You can't be killed in this tactical RPG?

Play an endgame character from the beginning

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Hello Scientist Gamers!

In most games, death is the period at the end of the sentence that signals the beginning of a new game or playthrough. As players, we actively try to avoid it, for as long as possible, to get through the game.

Rogue-like games have turned that formula inside out by tying death to some aspect of progression through the game. In these games, you’re expected to die in order to get through the game.

But what happens if you can’t die in a rogue-like game? How and when do you progress in the game? Rain Tactics tackles these questions in a unique way that I think will be interesting to you!

🔗 Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2629560/Rain_Tactics/
📅 Release date: coming soon (demo available now)
🖥️ Developer: Ervya Studios
📢 Publisher: Ervya Studios
🎮 Available on: Steam (PC)

What is Rain Tactics?

Rain Tactics is a cyberpunk tactical RPG, where you control an invincible god (yes, you read that right), Winter, and his less invincible meat shields. The goal of the game is to get Winter to the Gates of Oblivion, where he will become dust. The path to dust though will be guarded by enemies of all shapes and sizes.

You won’t have to go through it alone — you’ll be accompanied by different companions on every run to the Gates. In my first run, I was accompanied by a Bounty Hunter, Cyber Jack, Limit Breaker, and Heavy Seal. I noticed three other character portraits that were locked, meaning there’s more to choose from as I play the game.

Once you’ve selected your party, you can choose your path through the node-based map, followed by a series of battles at those nodes. The battle maps are small — there’s no fog of war that you’ll have to worry about.

The tactical battles will be familiar to you especially if you’ve played other tactical RPGs. You get to choose between moving and attacking, and several options for those attacks. I found a couple of control-related quirks (like not being able to attack without moving first, which was easily fixed by “moving” to the same tile) but I assume most of that will be ironed out before the release of the game.

Barriers to playing the game

The biggest barrier for me was wrapping my head around the fact that Winter can’t be killed. I found myself trying to protect him, even though he blocks incoming attacks and deals a ridiculous amount of damage.

But there’s a catch.

He’s got a limit to how much he can use those godly powers — every blocked attack and swing of the weapon decreases his self-control meter. If that meter gets to zero, Winter doesn’t end himself; he ends the world around him. Although its a subtle difference from how a traditional rogue-like run ends, it gives players complete control over when to end a run.

Why? Because you can choose to keep Winter away from enemy attacks and sacrifice your meat shields instead. But you have to be careful because if they die and Winter is left as the only playable character, you’ll be forced to spend Winter’s self-control points, eventually leading to the destruction of the world.

I’ve listed under the subheading of barrier because it does require some mental gymnastics to come to that realization. Once you do, you’ll see a whole new world of possibilities.

How long you can expect to play the game

Each battle map probably won’t take too long to complete, so you could make progress in a relatively short play session. I’m not sure how long it will take to get to the Gates of Oblivion — I made Winter too angry on multiple occasions and haven’t gotten that far.

There is some replayability built in to the game, as you can choose only 4 of 7 available meat shields (characters) to take with you. Taking different character with you might open up some more tactical options for you.

I’m not sure if the maps are procedurally generated but I didn’t start in the same map during the couple of times that I had to start over due to Winter’s inability to control himself (it was totally my fault).

Final thoughts

I love it when games ask me to think about things a little differently. Many tactics games ask you to balance taking and dealing damage. In Rain Tactics, who takes and deals damage matters a lot more because the wrong choice could lead to world-ending results.

I see a lot of potential for this game so I’ll be keeping a close eye on the development process. I’m also curious about how the rogue-lite system will play out and how different each run will feel depending on the character and items that you get. The demo is available until next week (May 20), so make sure you give it a go!

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