Element: Space

This is a tough game to review right now. I REALLY enjoy the combat. It looks like your basic XCOM style turn-based game, but the battles are designed more like puzzle battles. There is very little RNG in the combat. You either have a 100% chance to hit the enemy if they are in the open and not behind any cover, 50% to hit if they are behind low wall half cover, or 0% chance to hit if they are behind full cover. Your shot against full cover could destroy the cover, though.
You only get to bring three dudes/gals into each battle, out of supposedly eight total party members. Each party member has some unique skills that they bring to the battles. So, you get to choose how you want to solve these battle puzzles.
Don't get me wrong, the combat is good, fun combat, it just has much more of a puzzle feel to them. Even the developers refer to the battles as puzzles you have to figure out. That's cool to me, and something nice and different in my huge pile of turn-based combat games that I own.
It's not all roses and unicorns, though. The checkpoint system is almost horrendous. I have lost progress quite a few times due to the way their checkpoint system works. And, the "Continue" button on the main menu is not very reliable, and has dropped me into a game earlier than my checkpoint should have been saved. It's just inexcusable how unreliable this checkpoint system is. I get scared every time I quit the game, not sure if I'll reload back to exactly where I should.
Also - the camera during combat is all over the place. On enemy turns, the angle it chooses often times blocks the enemy movement and actions they are taking. Yikes! Also, the camera resets after your dudes take shots or actions sometimes. I haven't found any rhyme or reason to this, but you will be constantly moving your camera back to where you want it after the game moves it somewhere else.
One minor, yet hugely annoying point is that you cannot click through some dialogue scenes at all. You have to wait the designated amount of time until the game moves to the next dialogue. However, in other dialogues you can click the mouse through the lines. But, then again, in other other dialogues, you have to press ENTER to click through the lines. It's just very scattered and inconsistent.
I won't talk about the story, because I haven't gotten far enough into the game yet to have an opinion. There is no voice, though, it's all text.
Overall though, I am really enjoying the game. It just needs a bit of polish, a major cleanup of the checkpoint system. Heck, give us a true save anywhere system, so we can save when and where we want. Checkpoints are poo.
So, Jake and Elwood give Element: Space two cheap Walmart sunglasses up. The combat is fun, the puzzle aspect is very compelling to me, the interaction between the various skills and abilities allows for some pretty clever ways to destroy the enemy. Just blasting with your rifles will not get the job done. Use your skills in conjunction with your weapons and you will have a great time blasting bad guys!
Polish the game and we'll have a super cool game here.

Is this a new thing with developers (I'm looking at you underworld ascendant)? You make a great game and then you throw all the hard work out the window by forcing the player to go through large chunk of very difficult gameplay without the ability to save, so that in the likely outcome that you fail, you have to do it all over again. And again. Why? Nobody wants this. It will just make people not buy your great game, which I am certain is not the aim of the devs. Even the most recent dark souls game had checkpoints every 5 meters. I mean, I love tactics games and I am all for including hardcore modes (I only play xcom 2 on ironman) but don't force the players through the gauntlet before they can learn to appreciate this game you just slaved over. I am giving this the thumbs up because the two related issues that kill the game (having to go through full missions without saving and without being able to heal and reload) can hopefully be patched and because it's actually a really good tactical game worth saving. I like the colourful shiny star trek graphics, its a welcome change, I like the clean UI, the AI is great, I like the focus on team work and using different abilities together. The story is sci fi video game blah blah. It gets the job done but this is not The Witcher 3 or even Battletech. It would be nice to have a great story for a change but really who cares? We are here for the battles and boy do they shine. Now please fix your game devs. Thank you.

I thought I'd drop a preliminary review since the game just launched on early access. I just started (played a few missions), and I'll return with more thoughts once I've played more, but so far, what a cool game! The game is a strategy/rpg with X-Com-type fighting and a space/intergalactic/warring factions type of theme. I’m quite impressed with the production values for this game, especially considering the price point, and based on what I’ve played, I’d say it’s well-worth supporting.
I should also mention that I have a pretty good gaming rig (i7 quad core, 1080, 16 bg ram bla bla bla), but the game is running very well so far which is always nice and not always a certainty with an early access game. And of course, although I’m giving this a thumbs-up, it’s obvious that it isn’t a finished product. The game play is fun but there are elements that need work, and I hope the devs consider including some voice acting to breathe more life into the characters. But hey, it’s early access!
I'll return with more thoughts later, especially if it turns out that my postive review was a little hasty for whatever reason haha. But yeah, take the plunge if you’re hesitating!

So I have tried the game and want to share my impressions. Since I have just played a few hours I cannot fully evaluate it.
The gameplay is pretty similar to X-Com with some differences.
- Missing Voiceover. I don't know if it is planned to be added but I had never such a strong feeling that the characters should "talk" instead of just displaying the text. It would immensly help immersion.
- There seems to be just 0, 50 and 100 % chance to hit. A bit boring for my taste.
- Its not grid based like X-Com but has free movement. I can live with both.
- Cover is mostly destructible.
- Sometimes the actions happens behind objects so camera placement could be more intelligent.
- In one mission there just came more waves of enemies. Seemed pretty unfair to me. Also one enemy drops mines to my covers and when I flee they explode. Don't know how to counter that and also seems unfair. Other enemies blind my chars and thus make them "useless" for 3 turns since they can't do antyhing than move in this time.
- A mission consists of several battles, mostly with increasing difficulty. When you mess up you can restart the mission but you have to do the "easy" battles again. An option to redo just the last fight is indispensable for me. Otherwise the punishment is way too hard for my taste and sucks the fun out of the game.
- Overwatch areas are displayed. Nice. Somehow unexplainable my chars STILL always run into it ;).
- There is plenty of Melee combat.
- The setting is a "weird" mixture from sci-fi and antics. Unusual but not bad for my taste. Just not the general thing you would expect.
- Story is nice and interesting so far.
- Many special abilities like dragging enemies towards me etc.. I think its way more diverse and offers more tactical depth than X-Com where its mainly straight shooting.
- For me its very difficult to estimate who I can shoot at when going to a certain position. I often end up where I can't do what I intended to do and thus wasted a turn.
- Battlefields are very varied and mostly nicely designed.
What I would wish:
Pick up weapons/armor/money from fallen enemies. Loot crates, at least when just walking around (not enganged in fighting). The "walking" between the fights is just meaningless, especially when I often can't directly find where I'm supposed to go.
An option to keep mouse within game screen for multi monitor setups.
Overwatch always hits. Thats too predictable for me. Maybe have an evasion check or something.
An option to just redo the last fight not restart the whole mission. This is simply waste of time I can spend better.
Other than that the game appears pretty polished and bug free to me. I have a hard time deciding wether to recommend or not because of the "unfair" things I mentioned. If you like these kind of games give it a try. But for me its currently a bit too frustrating and thus I wait until it gets fixed. But maybe its so by design and I'm just too spoiled or too stupid.
Note: I play with Steam in offline mode so my gametime count may not represent my actual playtime.
Update: I have played two more missions. Still just the standard weapons available. More Human enemies. Und the feeling of unfairness. There comes a guy with a flamethrower and sets my whole team on fire albeit its behind cover and behind corners. Then I shall play 4 battles again to come back to that point? Not with me. The number of retries for a mission seems limited to 2. I guess the Devs make it intentional that it is so hard but for me this is no longer fun. I don't know how to counter that stuff when I don't even know what awaits me. This is too much trial and error and simply feels unfair to me. My team of 3 usually fights against much more (up to 9 until now) enemies. My people have 3 to 4 times the hitpoints of the enemies but the enemies also have armor and repleneshing shields. And each of them shoots at me. On the other hand I lack proper information wether I can shoot from where I want to move or not.
Sumarry: The game has good quality (Optics, Gameplay, Polish). But it also has a steep learning curve and feels difficult and unfair to me. A "rewind" or turn/battle restart option could make up for mistakes and missing information. But playing the whole mission with several battles again is just stupid and frustrating for me. So I still recommend it but you need a high frustratioin tolerance and a bit masochism to enjoy it I guess.

Okay I think the game is fun initially, but after a couple missions the difficulty ramps up extremely fast, with a "mission" actually being four or more battles in a row. The battles start off hard and get much harder, at the same time your units have less and less health. You will fail, trust me, and then be punted all the way back to the beginning and have to do all those battles you completed so expertly all over again.
So the balance right now is total crap/sadistic, but the game quality/content is high. Balance is relatively easy to fix. So I am giving this a thumbs up for the community to buy and check this game out, and then camp on it until it is playable beyond the first couple hours. Which I would imagine will happen within a month or so.

Interesting X-com clone. It has some good ideas behind it, but i feel that still needs some polishing, lets break it down:
The good:
-The combat is Fun.
-Combo system (team skills used together are super fun).
-Story is nice, but it has a some room for improvement. (Looking at you Decision Making/Galactic congress)
-Strategy is mandatory, you will pay dearly for any mistakes.
The bad:
-Bugs. Didn't find any game breaking like during EA, but some Minor Bugs are still present.
-Missing voice Acting. (one is so used to this nowadays)
-UI could use some polishing & Tooltips.
The Ugly:
-Can't do anything during Enemy turn. Not even Open Menu.

It seems it's the studio's first game, and after several hours and completing one run, I can see both sides of this coin :
-Yes, it still has several bugs sometimes (killcam stucks, ennemy stuck, etc.), the camera is utterly a monstruosity and should be fixed and reworkd from the ground, the story is nice but not very original, etc.
The Faction/Philosophy reputation is nice, but still has some flaws.
BUT...Art Direction is overall pretty good (graphics, sound, music, ...), UI is correct, some companions are pretty fun, and the lore behind the created world is intriguing.
In the end, it has a slight Mass Effect feeling, in a turn based tactical game, and with the untapped lore the game's hints, final verdict is : I want to know more .
So , for a first game, in a very young game industry environment (South America), it's pretty much a very good sign, if you just manage to pass this f...g camera/controls.
And I'll happily buy a follow up on the universe (DLC or next game).