Fights in Tight Spaces

Genre: Turn-Based Strategy-RPG / Card RPG / Roguelike

Players: 1

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Review:

Fights in Tight Spaces, released on PC and Xbox One in 2021, and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2022, is a game that combines Turn-Based Strategy-RPG gameplay, Card RPG progression and move structure, and Roguelike game design elements all to form a game with gameplay that is deceptively simple despite all of those elements in the mix.

In this game, players take the role of a faceless secret agent sent into hostile areas to infiltrate and inevitably get into a lot of fights with mooks who are more numerous and often tougher than you are, but thankfully also less versatile than your character. In each room, you will be tasked with taking out all enemies, ideally while avoiding taking damage and disassembling your opponents as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Unlike most Strategy-RPGs, players do not have free control over their character’s movements and attacks. Instead, each turn they are dealt a handful of cards that give them their options in battle, ranging from cards that can move you around the room, attack enemies, block, enable special bonuses like boosting your combo counter, or sometimes a combination of the above.

As you progress through the Roguelike game structure, you will be augmenting your deck of cards, both to get new, better cards, but also to try to get cards that synergize well with each other. For example, gaining a passive ability that gives you a free move card every turn might make you inclined to balance that out with an attack-heavy deck. And cards that let you push enemies around will generally make it a good idea to get cards that will let you position yourself in a way that you can push them into hazards or into their comrades’ attacks.

I really appreciated this game’s thoughtful, strategic gameplay, which reminded me a lot of Into the Breach, which similarly encouraged players to make thoughtful, efficient moves and push enemies into each others’ attacks. on the other hand, this thoughtfulness can be a double-edged sword – if you have too many block or movement cards in your deck, or if you happen to get too many in a row, it can mean multiple turns dancing around enemies to avoid damage without giving significant damage back. In the alternative, getting a hand full of attack cards can mean getting in enough hits to take out one enemy, only to take damage from one of the other enemies flanking you, as enemies in this game habitually do.

The Roguelike elements feel a bit lacking too. It’s possible to find yourself with a bad card in your deck due to circumstance or a poor choice, and while “gym” spaces in the game give you the option to trash cards for a fee, you won’t be earning much money if your deck performs so poorly that you can’t defeat enemies efficiently enough to earn level bonuses, which means that a single deckbuilding mistake can perpetually send you on a downhill slope that’s far too difficult to correct.

Another area I have mixed feelings on is the presentation. Fights in Tight Spaces features 3D visuals with highly-stylized high-contrast visuals with good animation and minimal colors, giving this game a distinct, clean look that’s memorable, makes it easy to assess your enemies and environment, and also visually dull and monotonous. And it doesn’t help the feeling of monotony that rooms in each of the levels frequently repeat.

However, while I think the visuals can look dull, the soundtrack is quite excellent, with subdued techno-style songs that have a beat that’s great for a game about fighting. Some good examples of this are Heavy, Flow State, Kinetic Move, Start Strong, and Tell Me. The soundtrack does a decent job trying to keep the game’s excitement up when the visuals seem to almost be trying to lull you to sleep.

While I have a lot of complaints about Fights in Tight Spaces, I do overall think that this is a very good game, it’s just a very good game that has some frustrating design choices that make it slower and duller than you would want from a game that’s all about fighting. However, players who romanticize great fights to be like a beautiful game of chess will likely find this game to be a great strategic take on fighting that leans heavily into the thoughtfulness of pugilism, for better and for worse.

tl;dr – Fights in Tight Spaces is a game that combines Turn-Based Strategy-RPG, Card RPG, and Roguelike elements to create a game that is all about thoughtful, strategic decisions during a brawl with multiple opponents. The mindful combat in this game is superb, but at times it can be slow-paced, and mistakes in your deckbuilding snowball far too quickly. Meanwhile, the presentation has a good soundtrack, and the visuals are striking, but also visually-monotonous. This is a very good game, but one with significant flaws.

Grade: B

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Roguelike, Best Card Game

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