Recent reviews by Niric

I just started the game apparently right as the new Tech system patch launched. So I didn't get to experience before but the way it is now is amazingly fun. It really encourages you to get out there and scavenge for tech and come back to your custom base and install or reverse engineer it. Plus the advancements of convivence for food and drink access. Never expected a pet type system that would help you take care of tasks and things in your base as well as combat. This game is a truly amazing gem that I had no idea it was around until I saw it was coming to PS5 soon and a friend started playing and invited me. Oh also the game has light and water management farming and even fishing! It really is an amazing combination of things and a hell of a sandbox to play in. Deserving more than the Free to Play price tag, it really makes me feel like I should throw a few bucks at the games microtransactions to support their amazing work. However, I do find the shop and all of its things quite confusing. Anyway, having an absolute blast playing this game and haven't spent a single dollar. Highly recommended!

I wanna gush a bit here. It was out of complete luck that I came across this game in a Fanatical bundle. This is the best game no one told me about. And I must say I find it HIGHLY OFFENSIVE that no one told me about it either. (lol) This is a game that EVERYONE should own and be talking about. Especially at its beyond reasonable price point.

So far, I’m in the double digits of deaths and can’t get enough. And I picked hard difficulty like a true fan of rougelikes/soulslikes should 💪. I’ve longed for a game with the classic XCOM style equipment management, cover system, but with a real-time action/gunplay take. Rogue Invader is up there with the likes of top tier games like Helldivers and Synthetic. Yet the game has such an insane amount of systems going on that the replay value is higher and off the charts than them. Add in the great voice acting and comedy… What an absolute gem this game is!

Thank you so much for giving us the privilege and opportunity to get to play such a game. It blends a special combination of mechanics that’s an absolute dream come true for me.

I adore this Gacha game. Ive played quite a few at this point and this game ticks pretty much all of the boxes of everything I want from one. I missed its initial global release, and started a few months late. So I've been playing Counterside for close to 6 months now and still really enjoy it. The new origin update did shake things up a bit but if anything it at its core made the game more friendly. With some refinement it will be better than before. The major take away for me is they've added some major quality of life tools like the favorite missions list that allows you to avoid jumping though menus each time to redo missions each day as well as added skip options for some daily farm missions that didn't have them before.

Max-able 1 pull Limited Banner Units with in-game resource:
So for me the most important factor for a gacha game for me is that you can pull a single copy of a unit and max it out without dupes and with resources farm-able in the game over time. Counterside is designed this way with standard (SSR) as well as time limited Classified (Awakened SSR) banners and you're able to max that unit out to lv 110 and max lv5 Skills with farm-able resources, Lv100 is now accessible by default with very easy to get materials only needed to allow you to max out all skills to lv5. Breaking out of level 100 and up to lv110 you'll need a total of 75 Fusion cores for the major SSR and Awakened SSR units (15 for each 2 level uncap and less Fusion cores required for lesser rarity units). The game is very generous and gives them out a lot-- As well as provides lots of opportunities to farm them out via weekly/monthly in game currency shop refreshes as well as limited events with unique currency. Also via log on attendance rewards and other ways as well. Per New Origin they did add the ability to install up to 6 dupe copies of a unit into itself. However the stat boosts it provides is the same blanketed stat boosts for all units (from the lowest to highest rarity units its the same) and seems extremely marginal. The RNG stats of gear grind between to players in PVP is going to be a far bigger factor as best I can tell.

Quality and Design:
For me most things beyond this factor are bonuses but the characters designs and animations are crazy high quality and very well made. The game doesn't have the typical chibi only combat (which doesn't annoy some but it does me) but with full size and well animated characaters (Similar to classic high quality 2D sprite fighting game quality) complete with very flashy and stylish entrances when deployed onto the field.

Story:
The story is honestly something I try to avoid due to time constraints but its actually quite cool. So while I typically skip story almost entirely in pretty much all games- I'm so curious about the story in Counterside that some times I have to snap myself out of reading it. (I wish I had more time, I just don't) But of what I have read is really cool and does a good job of giving a baseline for characters that are added to the game during banners via event missions and helps flesh out the world of Counterside.

Steam and Mobile Crossplay:
This game allows you to link your steam client and mobile phone app very easily. (Though if you plan to reroll an account for optimal pulls when starting, you must do so on your phone if thats something you want to do) And Its done so well and is as about easy and fluid as anyone could ask it to be. It will seamlessly boot you out of the steam client if you log into the app on your phone and vice versa so you can continue playing almost instantly depending on which is ideal for you when you need it. While this isn't a Gacha game requirement feature for me, I think Counterside will have me spoiled with this feature, for sure. Haha.

Hopefully my review helps cover some main Gacha game feature points that may encourage players to give this one a try. Those details are usually ones I want answers to before I decide to start investing any time into one.

Stay well everyone!

-Niric

Hey hey, People-- Hot Roguelike gunplay with fresh beats, here.

A solid trial and error roguelike management game. You'll have to learn some things the hard way, then start again and do things better and edge it out a bit farther. Then at some point you'll feel like you have the whole thing on lock down and there's not much progress left to make beyond the extreme and obscure stuff you'll have to look up. Such as (Hint/Minor Spoiler): Like why you would want to consider the Fish as your pet.

All n' all a great playtime value for your $.

-Niric

The game maybe abandoned due to what seems to be scandal inside the no longer existent company-- But that doesn't mean the game isn't worth picking up and playing. It has a lot of procedural elements to the galaxy and planet/mission maps that help this game stay interesting and different. (Similar to say Starbound in a way) It's not like there's a list of unfinished features or promises with this game. They released it as a completed project but planned on adjusting and improving it into the future. As such, there is tons of randomized loots and stats and builds to invest and play around with. There is no doubt, a lot to enjoy here.

One big tip I can give to anyone picking the game up this late is to get the beta/test release update of the game. Even better if you can do it before you start playing it for the first time. (Right click the game in your library screen and got down to properties. Then click on the beta tab.) This beta version came out shortly before the company and support for this game went off the deep end. So in this update of the game there is an auto attack combat mechanic they added that makes the game more enjoyable and you'll be happy you started playing it this way right off the bat.

So all this being said, its definitely not worth the full purchase price but its definitely a great game to pick up on sale. But even at $15 its not a bad deal because you could easily spend hundreds of hours digging into this game.

-Niric