1971 Project Helios

A few years ago, the Madrid studio Reco Technology presented us with a fairly traditional strategy game inspired by the history of Numancia, Numantia. Their new project, of which we have already spoken, grows in ambition and incorporates new elements designed to appeal to a wider audience, enhancing the narrative aspects and opening the hand a little to exploration. It is 1971 Project Helios, a fairly straightforward turn-based strategy title that is accessible even for tactical game novices, or for playing with a pad. Gradually, it is becoming one of the national studios to follow in the genre.

We are talking about an adventure that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, perhaps not to the extremes of other science fiction stories, but which from the beginning shows us the harshness of its conditions, in icy mountainous terrain full of ambushes and the different factions in dispute. The truth is that at first 1971 Project Helios does not explain much of its premise, but little by little we get to know new characters and the main objective: to find the scientist working on Project Helios, who could mean the restoration of the world as we know it, who has been kidnapped by a militarized society. We have a group of eight playable characters who join the assignment for one reason or another, a new very valuable resource appears, the glow, and basically changes the brown and desert image we have in mind of other global disasters by icy territories.

Development takes place in two distinct phases. The first is the exploration of the maps, although these are linear and without much incentive to investigate except for obtaining documents that give more context to the story or something key to continue with the story - locate an ally, an object, etc. There is no possibility of other alternatives such as stealth to eliminate enemies before starting battles, nor do we find some deep role aspects.

Entering the subject, we have tactical combats with the usual grid area that marks the maximum displacement of our units or the range of their attacks. In our turn we move the characters to safe positions, near objects in the environment, to protect the more flanks the better; the interface already shows us which areas are behind cover, in case it's not clear. The rest of the actions will depend on each unit, because the skills of these characters put the sauce to their strategies, equivalent to classes. We have the shooters, with rifles for distant targets or shotguns, but there are also some skilled with the white weapons, very lethal in short distances but that, of course, need to be placed in a square next to the enemy. The groups are not excessively numerous - they vary according to the mission - something that is according to the areas of each confrontation, small or medium size. At the end of each combat, we recover the health of all the characters.
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In addition to these basic attacks, there are other very interesting techniques, such as boosting the defense, knocking out a character during a turn, or putting our soldier on alert to act as soon as an enemy changes position to another cover; this can also be done by our rivals, and it is convenient not to pass near one of them if they have previously activated the skill. The different factions -each with its units- are intelligent enough not to place themselves in unprotected areas, although we would have liked them to move more in general, as many remain fixed in their initial position until the end of the battle. And beware, apparently the AI directs many of its attacks at your weakest unit - casualty or not, that's what we've experienced - which increases the difficulty on maps without completely secure cover.

The positive thing about 1971 Project Helios: despite the lack of originality in many of its mechanics, or the fact that there are more elaborate games in each of its aspects, it must be said that it hooks. It may be because you know more about this world - more than about history in particular - or simply because the games are of just the right length and one death takes us to the previous moment of the fight. Strategy has a lot of influence, and this can be seen when we repeat a zone that has gone wrong; a slight change of position, we make use of a skill that we hadn't thought of, they give victory where we had previously bitten the dust.

A tree of skills to unlock and improve brings more variety to the evolution of these units, and the management of the glare allows us to resurrect dead companions - otherwise the game is over -, reduce reloading times or thaw out our health, a mechanism that is, as we told you in the impressions, one of the most novel points of 1971 Project Helios; as we pass through a frozen world, the vitality bar gradually freezes. It is also playable, with variations in the conversations depending on the characters used in each level, there are three endings and its duration, between five and ten hours, is affordable enough to return to the game once it is finished.

Despite the game's good intentions, there are small sections that spoil the experience, apart from the fact that the maps are not used much in exploration. The camera is one of these failures: it can be rotated in four positions - 90º - but not change the distance to the terrain. In many areas the decoration, such as small mounds, hinder part of the map - they do not become translucent - and we will not find any position that reveals the whole area at a glance. It has happened to us on more than one occasion that we took damage from an enemy half hidden behind the stage because we simply had not seen him. In the gameplay, there are also no elaborate tactics with environment interaction - different heights - or other features seen in, for example, Dysgaea.

There are other fringes to be corrected from experience, from rhythm - we have too many battles in adjacent areas without advancing in history - from irregular difficulty peaks and unfortunately it suffers from some performance problems, punctually and for places with more graphic load than normal; it's not the usual thing, but it should be corrected because we're not talking about a game with impact in the technical aspects. We have also seen some bugs, like one that, after loading game, activated the bullet time during the whole battle, and in another occasion after resuscitating a partner the game simply did not want to advance.

If you want to try out a new indie strategy, 1971 Project Helios is a good option that shows what Spanish teams can do outside the two or three most renowned studios. The only drawback is that it leaves that bittersweet taste of what it could have been with a little more attention to issues that hinder the fun, especially related to the comfort of the camera and how superficial the exploration is. It doesn't aspire to reinvent the genre, nor will it mark a before and after, but it conveys the passion Reco Technology has put into building this world of harsh conditions