Turning Haters Into Fans Doesn't Always Have To Be A Challenge
It’s been a pleasure chatting with David Ventura, studio head of Ichigoichie for the past five years at Gamescom. He’s most well known for his work on Elite Beat Agents but founded his own studio in Sweden in 2018 and released Hexagroove: Tactical DJ in 2019. That passion for music-inspired games has followed the studio as they released Backbeat and also did co-development on Lumines: Arise and KORG. Their next title is Tactichord: Glam Strategy, which is a prequel for one of the characters from Backbeat.
While it retains the turn-based strategy gameplay, a lot of the mechanics have been finetuned and simplified for a more streamlined experience. I will say that as much as I liked playing Backbeat, I did struggle often with its many systems, including their in-depth timeline along which you had to position the characters and perform actions. In a sense, the dial on Tactichord has been turned back from a 9 to a 6 and that benefits the overall experience.
Following a group of characters that begin their own band, each stage sees you performing small concerts to convert your opponents (lovingly dubbed ‘haters’) into fans. While the first few stages are pretty simple, teaching you positioning and attacking opponents, the system builds over time into managing large groups of ‘haters’. One of the neat touches is that as you perform you get to pick the lyrics and playstyle of the band members, culminating in a final song that wins over the crowd after the battle is concluded. I think that for newcomers to turn-based strategy games, this is a great introduction with elements from Into the Breach and Fire Emblem mixed up in an urban visual style that ties the story together nicely.
If anything, events like these are very hard for someone to get to grips with strategy games. This genre often requires care and attention that cannot be squeezed into a little under thirty minutes. But Tactichord honestly feels kind of perfect for that pick-up-and-play session. The game already looks a lot better than the last time I tried it a little over a year ago and I can finally see all the elements taking shape. While the team still has a lot of work to do, this is one that should absolutely make it on your wishlist if you like a bit of glam metal in your tactical adventure. There's also a free demo out on Steam.
