Exorder

TL;DR:
A fairly standard and enjoyable tactical strategy game in a colorful and stylish wrapper. If you liked games like Vandal Hearts, you will probably like Exorder.
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Recommendation:
☑ This experience is worth buying at full price.
☐ Wait to buy when it's on sale.
☐ Wait for improvements before buying.
☐ Save your money.
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How the game is played:
A concise storyline keeps the player moving right into the action with minor "tutorial moments" that are integrated into the adventure. Heroes and enemies take turns in phases for movement, captures, escapes, attacks, and counterattacks. Successfully complete each battle map's win conditions to move forward through the story and into increasingly challenging scenarios.
Win conditions: Hero must survive *and* capture, protect, escort, or defeat objectives.
What I like about Exorder:
+ Charming and colorful art style. The environments pop.
+ Original monster designs.
+ Nice character animations.
+ Recruit additional reinforcements mid-battle.
+ Reminiscent of Shining Force/Fire Emblem enemy phases/movement and Vandal Hearts mid-battle dialogues.
+ Good variations of map objectives to keep battling fresh.
+ Option to save your game mid-battle to finish up later.
+ Option to restart level when things go badly.
+ Music & sound effects are top notch.
+ Mousewheel to zoom in & out of the action.
+ Controller support.
+ Touchscreen mode.
Neutral:
=/~ Main character's voice acting is very good but even-toned. It sounds like she is reading vs speaking to the player.
Room for improvements:
- Pushing an ally into or through an enemy should do at least some damage to the enemy hit and/or push them back.
- While the music is fantastic, it could be more "urgent" and invoke a greater sense of excitement for the player.
- Please add an "Undo" option for when you move your characters to an unintended position.
- Please add the ability to change settings when in battle maps, not just the main menu.
- World map selection arrow graphic needs to stand out more. Gold, orange, neon green, etc, would stand out more than white.
- World map could use some ambient sound effects added to give it a "living environment" quality.
- I would like to be able to rotate the battle maps.
Other thoughts:
Overall, this is a fun, engrossing, and professionally made turn-based strategy RPG. I've always enjoyed tactics games like Exorder, they keep me captivated and focused like when I am playing a game of Chess.
Check out my other reviews! :)

Fun Tactical Combat Game. No Exploring, just battles. It's challenging, but it's only 15 levels, plus some challenges and achievements to do. It would be awesome if this game had an indicator that told you how many characters had moves left during your turn, or simply a no turns left indicator.

My review of Exorder only covers the campaign and the mechanics contained therein.
Unlike several other reviewer, I did not find the game too difficult, or too punishing for early mistakes. Because "occupying" houses grants funds every round (and killing enemies grants funds as well), I was always able to recover after enemy reinforcements surprised me, I made a mistake (an undo last move button would be very welcome), or the rules of a new character class weren't immediately clear.
I also disagree with another review that stated "aside from some interesting unit abilities, there's nothing to really set it apart from other turn based strategy games". In fact, the unique feeling is why I chose to recommend this game. Unlike most grid-based tactical games, where the maps are relatively small, this campaign features large maps with many choke points, and I really enjoyed operating several different groups of soldiers in different "theaters" of the battle, and deciding where to reinforce and when to tactically retreat.
Overall, the game lost some points for me with UI issues (especially since the campaign felt pretty short, not having tooltips for basic mechanics was a big oversight- it took me quite a while to figure out that grass costs 2 movement points, or that standing in trees gives a defensive bonus).
At first I also though the AI was pretty good (I've done a bit of tactical AI programming in Unity on my own, so I know how hard it can be), but then the enemy just wouldn't stop blowing itself up with those stupid bomb mercenaries. I only used them in dire situations, but the enemy threw them at me in spades, usually to their own detriment.
The VO was a nice touch for an indie game, though a bit dry. The prologue/epilogue narrative just made me feel like I was always skipping an "episode" in this story, though, because after a mission an epilogue would play, then there'd be a time-skip to the next prologue.
I didn't experience any bugs in the game.
I got the game on sale for half off, and that felt about right to me. I feel like the game could have been better, but that it's still a worthwhile experience. It's not a "hidden gem" but I picked it up after playing the demo, and it actually got much better from there, so I'm happy with it.

For $20 (-20% on release!) you get:
-rather tough and really entertaining strategy game
-fun and longish single player campaign
-hilarious multiplayer
-really cool graphics
-hidden Gorillaz jokes (yes, I noticed)
Plus the game was made by 3 people as core team. Respect!

A solid (9 he he) tactical game with a light-hearted setting, pleasant graphics and firm gameplay core.
There are plenty of ways to go through the campaign missions - the achievements are sort of a built-in challenges to find another play style or experiment with the map which is nice.
I have to try out the multiplayer but the campaign alone is decent enough for people who enjoy a turn based not overly-complicated games ;)

This game has a lot of potential. Hopefully will be developed in the future.
Art style reminds me good old Warcraft 3. Gameplay is pretty nice and simple. Probably would be successfull as a mobile game.
I would introduce some simple character progression to add more depth during the matches.

*The main campaign is very short (3 hrs).
*Campaing starts as somewhat interesting but the ending is dull and feels incomplete.
*Maps are very small.
*Achievements adds some kind of challenge and replayibility.
*Challenges are a nice touch.
*Unit variety is OK.
*AI is not bad but not very bright either.
*Main difficulty during games comes from sudden enemy reinforcements appearing out of nowhere. There's not much options to make a strategy on.
Overall, I enjoyed the buck I spent on the game. You can easily decide with the demo. What you see is 40% what you'll get in the full game.