Recent reviews by Flashback

TL;DR: Part choices-matter visual novel, mainly consisting of dialogue options with a few quicktime events, and part team management simulator, consisting of both long term strategic and short term tactical decisions as well as some short puzzles, though none of these elements are particularly deep nor difficult to master. I'd argue that the main selling points of this game are the storyline and the characters, both of which I enjoyed. A full playthrough should take around 8 hours to complete, and it is possible to see nearly all story content in just two playthroughs as long as you make opposite choices in your second, since nearly all of the story branch points are binary and independent of each other. As such, I'd look at 16 hours of gameplay with a great story and great characters, compare it to the game's price tag (or the sale price), and decide if the game is worth it to you or not.

Full: If you've played or seen gameplay of any visual novels or narrative games before, then the cinematic parts of Dispatch should feel very familiar to you. It's much like watching a tv show, but the dialogue options make it a lot easier to immerse yourself in the role of the main character, by giving you some agency over what they say in certain moments. While there are some games in this genre where your decisions can radically alter the plot and result in entirely different endings, Dispatch falls outside this minority, and the broad strokes of the plot are largely set in stone no matter what choices you make. Still, there are enough story branches that have enough of an impact to give the game a little replayability, if only for one or two extra playthroughs.

As with many games of this genre, most of the choices you make in the cinematic parts of the game have zero impact beyond very next piece of dialogue, apart from helping the player to feel a little more immersed. However, as mentioned above, there are a few choices that do result in lasting impacts, either by affecting future scenes in the game, or by deciding which of two scenes you end up seeing. The most obvious story branches revolve around the game's romance, as well as who you decide to include and exclude from your team, but there are a couple of other branches later on in the game that I won't spoil.

The other half of the gameplay is team management. These sections are woven throughout the cinematic sections, and they complement them nicely - you do get some dialogue as the characters banter with each other, but you also get time to process what just happened in the last cinematic section. As said in the tl;dr, the gameplay here is not particularly deep, but it does still take a little time to learn and then master, and you do get a few curveballs later on to keep things interesting.

This part of the game can be divided pretty evenly between strategy and tactics. For strategy, you need to decide how to build and develop your team: as your heroes gain experience, you get to choose which skills to level up on which heroes, and it will benefit you to work out who has synergy with who. For tactics, you need to decide how to respond to each incoming call: assess which skills are likely to be important based on the wording of the call, and decide which of your heroes to send based on what level they are in those skills. There are also some hacking minigames, which are short grid-based puzzles, some of which are required, while others are optional in place of sending a hero to a call.

Finally, the story. I'd say it's largely focused on character development, with some good elements of comedy, romance and a little mystery thrown in. As the developers put it in a recent post, it's about "deeply imperfect heroes trying to do the right thing" and they want the game to "reveal a bit of who you are under pressure." If you like a story where you not only get to enjoy the funny bits and the badass moments, but also connect and resonate with the characters as they go through their arcs, then I think this is the game for you.

Chainswording giant space bugs in half is very good stress relief

Suffer not the alien to live

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Caution four left
And tightens two