Incline Freedom Force (2002)

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I've been revisiting Freedom Force this past week. Holy CRPG Batman! It's been a long time but this game has aged marvelously. I affirm that it is perhaps the best example of a pure RTwP system without any legacy tabletop baggage. As a stand-alone RPG system, this game is exceptional. It has depth and nuance while still being highly intuitive. The tactical aspects are greater than I remember. Line of sight matters. Elevation and useable/destructible environments play a huge role in managing the battlefield. Figuring out the best way to save civilians and accomplish objectives without suiciding your team or burning down the village gives it that special comic hero feeling. The graphics have also held up well, though I will admit some of the non-city environments appear a bit plain. This is improved with the sequel, I recall. I'm a little worried that the deliberate campiness will wear thin over time, but for the moment the charm is welcome. I'm having a great time playing this.

It's currently on sale on GoG for $1.24, which is villainously underpriced. Grab it and enjoy.

 

[Sukhāvatī]

The sequel is on sale too.

https://af.gog.com/en/game/freedom_force_vs_the_3rd_reich?as=1649904300

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

The sequel is on sale too.

https://af.gog.com/en/game/freedom_force_vs_the_3rd_reich?as=1649904300

Pity that it isn't nearly as good as 1st one.

Soundtrack deserves some praise.

 

[mkultra]

Fantastic games, i liked the second one too. I don't think it could've been done today, it would be filled with woke garbage.

Total feel-good vibes, unlike anything else i would say.

 

[Lacrymas]

One of my favorite games from my childhood and it holds up surprisingly well. There are some nightmare-inducing missions, like the timed one with Nuclear Winter or trying to destroy all robots before they annihilate the city. All main superheroes are iconic.

 

[Modron]

Still waiting for that third game.

 

[Sranchammer]

They don't make 'em like that anymore

 

[J1M]

One of my favorite games from my childhood and it holds up surprisingly well. There are some nightmare-inducing missions, like the timed one with Nuclear Winter or trying to destroy all robots before they annihilate the city. All main superheroes are iconic.

Maybe my memory is failing me, but I recall the difficulty being attack-move tier?

 

[luj1]

cult game

 

[AndyS]

Fantastic games, i liked the second one too. I don't think it could've been done today, it would be filled with woke garbage.

The fact that we got we what we got is miracle enough. That someone in the 2000s thought, "You know what would be a great idea for a game? A superhero tactical RPG! And not just a superhero TRPG, but one based entirely on SILVER AGE COMICS!" That's like someone deciding that making games out of radio dramas would be cool.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Both titles were amazing, and I think its sad that neither have been surpassed in the years since then. Despite the massive amount of custom content for the game I don't think there was much in the way of interesting campaigns going on, so you basically just had the quick skirmish option to use for whatever collection of superheroes you built. Feels kind of lackluster having the entire X-Men if you can only use them on the same 10 isolated maps.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I remember getting this in the same bin as Hoboken

Although, I ended up with this cover..

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

One of my favorite games from my childhood and it holds up surprisingly well. There are some nightmare-inducing missions, like the timed one with Nuclear Winter or trying to destroy all robots before they annihilate the city. All main superheroes are iconic.

Maybe my memory is failing me, but I recall the difficulty being attack-move tier?

Not by a long shot. I can't remember the last time I had to reload this much. The early missions against Nuclear Winter were pretty easy, but the difficulty has steeply inclined for next chapter.

 

[Lacrymas]

Maybe my memory is failing me, but I recall the difficulty being attack-move tier?

You'd think so because it's a silly superhero game, but it can actually be brutal depending on difficulty settings. Your heroes are deceptively fragile and can go down very fast.

 

[Morgoth]

I bought both at full price when they came out. Awesome games.

 

[Ladonna]

Great games, but I already bought them off gog long ago (after I couldn't get my original copies working any more).

Just saw Peoples General is there too. Nice.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

I've been revisiting Freedom Force this past week. Holy CRPG Batman! It's been a long time but this game has aged marvelously. I affirm that it is perhaps the best example of a pure RTwP system without any legacy tabletop baggage. As a stand-alone RPG system, this game is exceptional. It has depth and nuance while still being highly intuitive. The tactical aspects are greater than I remember. Line of sight matters. Elevation and useable/destructible environments play a huge role in managing the battlefield. Figuring out the best way to save civilians and accomplish objectives without suiciding your team or burning down the village gives it that special comic hero feeling. The graphics have also held up well, though I will admit some of the non-city environments appear a bit plain. This is improved with the sequel, I recall. I'm a little worried that the deliberate campiness will wear thin over time, but for the moment the charm is welcome. I'm having a great time playing this.

It's currently on sale on GoG for $1.24, which is villainously underpriced. Grab it and enjoy.

Still overpriced. I'm going to look for better bargains.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I finished Freedom Force two weeks ago. Excellent game. Good challenge and lots of fun. It's the perfect example of RTwP. You have normal RPG tactics with the dynamic action of an RTS. Character can dodge based on their stats, but it's typically more important to micro your characters away from a projectile or choregraphed swing. There is no standard unit of time (round/turn), so it's all very fluid and coherent. Gameplay is demanding but I never felt overburdened. To the contrary, it was almost always exciting. This game is even better than I remember it.

My only complaint is the way skills and abilities are advanced. They are all unlocked in a linear manner. For skills, you must upgrade it to 3/5 before the next will even be available. You are only given a vague indication of what the future abilities will be and are not told any of their statistics--including experience cost to buy. For abilities it's even worse, because they are entirely hidden from you until you've purchased the prior one. They don't list the experience cost even on the available ability either. The "buy" button will appear next to it when you can afford it, so until that moment comes, you're left guessing. In this game elevation is a pretty big deal, so if your character has jumper, flight, or levitation--it's important to know because you'll need to begin saving experience points immediately. For this reason, it will be worth it to play the scenario mode (Danger Room) to try out stock characters and get a sense of them before going into the campaign.

That gripe aside, it's still a fantastic game and I enjoyed myself immensely. I will probably do a second run and maybe a review once I finish with the sequel. The sequel thus far is more of the same, but with better graphics and alot more (skippable) cut scenes. The biggest departure is how energy is handled. No longer can you diminish the power of a skill for less energy cost, or increase it for greater power and magnitude. Now all skills costs 0-3 energy. Even with flight/levitation and some basic ranged attacks costing 0, it's a huge step backwards. Being able to lower costs to spam an attack or elevate it for a needed push was marvelous and often times necessary. This loss of tactical depth is felt. It's also caused minor duplication of skills that would have merely been empowered in in FF1.

I was curious if this would be a nostalgia breaker, as I only played it at a friends house back when it came out. Absolutely not the case. These games are great fun for any RPG lover. I'm keeping lots of saves banked in preparation for doing some reviews when I finish.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I finished Freedom Force: 3rd Reich maybe two weeks ago. It wasn't as good of an experience. Superficially it is mostly the same, but the missions are much weaker, they stick you with characters I did not enjoy for most of the game, and it's very cut scene heavy. The weak plot was over emphasized and the charm wore thin. Enemy variety and kind are much lesser, levels are much smaller, and the game is overall very easy. In the first game I found myself constantly using terrain and environment. The opportunities to do this in 3rd Reich were few, and when they existed they weren't necessary. I make it sound like a bad game, but it's not. It's just a significant step down compared to how excellent the original is. The improved graphics are nice though. Treat it like an expansion pack, rather than a stand alone game. Unless you're starved for more FF, which is understandable, the 3rd Reich is skippable.

 

[Harthwain]

I will need to buy this when it's on sale. I remember loving the demo - the interactability with the environment, the comic feel, the superhero atmosphere... It was great overall.

Unless you're starved for more FF, which is understandable, the 3rd Reich is skippable.

Interestingly enough Freedom Force has worse reviews than its standalone expansion(?). Apparently there are technical issues with it on Windows 10 when bought via Steam and GOG version is fine.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Oh, it'll pop up on sale soon.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

There wouldn't be so many people hating on RTWP if the game was more popular. RTWP is fine, the incompetent Russian jank factories are the real problem.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Isn't there a thread on RTWP and demonstrations of well-done vs terribly done implementations? Oh, guess I will look.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Love the first game. Played the demo for vs. the Third Reich, enjoyed it, but I never ended up buying it. Funnily Freedom Force kind of has the same problem as the EDF games, the big open area destructible city levels are the best and coolest levels in the game, and the dungeon areas kind of suck by comparison.

It was definitely amusing to see X-Men Legends come along a couple years after Freedom Force and basically be direct control Freedom Force. Although it was maddening that Raven (and Vicarious Visions after them) never did the big open and interactive city levels, and that they never had your strength affect the kind of stuff you could pick up. That was like the cool feature in that game, that if a character was strong enough they could pick up a car or pull up some stop sign and use it as a weapon. It's use a cool interesting feature that I'm surprised I have seen it used since in other RPGs...be they tactical or action based game. That's one of those kind of features that feels like: Yeah, in Diablo 3 maybe I'll be able to rip a tombstone out of the ground if I'm strong enough and chuck it at someone, or maybe I'll be able to pull up a tree and hit someone with it. I guess it's a sign of how few people played Freedom Force since I don't think I've ever seen an interview about X-Men Legends/Marvel: Ultimate Alliance where Raven was asked about Freedom Force.

I get that the first one didn't sell well, and the second one did even worse...but Take-Two doing nothing with Freedom Force in the fifteen years since the MCU has been around, and especially the past ten years where they've been this monumental money maker has always been one of the odder "why the fuck is nobody doing anything with this" of recent times. I mean Take-Two/2K wouldn't have any problem selling a Freedom Force 3 and Ultimate Freedom Force made by an Irrational Games post-BioShock coming out in 2007.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Assisted Living Godzilla Console controls would be helpless to play this game. That's probably why they never did anything with it, even as Marvel overtook pop culture.