We faced deadly cold in 1971 Project Helios, an XCOM-style turn-based strategy video game that just wanted to be excellent. RECOTechnology tries it with complex storytelling, different characters, resource-based skill trees, and exploration of a well-recreated, frozen, apocalyptic world. The title gives some excellent moments, but its many problems end up taking their toll.
To understand what 1971 Project Helios is, think of a game from the XCOM saga or even Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle . We are a group of warriors who advance through scenarios more or less corridors while a plot develops and we explore. Suddenly we meet some enemies and the ground is filled with grids . It’s time to fight in turnsand through a system of strategic battles that recalls the two references mentioned. This structure of the game is repeated until the end, complemented by moments in which our companions take refuge in a camp and chat, as well as in others in which we improve our strength through a brief tree of skills. This is the proposal of 1971 Project Helios: Fight, think strategically and follow a story told through notes we find and conversations.
RECOTechnology’s video game has plenty of ballots to have been one of the greats. It is not innovative at all in what it proposes, but the sum of its parts manages to give some very enjoyable moments of exploration and combat . I still remember how he was not able to solve one of his toughest battles, and finding myself in the shower thinking how to move my units when I returned to the game to achieve it. It is a game that, when you design your fights well, you take them in your head to study them mentally as if it were a game of chess . But unfortunately that happens very rarely.
Its story is typical : various factions in a frozen world fight for resources and for salvation, but it is interesting how the narrative focuses on what its protagonists feel and share, as well as their differences, and how sometimes the setting is articulated. to reflect their emotions , ceasing to be linear and opening up more. However, the story begins very harassed to create mistrust and doubt in the player, so that we need to explore every corner to find out who we are, what are key concepts like the Glare … but that idea, which could work, ends up being lost in a sea of unnecessarily long text notes so that we have no doubt about anything. For all these reasons, 1971 Project Helios is a game of some very well-hit hits clouded by poor resolution.
Battling in the cold apocalypse
We traveled to the winter of 1971 Project Helios to discover this strategy video game
Fighting in 1971 Project Helios is the best of the title. We have two actions to perform, which can be move and shoot or shoot and use another action, for example. We move through boxes that represent our ability to move. Depending on where we stay, we will have one armor or another depending on the area of the stage where we are. At the beginning of the game, we will not be able to use Glare with which to resurrect our fallen allies, but we will not suffer the effects of the cold , which freezes part of our life. In all this first half of the adventure I have lived the best moments of the game for being the most difficult. The defeat came with the death of some of my companions. That is, if Hanna was killed, for example, the game was over and she had to repeat that battle.
The setting of the game is very successful.
This forced me to squeeze my brains to play well, to scratch every point of life and to study the stage to the millimeter. 1971 Project Helios is very difficult at first , which made me hate it but then adore it. The strange thing is that, in the middle of the game and without too much explanation, it gives you a tree of skills to improve your characters, it allows you to choose between them to only have the most powerful ones and you have to use Glare, an item with which to revive them . When the title did this I thought it was going to increase the difficulty levelor use it to propose new more intricate challenges; that is, to be even more chess than it was at the beginning. But no. The Fulgor ends up being like a patch for difficult situations and what it was difficult for me to overcome before by sweating, now I could achieve it perfectly. Yes, I understand that the message that we are stronger together is conveyed well that way, but it spoils the balance of the fights.
That is, 1971 Project Helios is committed to simplicity in its playable options , and there it becomes strong at the beginning through difficulty. But then he forgets about this to be more generous with the player and blur the quality of his proposal. Unfortunately, this strange playable decision is compounded by camera-related issues . This is not free, the vision is zenith and isometric perspective. Many times I have been killed by enemies that I did not see because they were hidden by a wall or a table. There are also strange bugsthat make you unable to select a command during the game or unable to access the skill tree. After the first section of the game, with Fulgor and the new enemies, I found another battle with the same interest and strength from the beginning, but there were much less. That is, 1971 Project Helios is very irregular, capable of the best and the worst.
A very irregular history
The melodies of exploration are solvent but those of combat are so squeaky that I fought with the volume turned downThe artistic finish of the game is very interesting, but not its musical section . The exploration melodies are solvent but the combat melodies are so screeching that I fought with the volume turned down. 1971 Project Helios has a very good job on its setting and lighting, the starting point of its elaborate plot. We are in a post-apocalypse environment in which the cold covers everything. There are several factions that populate the Earth, each one more terrible, with their peculiarities and interests, and those same rivalries are in the protagonists that we handle. The setting, although it pulls clichés, works when it is mysterious, when it only tells you a little bit and lets you imagine the rest. There are sequences that we live in very interesting camps thanks to this. The characters talk to each other and become friends. As we explore, we find very well written, suggestive pieces of newspaper and mysterious clippings. But everything goes to ruin when an area is covered with tests for children whose answers are, as is, the entire collection of the game explained point by point .
It features some tough and gripping matches.
And this is the big problem with the title: a good starting point in combat and a narrative that ends up crashing because of many bad decisions . Good moments that are rarely repeated and all bitter with defects in cameras, bugs and a forgettable soundtrack. Anyway, despite all the bad news, 1971 Project Helios continues to have great moments in which I have enjoyed a lot . When the game becomes stubborn and requires you to use your head, when it designs its combat scenarios well and makes things difficult for you, when it lets its protagonists speak without roughly exposing their plot, there is indeed a game to recommend and enjoy. Unfortunately, greatness is short-lived and a bleak winter landscape abounds.
“Regular”
1971 Project Helios
1971 Project Helios is an interesting proposal in the strategy genre, with good ideas and great fun whenever you want. The downside is that the problems with its camera, the irregularity of its rhythm and its bugs make playing not as pleasant as it could be. And it’s a shame, because it has some moments of brilliance.
- Some good fighting
- When the title raises its difficulty, it shines
- Good starting point for your plot
- The atmosphere works very well
- Camera problems and some bugs
- It gets repetitive
- Enemy AI is very patchy
- Your good narrative intentions remain only intentions
