Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.

When I first heard about this game, I was pretty excited. Old American Literary characters fighting alongside each other to fight aliens in a Steampunk alternate universe where Abraham Lincoln faked his death? Amazing.

I recently downloaded and played the demo and dang, I really loved it. It takes you through 2 missions over the course of 4 maps, and I love how everything works.

While it looks like a third person shooter at the base level, it is actually a turned based strategy game. You move your 4 characters around a 3D map (separated into a grid) and try to reach the goal whilst exploring the area for goodies (which helps you rank up and unlock more weapons) as well as the main objective: killing the invading aliens.

The demo gives you 4 characters: Henry Fleming (from the Red Badge of Courage, shoutouts to middle school), John Henry (from old American Folklore), Tiger Lily (from Peter Pan), and the Lion (from the Wizard of Oz). Each character is completely unique: Henry is well-rounded, being able to deal damage from a distance, push friendly units around to help them cover more distance, and his default secondary is a healing weapon.
John Henry carries a grenade launcher and is good for dealing high damage to groups of enemies from a distance.
Tiger Lily is a medic, who uses a grenade-launcher like weapon to shoot explosive healing shots (allowing you to heal multiple friendly units at once).
Lion is a very mobile tanky character. His passive (Courageous) boosts all your units' defense, and Lion himself has the most health out of the 4. His main weapon launches Lion at the aliens, dealing high damage when he lands on them. This makes Lion very mobile, though can leave him open for heavy damage as he can find himself away from the rest of the team at times. Luckily, he can just bounce right back to the group and get heals from Henry and Tiger Lily. A very powerful unit that most likely will appreciate a dedicated healer.

I can't say much else because I'm stupid, but I would definitely recommend trying out the demo if you have a 3DS. Really fun, and I think I'm gonna pick up the game when it launches this Friday.

Also, this is a thing. Amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpcTwOHXdqw

I actually find this pretty interesting.

Despite not caring for TBS games, the way they do it seems more entertaining to me.

If I ever got the chance, I will take it for a spin.

I played the demo, it was really really fun
Thanks for the suggestion SP

I'm glad you liked it, Dust.

Apparently there is no direct way to play online with friends (the only options are random or tournaments), though there is a "workaround" I guess.

Basically, create a tournament that never ends and you can play with friends that way. Simple, but it makes it a lot easier to actually play with others you know.

This'll be my last double post in this thread for now, but hot damn. I bought the full game last night and it's stunningly good.

Map design is great, each location is aesthetically diverse and they're fun to explore.

The soundtrack in my opinion is phenomenal. I can't wait until it starts getting ripped and put on youtube.

The game really starts mixing things up with missions and characters. Each mission is fairly diverse in what it wants you to do; sometimes you just need to reach a location on the map, sometimes you need to escort someone, other times you need to defeat a boss enemy, it is really cool; and it also does things to mix up even the more basic missions, like giving you a tank on a boss level.

It's also really fun to pick a team of characters. As soon as you get a fifth team member, you're going to need to decide on your strategy as you decide on who to bring and who to leave behind. Since each character brings something completely different to the table, just changing out one character can force you to play entirely differently than before, which helps up the replay value of previous maps and missions as you bring along new team members that you didn't have access to before.

There is no leveling up system; instead, you gain access to new sub-weapons (that can further alter how a character plays, as they range from a standard shotgun to a gun that shoots banana peels) and boilers, that alter a characters' stats somewhat. You also learn how enemies behave and how to deal with them; when I first played the demo, the Hound enemies were hard to take care of; now they're fairly easy enemies to me as I know how to deal with them quickly. While there aren't any numbers telling you that "your character is getting better," you still feel like you're progressing as you accomplish each task that's given to you.