Conglomerate 451

Conglomerate 451 is a cyberpunk-themed, first-person, turn-based dungeon crawler blending elements of classic blobber RPGs with XCOM-style base management. Players control cloned agents with customizable skills, cybernetic enhancements, and DNA traits, navigating procedurally generated missions in a dystopian city. The game features a 75-week story mode with a time limit to defeat corporate bosses and an endless mode for ongoing play. Combat emphasizes tactical positioning, buffs, debuffs, and hacking mini-games. Between missions, players manage cloning, research, healing, and upgrades in their headquarters.

While the game boasts impressive cyberpunk visuals, atmospheric music, and a solid core concept, it suffers from repetitive missions, limited enemy variety, an occasionally clunky and unintuitive UI, and some balance and polish issues. Players praise the developer's responsiveness and ongoing updates. Overall, it offers a promising but rough experience that may improve with further patches and community feedback.

Highlights

Players particularly praise the cyberpunk atmosphere and detailed city environments, noting the high-quality graphics and immersive lighting. The turn-based combat system is engaging, combining tactical positioning with skill synergies and hacking mini-games, offering depth and strategic options. The base management and cloning mechanics add an extra layer of resource and squad customization. The soundtrack complements the setting well, enhancing immersion. The developer's active communication and regular updates are also well regarded, raising hopes for future improvements.

Criticisms

Common criticisms include repetitive mission design with a limited number of maps and enemy types, leading to gameplay fatigue. The UI and controls are often described as unintuitive or clunky, with confusing mechanics and insufficient in-game explanations. Combat balance issues allow certain builds to dominate, reducing challenge and variety. The lack of meaningful party customization and limited character appearance options disappoint some players. Additionally, some find the AI companion's voice and dialogue irritating, and note occasional bugs, poor English localization, and missing quality-of-life features like mid-mission saves.