Halfway is a pretty looking sci-fi turn-based strategy RPG, otherwise known as an instant purchase for me. The game looks, runs, and sounds great, with its pixel style retro look and low key, mood setting sci-fi soundtrack. Without even playing, I could tell this would be something I would enjoy on principle alone, but then I played it.

The game flow is par the course for the genre. You move, they move until one side is dead. However, in Halfway, the mechanics are the first stumble. People who've played in the genre can guess the nuances: there's cover bonuses for you and the enemy, certain weapon types perform better up close or far away, and each squad member even has unique statistics and abilities. Some can cover more ground, others can take more hits. Very quickly, however, I realized that while all the pieces and formulas for a great game are there, Halfway seems to have skewed the numbers diastrously. Spot an enemy out of cover down a hall, well within your weapon's given effective range? Expect a base 25-30% chance to hit: that's all. You can, fortunately, give up your squaddie's move for that turn in exchange for increased accuracy, but wait, it merely climbs to 50-55%, if that. Expect several turns where neither side will land a hit. Then you need to spend AP to reload, which makes firing without that accuracy bonus pointless. Oh, and now the enemy's shields are back up. Whoops, now you're out of ammo. Yes, in a game where you're at the mercy of 10-50% chances to hit, you are stuck with limited ammunition. In one mission, I spent fifteen minutes chasing two enemy units around a circular room. They couldn't hit me, but I had run out of ammo from missing my own attacks as well, so I had to resort to punching them to death.

Well, perhaps my two scrubs would grow up to be gunslinging badasses. I was wrong. I pushed on, and soon my squad jumped up to five. While they all had various, interesting specializations, the game was still taking far longer than it needed too, and not just for the mechanical failings stated above. Halfway is also lacking in several minor mechanics that, when paired with its skewed mechanics, it all build up to an annoyance I can't deal with. No auto-ending turns, no auto-switching after a squaddie uses up his turn, no access to options unless you're at the title screen, very little explanation for the statistics.

Halfway would be a spectacular addition to the genre. It almost seems silly to not recommend it solely because hit chances are too low, but while playing, this creates such a maddening environment that I cannot stomach playing for more than a mission at a time. Guns are useless, and cover and tactics doesn't matter when you're chasing mutants up and down hallways to beat them to death. Playing like that shatters the mood of the game and the point of the genre, and as far as I'm concerned, that is inexcuseable.

I initially did not buy this game due to Friggleswitz's review. I couldn't find much data about Halfway; not from reviews online, not from videos on YouTube. After he revised his review to be more positive, I decided to buy it. I'm really glad I did.

The "complaints" about this game are doing it a grave injustice. For 11 dollars, I have zero complaints. The storyline is interesting, the characters each have their own personality and abilities, and I love the music. Thematically, it reminds me of System Shock 2 or Dead Space. What irritated me most was the complaint about characters not leveling up. Every game nowadays seems to include xp and leveling simply to have that mechanic in the game. It doesn't matter if it adds anything, gameplay-wise; it's just a matter of having numbers that get higher.

The way Halfway handles progression is by giving you better weapons -- plasma rifles and flak shotguns -- and it works well. I don't feel a lack of game without experience points.

If you're on the fence and NOT expecting an AAA title, but rather a solid and fun game from an indie developer, then I strongly recommend Halfway.

I really wanted to like Halfway, I really did. The game has amazing pixel art and a great soundtrack - my favorite since Dustforce's! However, let me bullet point why I feel Halfway is just a "Halfway" done game.

1- The storyline starts off with a cool half-life type premise. Aliens invading from another dimension. And it happens when the ship jumps, its a cool concept. But the game does not tell you anything for 5 hours of play about why this is happening. For me this was just too much investment to learn so little.

2- Combat starts off neat with each character you control having a passive ability and a unique ability to them. The way you increase your power is by equipping better weapons and using stims to increase stats permanently. The problem is that there is a serious lack of variety in weapons...the only thing different between the guns is their range and damage output. This gets boring very quickly as you find out that sniper rifles are the best in every situation due to their long range, ultra high damage, and mid-range magazine. There is no real reason to equip any other gun you get. The same can be said about the armors as well. The game trivializes its own item choices and hampers you with a very small inventory system so that you do not want to keep any other guns around.

3- Repetition of design. This game is a linear story with static level design. There is no randomness about this. Now this is not a flaw by itself, but it becomes a flaw whenever each level is the same as the last for five hours. There is very little character interaction, story developments, and interesting combat challenges that make the levels fun. I had fun for the first two hours as I learned the game. My last three hours have been boring and repetitious. Combat is not very interesting as there is not a lot of elements to engage you to move your troops around. You basically shoot until you hit, not needing to get to better cover or use a weapon at the right time. This made me cry as a tactical gamer.

4- Itembase. After each mission you get to go to the store to buy goods but you can never buy anything worthwhile, just ammo, shield, medikit, and grenade refills. This sucks! The store gives you nothing to look forward to and should be a reward mechanism in the game. This makes the store feel like an after thought...why not just cram extra refills of stuff in each mission and skip the damn store.

TL DR - The storyline, combat, items, and character interaction all suffer from a lot of repetition. I love xcom, the ufo series, jagged alliance, and a lot of other story driven/tactical based games like mass effect..and even indie games that bear a lot of repetition of combat like risk of rain...but this game never does anything interesting with the game foundation it sets up.

Halfway is a horror/survival/tactical squad combat game that is part Aliens, part XCOM lite. The plot is simple enough... You are aboard the colony ship on a journey to another planet when you were awakened in a dark ship, signs of combat everywhere, nobody around. What is going on? What happened to the crew of thousands? As you explore the ship, you encounter / rescue other survivors, each with some special abilities, and enemies that seem to have taken over the ship. Can you figure out what is going on, and find a way to get out alive?

The game is drawn in an 2D view with a complete cover system, and the somewhat low-res look is retro-ish and rather charming without overly distracting. The game lets you walk around in "real-time" until enemies are encountered, then it becomes a turn-based game where you and enemy alternate turns, all of his units vs. all of yours. You will also have to rummage through containers looking for supplies, such as health kits, shield rechargers, better weapons, and grenades. Occasionally you'll run into hypos that will enhance your stats. Each character has 3 stats: health, agility, and aim. Health is your hitpoints, agility is how far you can move per turn, and aim is how well you aim your weapon.

Combat is simple: each character has 2 action points per turn. It can be spent on shooting, moving, or misc actions such as "use medpack", "reload weapon", and so on. If you have no visible target you can also set your guy to "retaliate", which means s/he will shoot at any enemies that fired on him/her during the enemy turn, but only once. You can mix actions, like shoot then move, move then reload, and so on, or just make a long-distance dash. There is no "reaction fire" or initiative in this game, only retaliation fire, which can be somewhat frustrating to veteran players of other turn-based tactical games. But once you get used to the mechanic it works just fine.

There are multiple types of enemies as you advance through the plot, and the difficulty starts ramping up, but you also get better weapons to compensate. The simple Mk I weapons don't do that much damage, but are adequate against the weak enemies you encounter. By endgame you have to wield Mk III weapons that do much more damage. you also encounter armor that initially provide little protection, but by endgame you'll encounter Mk V or even Mk VI armor that provides tremendous protection, but enemies can do a lot of damage as well, and is heavily protected.

Cover mechanic is very important, as a "full cover" imposes a -30% to-hit penalty on enemy shots, and that can be significant. Half cover only gives enemy a 15% penalty.

Your armor can reduce incoming damage as well as outright absorb damage with its built-in shielding. The shield automatically recharges after a few turns, and if you can't wait that long you can use a shield recharge pack to recharge it at expense of 1 action point. They come on small (5 pt), medium (10 pt) or large (20 pt) sizes. Similarly, medpacks, also comes in small / 5, medium / 10, or large /20 sizes except they heal your HP.

Each character also comes with a special ability. One guy has a "radar" that can reveal all bad guys on the map (obviously that's moot the next turn, but it's good to have an idea). One can paralyze an enemy for several turns. Another can overload an enemy's shield (i.e. no shield for X turns). Yet another can teleport. To win the battle you will need to figure how how best to deploy the assets that you have, be it grenades, armor, weapons, but also the special skills of each member of the team. Usually you can only deploy 4 members out of 8, so choosing whom to bring and how to equip them is a major consideration.

Fortunately, as mentioned before, you are welcome to search the boxes for supplies. You can also recycle anything you no longer need (like obsolete weapons and armor) so you can use the energy to synthesize stuff that you do need. Killing bad guys also yields additional energy.

The enemies in this game have different tactics. Some dance at a distance, some rush, but all are nasty.

If one of your team members had fallen in combat, don't worry just yet. If you can defeat the current batch of enemies, the member will recover (with 1 HP) at conclusion of that combat phase. However, keep in mind that each mission can have multiple combat phases.

As you explore the ship, you can go on "side missions" which will yield additional loot, and adds to the background of each character.

Having completed the campaign, I'd say I enjoyed this game quite a bit. It is occasionally frustrating, but usually due to my poor tactical sense or lack of preparation (bringing the wrong team members or wrong equipment). If you like the tactical turn-based combat genre, you should give this game a try.

This is a fairly slick tactical game in the vein of X-COM. I'll keep this short:

Pros:
- Nice graphics in a pixel-style with a lot of complexity if you stop to take it all in.
- Great soundtrack.
- Satisfying gameplay.
- Interesting armor options with stat boosts.
- A few secrets here and there.
- Decent cover system.
- Perk system (each teammate has their own active & passive perk).

Cons:
- The "retaliate" feature is interesting yet flawed and could really use an "overwatch" to round out the tactical options.
- The UI and controls can be touchy/janky at times and it's never quite clear how best to exit out of screens such as container looting.
- The ending is a bit more anti-climactic than I would hope for, and the story hints at much bigger things than are ever fully revealed.
- You enemies often seem like they have much better accuracy that even your most upgraded teammates, which can make the game feel unfair at times (somewhere around the last 1/3 of the game especially).
- Once you start getting upgraded sniper rifles, there is almost no reason to use anything else.
- Occasionally a piece of cover seems to not really give much cover at all (the angle at which frontal cover becomes negated is not clear).

My playtime was approx 15-18 hours on the first playthrough.

Overall I definitely recommend the game to anyone looking for a tactical game with a medium length, if you can overlook some jank and less-than optimal design decisions in terms of rounding out your tactical options.

I was surprised Halfway hasn't gotten more attention, what with XCOM and other turn-based squad games being so popular in recent years. The promised sci-fi stylings and tactical combat made it an easy sale purchase for me, despite the lack of buzz around it. Now that I'm nearing the end of the game I think I can understand why it flew under the radar, but I also think it deserves a little more attention for what it accomplishes.

Halfway starts you off in control of Morten Lannis, a space marine-looking dude aboard a junky colony ship called the Goliath. He's come out of cryosleep way too early only to find the ship overrun with some very unfriendly types, and it's up to you to help him survive. The way you do this is very similar to how XCOM or the recent Shadowrun games operate. Outside of combat you can move around freely, talk with people, and loot containers. Combat is turn-based, with each of your characters having two (and only two) action points per turn. These points can move them around the grid maps (distance dependent on their agility stat) to find cover, attack enemies, reload weapons, use items, and so on.

It's a very familiar system with only two real stand-outs, the aiming system and the Retaliate option. Veterans of XCOM will notice that the hit percentages in Halfway are really, really low. Starting out, you're going to see a lot of 40-60% shots even from just a few squares away. The reason for this is that you can add action points to your attack to boost its accuracy. A one-point assault rifle shot may only sit at 50%, but adding your other point might kick it up to 75%. This is less important for shotguns but vitally important for sniper rifles, which have very low base percents but get a huge jump from the second point, simulating the need to set up and aim. As for Retaliate, it replaces the familiar Overwatch response with a sort of revenge, where your character returns fire only if attacked. It's not a bad idea but has very limited functionality in practice, and you're usually better off healing up or reloading if you have an extra action point to spend.

Additional characters will join you as you progress, each with their own stats and special abilities. There's plenty of gear to find, including armor (which uses Halo-style recharging shields), grenades, and stimpaks which can permanently raise character stats. You'll need to use everything you find because enemies in this game do not screw around. The campaign spans about two dozen missions, some optional, some multi-part, and all pretty harrowing. Enemies follow the same rules you do, terrible hit percentages and all, but very quickly the game starts stacking the numerical odds against you. By the mid-game you'll be facing up to a dozen foes at once, with the potential to lose a character in a single turn if you're not careful (dead characters revive at the end of combat).

This is where the game starts to grate, because not only is it a long haul through tons of enemies, there's not much variety to the enemies or the combat. For the first 5-6 hours, you're going to be blasting melee dudes and ranged dudes. Only after the halfway point of the game will you start seeing things other than dudes, but this includes things like heavily-armored turrets that only really add to the frustration. Failing a long mission after a bunch of samey combat is incredibly discouraging, and there are some missions in the middle where this is very likely. Missing three 80% shots in a row is very much a thing that can happen, and I definitely went back and forth between enjoying and raging at Halfway for a few nights, I'll admit.

After my last bout of frustration, though, I soon found myself eager to get back to the story. For all the flaws of the combat, the story and atmosphere of Halfway is fantastic. Each of the characters is unique and they all have important relationships that play out through the plot. The banter between them is excellent, with plenty of genuinely funny moments. Even the basic "ship under siege" plot has some interesting twists to explore. All of this is told against a surprisingly deep backdrop of dystopian future society, where people are separated by classes and basic human rights have been reduced to an alarming degree.

The pixel art is top-notch, with smooth animations, cool visual effects, and fantastic little details to find on every map. Sound is up to the task as well, with some really meaty weapon and hit sounds and a somber soundtrack reminiscent of FTL or Risk of Rain. The interface suffers from some bugs, however, making it hard to click on certain option or map elements, and it's bad enough to be distracting. Between that and the combat frustrations I did consider giving up on Halfway a few times, but I'm glad I stuck it out. For the price it's a rich and engaging strategy game that'll last you 15-20 hours, provided you have the patience to push through the rough parts.

I was late to playing this game, so I didn't have any of the bug problems other people seem to be complaining about. That said, it's a really well done game about 50% the way through, and then the whole system falls apart at the end. Really poor balance of gear and stat buffs vs. the enemies, so the only way to get through to the end is to kinda put everyone on overwatch until you can create a hallway of death your enemies will blindly charge into. There are also several characters you have the option of bringing with you that are just huge liabilities to your team, while others are quite overpowered. Overall "Halfway" was a really appropriate title.

Having just finished Halfway, I can say this is an incredible game. From the soundtrack, to the unique enemies and battlefields, this game always leaves me guessing. I soon choose favorites among my squad, which was a mistake. The new types of enemies made it very difficult to roll out with the same squad every battle and expect to come out ahead. Although this 8-bit game doesn't reinvent the turn-based strategy wheel, it does change things i feel are for the better. Unlike X-com, your squad doesn't level up based on combat experience. There are stims which increase attributes and weapons to be found on almost every map. No one dies, they are rendered unconscious until combat ends, (which doesn't always mean ending the level)

Recently there was the addition of a map editor, which i have yet to try, but I'm very excited to dive into. I've been told that there will be a place where you can upload your own maps, and be able to play on other's.

All in all, this game was exciting (and freakin difficult) until the very end. If a second Halfway happens, you can be sure I'll be picking it up.

Hell yeah I recommend it.

The story is interesting but ultimately the game fails because the design is BAD. The game labels itself as an RPG, but there are very few, if any RPG elements. All encounters only have one flavor: Combat. And even in combat, most of the levels have very few solutions. In other words: Try to find out what the designer intended, and if you don't, restart the level. This becomes especially true later on in the game where when your team is very underpowered and enemies become abhorrently hard and come in large numbers.

The game features a save system that only allows you to save at your "home base", meaning that if you missclick and cause one of your characters to walk somewhere in combat you didn't mean to, you'll have a great chance of failing the encounter and you'll have to start over. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS GAME, it is unfortunately abysmal in its execution. There are many better games out there if you want turn based combat, like Shadowrun (the RPG, not the FPS). Do not get this game, you will be disappointed.

Halfway starts with a lot of potential but in the end fails by about 1/3 of the way into the game.

The game relies on too many enemies and a lack of supplies to make the game "challenging". Before the halfway point of the game I found that the combats were simply too unbalanced to make the game enjoyable. You are often found needing to use half your team or more to kill one base level opponent when the team is typically out-numbered 3 to 1 while the opponents inflict an equal or greater amount of damge to your team.

The designers probably intended creative use of terrain to be an equalizer except the cleverly programed AI uses the exact same tactics and seems to have much better "luck" when it comes to hitting their targets. I lost track of the number of times that the heroes missed with a 70-80% to hit chance.

In the end the game ends up a series of combats that degrade into cycle of constant take damage-heal-take damge without the ability to inflict sufficient injury on your opponents in return before being overwhelmed.