Fantasy auto-battler Tales & Tactics is more complicated than it needs to be, but still a reasonably fun time

As someone whose auto-battler experience has, up until now, only been limited to minor forays into the excellent Alice0-recommended Super Auto Pets, sitting down to play a run of Tales & Tactics was somewhat overwhelming. Recently launched into early access and made by the same team behind Slay The Spire's popular Downfall mod, this is a fantasy autobattler cloaked in the skin of a roguelike. That means that in addition to creating an army of tabletop-esque miniatures to do your automatic bidding on a grid-based board, you'll also be picking from randomly generated opponents on a lightly branching story map as you sword chop your way to your ultimate goal: The Grand Tournament.

It's an intriguing combo, but as a relative newcomer to the auto-battling genre, there's maybe a bit too much going on here for its own good. That's not to say I haven't had a good time with it so far, but there are so many things to juggle in my brain that I feel like I'm fumbling my way through it by chance rather than making confident and informed tactical choices.

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