Great moments in PC gaming: When the party in a tactics RPG start to really feel like your guys

Features
By published

I love it when a party comes together.

A squad of XCOM operatives in multicolored gear descends a ramp
(Image credit: 2K)

Great moments in PC gaming are bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.

When I say I like turn-based combat in any RPG that gives you a whole party to manage—and can I just mention how glad I am the collective noun for a group of adventurers is "party" and not something boring like "fellowship" or whatever—sometimes people think I mean the kind of combat you get in games like Final Fantasy 7. The kind where two parties of adventurers line up to face each other across an open space like they're having a dance-off, taking turns to do a dramatic thing and then return to their spot, at which point they'll presumably cross their arms and nod their head at a jaunty angle so everyone knows they've got attitude.

There are interesting tactical considerations in choosing where people go—in trying to angle them for flanking bonuses or end their turns in cover or precisely place an area-of-effect attack. I want to see exactly where the grease spell is going to land and then stand right on the edge of it with my thumb on my nose, wiggling my fingers in the air. But that's not the entirety of the appeal.

Four unknown superheroes stand ready for battle in Capes.

(Image credit: Spitfire Interactive)

The other thing I want is a sense of ownership. They gotta feel like my guys. I want to be able to decide which member of my D&D party wears a silly hat that doesn't even give them any pluses; which member of my XCOM squad has a mohawk; whether my superheroes in Capes wear the brightly coloured alternate costumes in defiance of the whole Dark Age of Comic Books vibe.

Being able to respec them is great, and I appreciate the way everyone recruitable in Divinity: Original Sin 2 introduces themselves and then basically says "but I can be somebody else if you really want," as if they're so desperate for you to like them they'll rewrite their entire personality from the ground up. (A bit of a red flag in real life, but excellent news in an RPG.) Being able to rename them is even better, though I don't rename squaddies in XCOM immediately after hiring them. They have to prove themselves by surviving to promotion first. Rookies don't deserve names. Yes, now that I lay these things out there is a disturbing undercurrent to how I treat the squad. It's my party and I'll domme my guys if I want to.

Jody Macgregor
Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.