As you can see, it's a top down isometric strategy game that utilizes 2D sprites, just like most of the previous games in the series. And pretty good sprites too, even though they are obviously different from the Nazca made and based ones, but that's fine with me. Mind you, this is not the first time that the series dabbled with strategy before, especially the likes of Attack and its mobage ilk but this time is different in that it's not only made by a Western dev of the Frenchie variety but in being for the PC via Steam. And yet, I do wonder about how might the game might play exactly? I say this since, judging by the trailer, as it seems to use a method of teamwork, specifically the "Sync" thing along with using Slug vehicles in combat along with POWs to save but that's about it. In addition, it looks it might use the SFX from the games, to an extent, how much, who knows? The least they can do is have nice remixes of songs from the games but I digress. The animated cutscenes do look impressive, being more reminiscent of animu-looking Western productions like the recent Voltron show and Netflix's Castlevania (and perhaps close to authentic Eastern animated productions of Japan and outside) yet at times it's also reminiscent of the cutscenes for the Pachislot machines of the early 2010's, especially Metal Slug 3 the Pachislot game. Although some character designs look odd, especially Marco's who looks more like Solid Snake but Aryan looking; Allen looks more like Mr. Clean and that is funny because I recall a joke about that in an old sprite-based webcomic I enjoyed a long time ago (Metal Slug History X btw). Everyone else looks fine so far, especially Fio, who looks appropriately buffed which makes sense since they're trained soldiers, and of course the Rebel soldiers look great as they're exactly how I'd imagined they look, even though their uniforms are a bit different. We haven't seen much vehicles in action in the cutscenes but the SV-001 tank looks pretty fat to me; I mean yeah it's big but that not that big in like looking like it'd fit Fat Albert in it. At least the game has destructible environments ala the first game to an extent, only that it can exploitered to your benefit. Not to mention that the design of the stages look pretty good, almost straight from the games themselves.
But, on that note I do wonder if there would be plenty of not only enemy characters and hardware but also the other characters and hardware made specifically for this game? It seems like there might be, judging by the knife soldiers and perhaps the supply guys so there might be. Same with me in wondering how would the Regular forces look like in the games? They have to be at least slightly different from the Rebels in terms of aesthetics but not too different, afterall the main conflict is basically a civil war in the vague butt Globalist superstate, only this time Morden's forces are involved with some outsider rogue state country that hates said superstate for nationalist reasons yet are happy to aid the Rebels. But on that note however, I can't imagine the game would go deep into the story and lore since the series isn't known for being such, yet it shouldn't be an excuse to NOT introduce any new characters for this game, Regular, Rebel, Ptolemaic, or whatever. Sure the aliens and the supernaturals might show up, it's in the illustration, that's a given.
Speaking of characters, I do wonder if more from the mainline and spinoff series arrive? I'd fancy having the likes of Ms. Nadia Cassel over along with Redeye, perhaps that might be a given too. And would the likes of the Attack newcomers arrive too? especially those many, many waifus? Who knows? but I'll tell you what though, I'd rather have at least a few of them show up compared to having the likes from the fighter games like KOF and Samsho over. God no, SNK could use less of that shilling them for the better! Although at least I'd settle with the Ikari Team coming over, including their CO, Heidern, and maybe some of the fighter waifus too, including Mai, Angel, and Iroha. Hell, maybe non-SNK characters might show up, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
And yet, it's a weird coincidence that earlier this week, I was thinking about the idea of an MS game made by Westerners, although at the time I had Wayforward Technologies in mind since they made some good games. Not to mention, good ol' AngryangryD is doing the character art for this game, chad and based I'd say. Same for the composer, Tee Lopes, who did the music for Sonic Mania, a pretty good game mind you.
However, I am aware that Awakening as I've mentioned before, had been announced and is coming out as of this writing but since it's a mobile game, I am not bothering to write it about it much (regardless of how good it looks). Not to mention it's from Tencent, who is a tool of the CCP regime, of which needs no explanation for their antics since 1949 but I digress. I should note however that Tactics is not the big non-mobile game SNK's hyped up before, obliviously obvious sure, but that doesn't mean that it's not worthy of discussion. I do know however that this game shares the name of another game that came out long ago in 2009, which can get confusing; so much so that I propose renaming the game into something like "Strategi-tactics", it makes more sense than Ubisoft renaming Rainbox 6 Quarantine into R6 Extraction, but that's another story.
All in all, I'd say MS Tactics the Dotemu one is the best news from Summer Games Fest for me for obvious reasons, at least it's not another KOF schlockfest for the bajilionith time, as after all, MS is SNK's most iconic series and accessible too. I hope there's more to come on the way since I don't think SNK can afford to squander on this opportunity, even as the big one might be coming as of this post.
