The Lamplighters League Review (Steam)

by Jim Smale · Published September 28, 2023 · Updated September 28, 2023

For this The Lamplighters League Review, we recruit a team of misfits with unique abilities and unforgettable personalities and chase the Banished Court to the ends of the earth in a mix of real-time infiltration, turn-based tactical combat, and a character-driven story of adventure and intrigue.

The Lamplighters League Review Pros:

Remarkable graphics.
15.96GB download size.
Steam achievements.
Full controller support.
Graphics settings – quality preset, fullscreen mode, and resolution, frame rate, v-sync, anti-aliasing, bloom, motion blur, depth of field, screen-space reflections, screen space ambient occlusion, lighting, shadows, volumetric lighting, texture, geometry, tessellation, and visual effects quality.
Text size slider.
Strategy adventure gameplay.
Boot-up options – Paradox launcher or the game.
Paradox account integrated.
Three difficulties – the explorer, the adventurer, and the survivor.
Custom game settings – introductory missions, system tutorials, agent loss, meta-game difficulty, combat difficulty, and phenomena difficulty.
Rendered film-like cutscenes.
Tutorial pop-ups as you play.
You can skip the cutscenes.
Can rebind controls.
Out of combat, you have real-time movement.
Group and ungroup characters at will. When grouped everyone will follow you and not be seen by enemy radars but ungrouped will be seen.
In out-of-combat movement characters all have unique personas like thieves can unlock locked doors and others can steal.
Save when you want.
Recon mode lets you explore an area freely with the camera and click on people to find out information.
You can avoid fights by sneaking.
Full 3D game with 360-degree camera control.
Combat is your turn-based strategy affair like an X Com.
You can swap characters on the fly.
Aiming a weapon will show your chances of hitting and missing.
Dots show on the map for Interactive points.
Excellent soundtrack.
Slams can be performed by a bruiser and with this you can take out multiple enemies at once. The drawback is you only get X amount of them per active mission.
It has a really good French spy film vibe to it all.
You can see enemy circles that once entered will make them suspicious of you.
The turn-based button allows you to set up an ambush and then start a fight.
Excellent animations and takedown sequences.
Fog of war is in play so you can’t see everything at once.
Find lore and collectibles around the world.
Many ways to finish the mission.
You can use items and healing in and out of combat.
Optional areas will appear and are much harder self-contained sections but they also house better loot.
Environmental hazards play a big part like setting oil on fire, explosive barrels, or even electrifying water.
Tall grass can make you a harder target.
Full cover system in play from partial to full cover.
Scions are stronger enemies and ones that can not always be beaten so you may have to run away!
Enemies can randomly drop loot.
Excellent level design.
High-up shots grant bonuses.
Stress builds and once full that character has a stress break meaning they flee or shoot at other friendlies.
Uses all the usual suspects like poison, bleeding, blindness, etc.
Mortal danger is the state a character goes into on zero health. Another ally has to reach them and stabilize them within three turns or they die.
At game over you can load the latest save, last checkpoint, give up, or load a particular save file.
Playing the game or a section as a pacifist makes it one of the best strategy puzzle games I have played in a while.
Del Vastos Landing is your safe haven where you go in between missions.
The world map is where you choose missions.
Main and optional side missions.
Agents have four types of equipment – armor, accessories, weapon mods, and pocket items.
Earn exp and level up to get skill points to put into a skill tree. Every agent has their own skill tree.
The supplier menu at your safe haven is a shop to tool up.
Before a mission, you can select your team and their equipment, all with a cool plane backdrop.
Honestly feels like a film.
Acolytes are crazy kamikaze style enemies.
I love the banter and interaction between all the characters.
Memorable characters.
Scourge enemies are shock Troopers and use flanking maneuvers.
You can find supplies in missions, they don’t take up inventory space or an item slot.
Vaulting is available to everyone.
Every encounter just feels fun to play.
Agents attacks and abilities are all governed by action points (AP) and some attacks can earn you bonus AP.
When it clicks it’s almost magical.
If an enemy has the key or objective you need they get marked.
Enforcers are the heavies of the game with automatic weapons and satchel charges.
Pick up special items that can reset cooldowns.
Dripping in style and atmosphere.
Set pieces usually trigger a handy flyover of the area.
The Undrawn Hand mechanic is where each agent has blank cards, as you find/earn experiences in a mission it creates a card and these once equipped change how they fight.
You can discard/break down unwanted cards for ink that is used to power unit cards.
Recruitment missions net you a new agent and they get extra skill points to catch up with the rest of the team.
Sentinel enemies are your snipers.
Just one more go is a strong pull here.
Missions always take 3 agents.
You can send additional agents out on search expeditions.
Gets very addictive.
The group of agents even when a new one comes in, feels like a family.
Intel is needed to send agents out on search expeditions.
The majority of the time you get told what the mission reward is or what you will unlock.
Multiple choice on the mission selects for the one you don’t select disappears for a time.
It’s the whole atmosphere and vibe the game gives off, it is intoxicating and inviting.
I always wanted to see what’s next, what will this new member add to my game.

The Lamplighters League Review Cons:

Either a real system hog or badly optimized on PC for my i7 RTX cannot get it running nicely.
To share items you have to drop said item and then the character who wants it picks it up.
The camera goes crazy in some of the action shots.
Had the game get stuck on combat turns and had no way to fix it but quit the game and restarted.
When using an environment like up high all the abilities and movement mess up like not registering properly.
You never feel like you know everything you need to.
Saving and loading isn’t as fast as you would like.
The inventory system always feels like it’s clunky, not always ideal.
Cannot do any management stuff like reloading guns etc.
After fights, it’s always a case of regrouping and if you forget then you have some backtracking to do.
You forget constantly that it doesn’t autosave so you end up replaying huge chunks of the mission.
Skill points are shared among the agents.
I don’t like how I’m forced to buy all skill tree unlocks so I get access to the next tier in some places.
Enemy locations or alerts are very short.
The difficulty regardless of setup is up and down.
Slow starter with a lot to take in.
It really needs a quick save and a quick load.
No way to speed up the enemy’s turn.
You don’t see a move order/list.
Have been shot and shot through containers and walls.
Never sure when it has actually been saved.