[toggles behavior=”accordion”] [toggle title=”Minimum Specification”]OS: Windows 7, 64-bit/MacOS 10.9 Mavericks/Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, 64-bit
Processor: 2.0 Ghz DualCore CPU
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel HD4000 or better, OpenGL 3.3 [/toggle] [toggle title=”Recommended Specification”]OS: Windows 10, 64-bit/ MacOS 10.13 High Sierra/ Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, 64-bit
Processor: 2.0+ Ghz QuadCore CPU Memory:
8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA Geforce 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series, OpenGL 3.3[/toggle] [toggle title=”Review Specification”]OS: Windows 10 64bit
Processor: Intel Core i5-7500
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070[/toggle] [/toggles]
DETAILED REVIEW
Tactical RPGs are so hard to pull off. They do not usually have the power of strong storytelling to fall back on and has to depend solely on well-refined combat mechanics and balancing. Pathway from Robotality tries to mix it up a bit. By providing the player with dynamic, choice-driven gameplay and tactical turn-based combat encounters with the charm of an Indiana Jones flick, Pathway aims to find its cozy spot in the not-so-populated list of well-made strategy RPGs. Well, let’s put that to the test.
Story & Narrative
The year is 1936. The smell of war is in the air. The Nazis are on a seemingly unstoppable rampage across Europe the Middle East. Tensions are Sky-high as there is news of Nazis toying with mysterious artifacts and occult rituals. The last thing anyone would want is an eldrich army backing der Führer in the inevitable war ahead. This is where you come in. It’s up to you to assemble a team of bold adventurers, and journey through the deserts, explore bunkers, and temples of Africa and the Middle East to discover their hidden treasures and secrets before they fall into the hands of Nazi forces. It’s pulpy, has that signature Indiana Jones flair and could have been more amazing if they managed to do something more with it, which sadly is not the case here.
Aside from providing excellent aesthetics, the setting is barely used to its full potential when it comes to the story. The game is divided into 5 chapters, or in this case, adventures. Rather than feeling like one grand Hollywood pulpy fiction, the chapters feel self-contained with unimpactful events and characters you couldn’t care any less about. It’s just an excuse to explore the map and shoot Nazis in the face. But people do not play games like these for the story. What matters here the most is the gameplay.
Gameplay & Mechanics
Exploration
Pathway, in a lot of ways, feels like an over-simplified version of XCOM or FTL. The game begins with you selecting an adventure, choosing two adventurers from a fairly sizeable roster (many of whom need to be unlocked) with their own weapons, skills, and stats. From here on out, you are treated to a randomly generated map full of location nodes connected by roads and one primary objective. It’s up to you to choose your own path to the destination.
Some locations are pre-marked, giving an indication of what awaits you but most of these are unmarked and requires you to find out for yourself. These might be combat encounters, mini-choices, skill checks, traders, treasure troves, NPCs or another party member. However, put aside your hopes for exploring each nook and cranny and taking your time. Fuel for your jeep dictates how many of these locations you’ll visit in one go and Pathway is awfully stingy the distribution of fuel. It’s a matter of risk vs reward, but more often than not, you’ll just say ‘screw it’ and head straight for the main objective because RNGesus is a prick.
If your party either gets wiped out or run out of fuel in the middle of the map (which will happen), you have to restart the adventure with another duo (unless you spring the wiped out party from the hospital for $500). But what’s cool is that you get to keep all the loot and gear you’ve amassed before succumbing to death, as well as individual character XP. But each character level so damn slowly that the prospect of grinding out each of the 16 available characters is a nightmare suited for the most determined EverQuest player. On a positive note, you can customize how much fuel and ammo you start out with, as well as the HP and damage of enemies. So there’s that.
Pathway boasts that it has about 400 unique encounters awaiting you in the procedurally generated map, but thanks to RNGesus, I kept getting the same 10 encounters over and over again. I had to restart chapters several times just because traders and camp sights were placed so far apart from the starting position. Unless I’m seriously unlucky, the risk vs reward aspect doesn’t work the way the devs intended it to. The campaign is also relatively short. Sure, some adventures are unwantedly long and take place in multiple maps with no end in sight, but if you know what you’re doing, you could probably complete each in about 30-40 minutes.
Combat
Even though you’ll spend the most time staring at these interconnected locations asking yourself “is it worth it?”, combat is the crux of Pathway. Sadly this is where the game falls flat on its face. Pathway features a turn-based combat system that is a stripped-down version of the combat from recent XCOM reboot. The combat here is very rudimentary and unpolished with unbalanced weapons and skills, along with a pinch of ‘hit-or-miss’ enemy AI. Basic abilities like overwatch and hunker down are restricted to some characters and the items you’re wearing. The line of sight of the characters and range of weapons are painfully low. Your chance to hit will almost all times be 100% of 50% depending on how covered the enemy is.
There is no real strategy to the combat other than the classic “shoot once, move 10 tiles away, shoot again and move” tactic. To add fuel to frustration, the upgrade paths of characters are very basic and the vast majority of the skills are just incremental passive stat boosts which don’t affect the combat much (unless you hit the capstone). Then there is the lack of enemy variety. Even though you will see more powerful enemies in the last chapters, you’ll still be fighting the same two Nazis and their pet dogs for the most part. Talk about wasting of a wonderful setting.
It will be untrue if I said I didn’t have fun with Pathway. The initial few hours are rather excellent where the atmosphere and exploration grips you in. It’s not until after 3 or 4 hours that you grasp how shallow and boring Pathway is in the long run. That being said, casual players and people new to strategy RPGs will have quite a bit of fun due to how simple and welcoming the game is. Many of the criticisms I have made may also be overlooked by the aforementioned playerbase. There’s also the cheap regional pricing to boot.
Visuals, Performance & Sound
One thing Pathway excels at is the visuals. The early NES era art style, glowing in the warm desert sun is a damn fine sight. Character sprites and environments are well detailed and the peculiar charm associated with pixel RPGs can be found in Pathway. The animations are a tad too simpler than I expected, but the gory death animations make up for it. Pathway ran flawlessly on my PC and didn’t experience any crashes, bugs or anything of the sort.
Sound design is also very well executed. From the epic soundtracks straight out of period adventure films to the satisfying weapon sounds, everything fits right in.
VERDICT
[signoff icon=”icon-info-circled”]Pathway is a game with a lot of missed opportunities. While the first few hours are really good, the Repetitiveness and shallowness of the gameplay soon set in. Newcomers to tactical RPGs might have a good time with Pathway but veterans of the genre are better off setting their sights on something else for the time being or until it receives a major overhaul.[/signoff]
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