few minutes. Whole missions are broken up into a series of stages, with each stage only taking a few moves to clear if done right. This means an entire level can be cleared in around 10 to 20 minutes.

Now, this might sound like a complaint, but it is far from it. The fast pacing of the gameplay encouraged me to find ways to clear a level in as few moves as possible, often using my various skills to completely wipe a floor in only the first turn. The feeling of mastering the room, abilities, and varied characters was incredibly satisfying.

The quick and satisfying pace of each stage encouraged me to replay certain levels to see if I could hit the optional objectives. Resetting a level completely was no great loss in time, and nailing a perfect clear is intensely satisfying. The quick turnaround of the stages, levels, and storyline kept me playing a lot longer than a strategy game that required more time per stage ever would.

Try and try again

One of the central characters in Tactical Breach Wizards has the ability to see every possibility of every action all the time. This sets up the game for one of the core mechanics, which is being able to see how your moves will play out and rewind them.

When I first learned this was a thing, I felt like it would make the game far too easy, but it doesn’t. Instead, I was able to plan out whole plays, using the vast array of skills in my arsenal. However, often, after using multiple moves on multiple characters, I would reach the end of my turn and realize someone right at the beginning of my planning was in a bad position.

I would build whole turns, moving player after player, then have to hit rewind when I realized someone was in the wrong place or something would be much more effectively used elsewhere. Resources are finite, and health can be quickly drained. I found the satisfaction of stripping a play all the way down and rebuilding it again using the rewind button made me feel like a real-life tactical breach wizard.

Not too much of a strain

I did enjoy the pacing of Tactical Breach Wizards, and I did take the time to read the various dialogue options during the review and play through the optional extra missions, but the game was over quite quickly. Don’t expect more than twelve to fifteen hours of gameplay on your initial run-through of the game. It’s short and sweet, but for $20, it’s well worth the price.

There are plenty of extras to get into after completing Tactical Breach Wizards. For the perfectionists out there, each stage comes with a unique set of challenges that result in a point to put towards new outfits. For some more exposition and world-building, there are dream sequences and side missions to perfect. These are all optional, but I still found myself drawn to completing them while reviewing Tactical Breach Wizards.

I didn’t feel like the game was rushed or ended with a hasty conclusion. Just as the pacing of the stages themselves is snappy and quick, the storyline gives time and space to the characters and the development of the plot. It feels completed by the end and filled throughout the middle.

I will admit that I played the Tactical Breach Wizards on medium difficulty for the ease of the review, and I often found myself scratching my head but rarely got stuck for too long. The levels pushed me to utilize my various skills and helped me really explore just what could be done with the wizards. However, even as I approached the final stages during the review, I found I had never got stuck to the point of rage quitting Tactical Breach Wizards.

If you’re looking for a game that is going to really push you strategically, I recommend playing Tactical Breach Wizards on the harder settings. I have no doubt that at those difficulties, even seasoned turn-based strategic players will really have to dig deep.

Stylish and strategic

I found my review time with Tactical Breach Wizards much more enjoyable than I expected it to be. The team themselves are moving from strength to strength with their defenestration series, and this is a wonderful addition to the list.

Beyond the intense and fun gameplay, the setting, writing, and characters of the game really kept me engrossed between battles. The various wizards all bring their own flavor to the game, each one just as flawed as the last.

The writing in Tactical Breach Wizards is genuinely funny, employing a lot of the dry humor and satire that many games try for, and miss so badly. I’m looking at you, Borderlands 3. The team at Suspicious Developments has a real knack for character creation and a wickedly sharp sense of humor. Up until the last scenes of the game, there were emotional, funny, and hilariously shocking moments that had me chuckling away.

The strategic gameplay is perfect for a layman of the genre like myself. I found I was able to learn the various skill sets and employ them quickly, tactically, and to great effect in no time at all. For the more experienced player, step the difficulty up and take a real challenge. There are sure to be some real brain teasers in there.

With the varied and interesting abilities each wizard comes with, there is a huge variety of combinations that crop up throughout the game. Each scenario is different, and each one demands different tactics. I found great satisfaction in finding out just what kind of synergy the Suspicious Developments team had planned for each stage. There are multiple solutions to every problem, and nailing it feels great.

Pick the game up. For $20, you could do a lot worse.