Postby Captain Trek » Tue Mar 27, 2018 4:21 am
You're right - this squad is impressively broken. Alpha hornets and certain bosses can give them trouble, but that's about it. However, you freely acknowledge that this is a "for fun" squad, so that's fine.
Moving immediately onto the sprites, then, the decision to paint them in Blitzkrieg yellow was well-taken. They definitely looked doofy in Rift Walker olive drab, but now they look fantastic. I especially like the little touches of the hammer mech dropping his hammer and the other two mechs' stored magma going cold when they get disabled. That's good attention to detail, as are the customized weapon portraits.
Fun-wise, the squad does an excellent job of embracing its own brokenness and its upgrades further emphasis this beautifully, being stupidly effective for their cost. Covering huge swathes of the map in lava and fire is hilarious and the whole thing has the visceral satisfaction an intentionally overpowered squad needs. It can get old if you play "seriously" and go for a four-island sweep, but that's not really what this squad's for. I would suggest that magma mortar is kinda dull at first because it starts off functioning identically to the Flame Behemoth artillery, but that's a minor point.
The other minor point I would make is a small polish issue - specifically that the preview for the hammer mech's +1 range upgrade doesn't actually show the range gain and that the buildings in the preview windows for the Tectonic Slam and its upgrades mysteriously change from 4 buildings to 2 after the preview complete its first loop. I accept, however, that the Flow upgrade is likely impossible to correctly display.
Overall, accepting the fact that this squad isn't supposed to be balanced, I give this squad an A. If it was supposed to be balanced I'd rate it a B, as it'd still be very nicely done aesthetically even if mechanically it'd need a complete overhaul.
