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There's slowdown during both cut-scenes and gameplay, and the game had the absolute cheek to blue screen us on half a dozen occasions during the twenty hours we spent with it. Sometimes you'll try to attack and it simply won't work no matter how many times you press X and so you have to exit out of the attack menu, then go back in, and try again. If there's anything to complain about here - aside from the aforementioned difficulty spikes - it's that Othercide doesn't seem to run particularly well. You'll unlock these Remembrances at a fairly brisk pace, and they're so useful that the penalty for failure never feels too brutal. You'll begin your second run with new options, such as the ability to begin with a resurrection token, to do more damage against certain enemy types, or to even skip entire portions of the game.
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The first time this happened we nearly choked on our Pinot Grigio at the thought of having lost all of our progress so far, but this is where Remembrances come in. If your entire squad of Daughters is wiped out in a particularly troublesome combat encounter, you'll begin the entire game again with a new squad of Daughters. It took us a few - okay, like twelve or something - attempts to see the final baddie off, and while we appreciate a game pushing back, the encounter does feel a mite cheaper than it should in our book. The last boss in particular is tougher than anything else you'll face by such a ludicrous degree that you'll likely feel wholly unprepared to take it on regardless of how much time you've spent levelling up. The game is rarely a walk in the park, but it's mostly manageable barring a few difficulty spikes.
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Knowing when to blast all of your action points in one go and when to hold back - or even skip a turn entirely - becomes paramount as Othercide ramps up in difficulty. But if there's an enemy with only a slither of health left then you might opt to perform a second attack to finish it off with the penalty being that you'll have to wait longer for that unit to get another turn. The idea here is that you've got enough action points to move a small distance and either attack or use a support skill. Bosses, though sadly infrequent, rarely disappoint in this regard too. Enemies, too, are well-designed, with the minions you'll be going up against taking inspiration from inherently frightening concepts like insects or plague doctors, and sprucing them up with blades and tentacles and other such grotesqueries. that recalls graphic novels like Sin City. The art direction here is really quite striking, with the entire game being played in black and white, accentuated by splashes of red - blood, the scarves of the Daughters, etc. Speaking of style, Othercide's got it to spare.
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It's interesting enough in the same way that the narrative of a game like Silent Hill or Bloodborne is, in that you never really know what's going on, but it's stylish and unintrusive. The Red Mother creates warriors known as Daughters to do battle for her, with the aim of driving back the denizens of evil, and ultimately stopping the collapse of the real world. This being and their cohorts are trying to enter our reality, while another being called the Red Mother stands in their way. It seemingly takes place in both 18 at what appears to be a convergence point of time and space, brought about by a being of immense power.
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