14 DAY TRIAL // 
My first reaction when seeing Frozen Synapse Prime was to question the motives behind its existence. We already have the game, why reskin it? It's not based on Frozen Synapse, it is Frozen Synapse, just looking a little different.
In any case, I have always liked tactical games, because they are designed to be winnable but they also challenge you, so you always feel good about yourself when you manage to punish that pesky computer for turning a corner without prepping its gun first. Silly computer.
But where such titles really shine is in multiplayer matches against a completely unpredictable human opponent. It is there, during those epic and tense head-to-head clashes, that you get to see how good your tactical thinking really is, and it is there where your mistakes taste the bitterest, as you can't simply laugh and hit replay mission.
Story
The game has a futuristic story, but it's really hard to keep track of it, due to the poor and unfocused writing, the lack of a set-up, and the horrible presentation, with blobs of text next to character portraits in badly scaled frames that just scream "quick port."
I tried to pay attention to the inane drivel the characters were spewing but it failed to capture me in any way, and when you take into account the horrible chime sound that each message makes, it feels like you're being spammed by Kim Kardashian on Twitter.
It's just so unremarkable and so disconnected from the actual gameplay, that you won't feel like the storyline is really part of the game. Sure, there are a ton of lines delivered during battle, in order to make the whole thing more immersive, but it's just so light and doesn't feel like it's going anywhere.
It's something in the future, with corporations and artificial intelligence and cheesy, childish retorts and lines taken out of a stereotype book.
Gameplay
In any case, the game's real meat is the tactical gameplay, and what matters is that developer Double Eleven managed to capture the original's essence, delivering a satisfying and dynamic experience.
The way the game is played is that you issue some orders to your troops, with each individual soldier having their own detailed path to follow, complete with stopping and waiting, ignoring enemies and dashing in order to cover more ground, and so on.
Before committing to a plan, you can get a preview of how the turn would unfold. You can also issue enemy troops mock orders, in case you want to make sure that you won't get one-upped by the enemy and caught with your pants down when you're not sure whether or not you can make a quick dash without getting into the line of fire.
After everything is fine and dandy and you think your plan to be in the best possible shape, after trying out some of the possible outcomes of the turn, you can commit and have the participants actually perform the orders, in a five-second, real-time, simultaneous turn.
When you're just starting up, you'll die a lot due to timing issues, but it won't take long to have everything down to a science, and never leave cover without having your gun at the ready, in case an enemy unit decides to pop into your line of sight.
After the five seconds of simultaneous action are up, you get to see replays of the kills made during the turn, and you issue some new orders or keep the old plans, if they're still appropriate.
Most of the encounters take ten to fifteen turns to unfold, and giving out orders is easy enough that you won't waste your time with endless micromanagement and the usual tedium of the tactical turn-based genre.
During most scenarios, you'll be in control of four to six units, so turns will be over pretty fast, especially since you usually also see your enemies' positions, so you have a pretty good general idea of what to do in order to encroach on the opposition's turf.
Some missions though, as well as multiplayer matches, only have markers for the last known position of an enemy, and that's when things start getting more exciting and when you start keeping people on overwatch and making gradual tactical advancements instead of rushing in all guns blazing.
Once you spot an enemy, it's all a matter of factoring in certain aspects. There are no random numbers, and if two soldiers have the same modifiers, they'll end up killing each other every time.
The modifiers are how still a unit is and who spots the other first, as a static soldier that is guarding a point will get a slight advantage over one that's moving into sight, and the weapon being used, alongside other factors such as crouching behind a protective wall.
You can move through limited windows of opportunity by either dashing, in which case the enemy will take a shot and most likely miss, if the distance is big enough, or by crouching next to windows, which will enable you to stealthily move through an enemy's vision cone.
The available soldiers are divided into several classes, from shotgun-wielding assault troops that are quick on their feet and shoot fast but have very limited range, to machine gun-equipped soldiers that have good range and reaction time but tend to miss a lot at great distances, to snipers that have deadly aim at any range but take a few seconds to line up a shot.
There are also support classes that use bazookas or grenade launchers, which can have a devastating effect, taking down multiple enemies with a single well-placed shot and even destroying walls in order to enable nearby allies to open fire on previously protected adversaries.
“Once you spot an enemy, it's all a matter of factoring in certain aspects. There are no random numbers, and if two soldiers have the same modifiers, they'll end up killing each other every time.”
All in all, it's sort of a glorified (and much more fun) version of rock, paper, scissors, where you have to figure out the right approach to each situation, depending on your enemy's class and position, and take the time to make sure that you won't be picked off through a window by a distant machine gunner.
I liked that fact that it's easy to relay orders through waypoints, using the command wheel, and that you have to option to aim in a certain direction and keep the angle while moving and turning, and also to aim towards a certain fixed point, independently of your movement.
You also have the option to set up a wait, when having to synchronize two soldiers that you want to emerge from behind cover at the same time, for instance, and you don't want to waste precious seconds by waiting for the next turn to act.
Most of the time, things will go according to plan and you'll win, but there are also times where you'll make unwitting mistakes that will cost you. Some decisions are coin tosses, because you also have a time limit to accomplish your objectives. Choose correctly and you get the drop on the enemy. Choose wrong and you'll stumble into a stationary guard's crosshairs.
What I didn't like was the fact that there is no sense of progression and no customization, two of the hallmarks of the genre. Each player has their own preferred way to do things, but Frozen Synapse Prime won't have any of that nonsense.
You get what you get, you don't get to choose the loadout or placement of the units, and it ends up feeling more like a game of chess than an actual tactical simulation. Instead of creating a feeling of immersion where you create your team and feel the loss of its members, prompting you to pay attention in the field, it just ends up feeling like a great puzzle where all you have to do is figure out a solution before the timer ends or you run out of pawns, with no real drive to find the best one each time.
Improvements over the original
In case you have already played Frozen Synapse, there isn't all that much waiting for you here. It's the same formula, with the same maps, only different and less stylish graphics and superfluous doodads like kill cams.
The best improvement lies in the Sweep order, which lets you target a certain point on the ground regardless of your direction of movement, which means that you can easily guard a doorway while making your way out of a room, without the hassle of constantly setting up new waypoints and aiming angles.
Another improvement is that lines of sight are more clearly defined now, so you'll know which enemies can see you while you make a dash over an open area, and you'll be able to position yourself better when guarding multiple entry points.
The kill cameras are a distracting nuisance at best, showing you how your own troops and your enemy's died. Aside from showing whether Han shot first or not, they do have some marginal utility, in the sense that you can see who killed you out of nowhere more clearly, instead of being left wondering what happened, but that is one of the game's faults, rather than the kill cam's prerogative.
The updated visuals look like some stock assets, grey and lacking personality, and make the entire experience feel more gamey. Sure, everyone's wearing the nanosuits from Crysis, but nobody is doing anything interesting with them, and when all is said and done, the whole thing ends up looking more like a puzzle than an actual tactical encounter.
Sound and visuals
If you don't like the minimalist neon styling of the original or haven't played it yet, then Frozen Synapse Prime might just be the best way to enjoy some challenging tactical action. It looks a bit sterile, enforcing the puzzle angle, but it's by no means bad. Just drab and functional.
All the soldiers look the same and so do the walls, which makes things a little boring, especially since you're supposed to be changing location every couple of missions, but it's not that big of a deal.
The sounds are a mixed bag, some of them get really irritating after a while, while others do their job. The sound design is not going to wow you, and it's not horrible either.
Music is sort of the same, a collection of electronic tracks with an old-school vibe, sounding sort of like the supposed music of the future would have sounded back in the late '90s, which pretty much means that it sounds like late '90s music most of the time. Not bad, just somewhat conservative, but fitting, considering that it's essentially a turn-based game.
The Good
- Satisfying mechanics
- Simultaneous turns are great
- Genuine battle tension
- Great in multiplayer
The Bad
- Small multiplayer community
- A number of glitches
- Shallow
Conclusion
The fact that you can't choose your loadout and unit placement before starting a mission further mars the experience, making it borderline annoying at times. Your soldiers are completely expendable and there is no consequence for sloppy planning.
It doesn't have true military tactics, you can't have people take real cover, you can't peek behind corners, and so on. You can only shoot at an enemy in the fashion of the really weird early modern warfare, where two lines of enemies faced each other taking turns shooting.
This means that there are no battles of attrition, where you go through the motions hoping to get a slight advantage, which makes the whole experience more dynamic, but it also makes it more shallow and contrived.
There's multiplayer, which is great, but there is not much of a community to play the game with. There is, however, the option for asynchronous multiplayer, which solves part of the problem, provided that you don't lose interest in having to constantly start the game to check for new moves.
Overall, it's a pretty good game with a handful of hindrances that prevent it from being great. It's solid for an indie game but feels a bit flimsy somehow, as more depth would have greatly improved the experience.
