Just finished the demo, tldr: It’s great, it’s very much poised to be a better game than CC, which is really saying something, CC is incredible. I have some feedback/thoughts about it, but wanted to start off by saying my view of the game is overwhelmingly positive, and that it was a demo that was very difficult to put down. Both dropdowns contain spoilers
Gameplay
Genuinely excellent. The earlygame is tightly balanced, has tons of room for skill expression, and drip feeds you new stuff at a very reasonable rate. I have a lot to say about some mechanics, but in general, Gecko feels like a reimagining that is different enough from CC while still feeling familiar.
Guns: Guns are probably the mechanic I am the most iffy on, though a lot of that comes down to the characters that use guns being very powerful. Guns are incredibly powerful, so much so that enemy gun users require a ton of planning to get around deathless, they have good accuracy for the most part, 1-2 range, and are, for the most part, very light, all of which are massive upsides that no other weapon type gets (magic is low might, and the mages aren’t great, bows don’t get 1 range, no other weapon type really gets 2 range, etc.). Reloading seems rough, but in actuality has been a nonissue aside from Stubby, which has only 1 use. In general, Gecko is fast-paced, but you often don’t need every unit each turn, making it fairly trivial to weave in reload turns (It also helps that Ironhand pumps out more damage in one turn than most units do in 2, that Raylin has an additional weapon type to fall back on, and that Bowman often can afford to wait a turn or two in between shots, just because he accumulates so much value when he does shoot). Also, often you don’t need to reload guns at all. If you one shot, 2 4-use guns is enough ammo for the entire map. Similarly, the hit penalty for having enemies be close to you I found almost entirely irrelevant. As I said, guns have good hit, the units that have guns have good skill (Raylin’s skill is okay, but she also has swords to fall back on) and the 2 lowest rank guns just ignore the debuff anyway. Speaking of guns…
Ironhand (and tanks in general): Ironhand is bar none the best unit in the game so far. He has the highest damage output on the team, the best defensive profile, better Mov than most units, and a guarantee that he can take 6 hits, no matter what. Genuinely, I was expecting Ironhand to either be a temporary unit or a character that leaves often, because it genuinely seems so difficult to design anything to challenge this unit. In the grain-defending map, for example, I had 3-4 units handle the top-left, 3-4 units handle the top-right, 3-4 units handle the bottom left, and I send Ironhand to deal with the bottom right. He can’t be everywhere, sure, but he has to be somewhere, and wherever he is, your other characters are going to look lame by comparison. Fighting tanks is much cooler, I appreciate having enemies that can’t just get one-rounded by most units, but they still have some major issues, namely that 3 move. Like most stationary bosses, you are completely safe when fighting the tanks so far, you have plenty of area to run, canto+ allows you to easily dance out of their range, and their Spd and Eva are both super low. I could easily see there being fun tank fights in the future, where the map design or some skills negate some of their weaknesses, but currently, they are conceptually cool but mechanically hindered IMO.
Evasion/Speed: Not much to say here other than I like the change. Speed was already too good, and this makes it weaker, but still strong. Only thing I might say is that there are very few characters that have Spd and Eva stats that aren’t within a few points of each other (mainly Reiker for Eva>Spd and Nighthound/Warinhari for Spd>Eva), but it is still neat.
Battalions/Armies: This fixes every problem I have with the Three Houses variant of the mechanic. Pretty customizable, easy to understand, and the bonus effects shown so far are all fun. My only real concern is that you get a lot of them really early, especially a lot of duplicates, and that makes them feel a bit weird and un-special. I do really like armies like the Nighthounds that give bonuses when equipped by a certain character, and I think there is a lot of design space to be found in locking/soft-locking certain battalions to character groups/class groups. I am definitely predicting that there will be a character who can expend/dismiss battalions for a benefit, or otherwise can stack the bonuses of multiple armies, and also that there will be a moment in the story where, due to poor morale, you lose a large majority of your battalions. Very cool mechanic though.
Orders: I really love this mechanic. Dropping crates is fun in the few missions you can do it, and I expect more fun options down the line. I didn’t end up picking apothecaries (I never had a unit go down on normal mode) or the explosive wagon (seemed fine, but extra food/flanking seemed more impactful), but I’m sure those are fun options to call in. I have a very similar mechanic in my FE TTRPG, I love having limited use mechanics that can turn the tide of a battle.
City: Probably my favorite mechanic so far. The options so far are pretty limited, and some of them are way stronger than others, but I really enjoy the decision making aspect of it, both in terms of allowing players the choice of what items to unlock, and having little bonuses that compete with each other to make the game more replayable. Only other thing I’d say is that it is kinda weird that Pomelo sells an item that gives Ironhand +1 Move. I don’t dislike this as an option, it’s just weird that its the only item for purchase that isn’t weapon unlocking. This system feels very Valkyria Chronicles coded, so it’s possible it’s a reference lol, but I wouldn’t mind having other character-specific buffs in the artisan pool.
Per-Map Items and Full-cost selling: Excellent. Great for experimenting, great for gameplay variety.
Cooldown Skills: Very fun. Mostly ignorable on lower difficulties though, I often forgot I had them (aside from Needle ofc). I do find it a little strange that Swarp and Snipe have the same borders as the other ones, but no cooldowns.
Characters
Gecko: Really fun as a main character. She scales hard, but is a little wimpy in the earlygame, which is fun for a main character. Still though, the frying pan lets her take hits, and galeforce/rift jump gives her a lot of flexibility that other characters don’t have. My only frustration with her is that the frying pan crit rate is really frustrating, it tends to crit only when you don’t want it to, which sucks, because it is her best weapon for tanking, but it can just kill her if you get unlucky and crit too much. On offense, again, it’s a frustrating tool, because if she doubles, it can do anywhere from 2x damage to 6x damage, which again, makes it something that you don’t want to rely on to save you on misery mode.
Starling: Effectively horseless Marlow. I just sort of don’t get this character, and mages in general in this hack. 1-3 range on anima tomes is nice, but Starling has this weird, balanced stat-spread that does him no favors, and aside from detonate, anima magic kinda sucks? Spitfire does basically nothing for him, and thunder is super low might. Even Shamans, which are slow and have low res, are not slow enough for him to kill. Blast Wave also doesn’t do a whole lot, since on normal, most units just kill things in one hit anyway. With thunder, I guess he’s okay at debuffing tanks? But aside from that he just feels outclassed.
Bowman: Now this is a character that doesn’t feel outclassed. Bowman is, quite frankly, ridiculous, and though it is in a fun way, I can’t help but think I wasn’t intended to have him finish off both bosses on the grain-defending map on consecutive turns (granted, this did involve a dance, but it still felt fairly excessive, given that there are a lot of easy ways to get debuffs on enemies at range. even aside from the spyglass (Ironhand can use the blighter, and can dive super far into enemy lines due to his bulk, Raylin can do the same with her effectively 9 Mov, Freeze/Weaken from a staffer, etc.). Snipe just allows him to be everywhere, in a way that feels very difficult to deal with.
Rosebriar: I don’t dislike this unit (as much as 2 base Mag and coinflip Mag growth is frustrating lol), but it is a bit weird that her and Needle don’t share Exp. It makes using her a little annoying, because both of them need to be fed experience seperately, but otherwise it’s probably fine.
Yvette is the last unit I have things to say about, mainly just that she’s really strong, and that reload is not really a downside when you can reload after you’ve already gotten to 0 Mov. I will also say that reloading saves triggers some weird stuff when it comes to her galeforce mechanic
I hope some part of this is helpful, I have a lot of thoughts about the hack
