I have the same easy story to tell about the final mission. The level itself was uninspiring but I enjoyed the ending. I'm hoping there'll be some story DLC that continues the plot in a new game plus style. If you could be able to load up your last save and bring your elite squad to new and tougher adventures.

I played on normal which was way too easy. Should have started on classic. Contemplating on whether I should go ironman on my next playthrough but probably I'll do one regular on classic and then Ironman. I think I got at least two more in me.

This is definitely my GOTY so far and I doubt It'll be dethroned by any that are to come. It feels like the game was designed to my tastes and preferences. The only detriments I can see are a few bugs and I would have loved to see more depth in the grand strategy aspect. Still loved the game as a modern TBS and as an Xcom remake for an old Xcom fan.

As soon as the game starts to get "easy" it's over. The ending was the easiest level in the game if you play right. It kind of seemed like it was designed that way considering they are taking you through almost every enemy you fought up to that point. I can see how someone could get fucked up royally by the ethereals if you stumble your way into that encounter. They could fucking mind control your three best dudes and wipe your ass out.

The ending itself was a little anti-climatic but you beat the aliens so at least there is resolution.

The last level itself wasn't too hard on normal, but I did cheap the last boss by killing it with my sniper miles back down that hallway you enter the last room from.

Next to Walking Dead its my fav game of the year so far.

I also did the Double-Tap of the final boss by luck I had my sniper put in the right position as I opened the door. Sent in a cloaked Assualt to see what was up and moved in a few more cloaked just in case my sniper missed. Got a huge crit on the first shot and then finished it with the second.  
 
I thought the ending was fine for how little the story really mattered to the game. The only thing I felt impactful was my chosen one was one of my best support soldiers so kinda sucks that she made it through everything to just have to sacrifice herself. But oh well its not like you can play more after the ending.  
 
Also I agree with everyone else Normal was too easy by the end of the game. Although I am a person that will reload for perfection (will probably never do Ironman) I had all the countries with sats at the end, all firestorms with emp, best gear, never made a shiv until the end just to get the achievement. I might eventually try a Classic (probably not Ironman) run eventually but it will be after all the other games coming up come out. 

I lost on the last boss on my first attempt. My volunteer was also my scout - got caught in a psi storm but the graphic didn't make it clear that she was in it, so I ended the turn without moving her. She died, game over. Had to play the whole thing over.

It was alright, but at that point, my squad was just a ruthless killing machine, which certainly made things easier. I don't think the mission was easy from any other perspective, it was just my squad that had been finely conditioned into murdering absolutely everything.

What I would like to see, however, is a game that continues down this story - along the lines of, oh shit, where did these dudes even come from, and what is it they wanted exactly.

Then again, this is Enemy Unknown, we don't know dick about them, about XCOM, about anything - it was all just a hasty "this is what we could mash together in a few weeks" scenario. So what I would be very much into was taking it down the path of the UFO games (check those out), where you send some dudes off to their local star system, or planet, or whatever, colonize it and kick their alien asses. That would be awesome.

It leaves plenty of room for expansions and DLC. Maybe the aliens had a plan B. The aliens we fought off were just cast-aways in the story. Perhaps the real Ethereal army is coming. I'd love to visit the aliens on their planet and really kick ass too by the way.

I was very disappointed when I found out that you don't go to Cydonia. Also, it ended very abruptly, I wanted to atleast see some talk between the main characters after the ship blows up.

I was let down by the story too, since didn't one of the trailers show an X-COM officer on an alien surgery table? I really expected them to launch some sort of counter-assault against me. That they pretty much just ignore everything I'm doing and continue on with their Cylonesque non-plan was pretty weird. Was the point of them wanting to use humanity then that I was doing everything they wanted me to do? Like they did some experiments, but it was really about giving us the push to advance to usable level? If that's the case, then why wasn't there a together we can rule the galaxy moment?

The game was amazing, but that and the ridiculously small number of maps were what bothered me. I'm not sure how people can play this more than once or for so long without getting kind of bored. Also, I wanted to see old enemies like sectoids pop up a little more later on, maybe in better armor or something... Still, this might be my favorite game, along with Walking Dead.

@Kerned: I also found the alien voice to be very low and missed most of what was said.

80 maps is few maps? My first playthrough lasted 45 maps and I was lucky and didn't encounter the same map more than once.

@Funkydupe said:

80 maps is few maps? My first playthrough lasted 45 maps and I was lucky and didn't encounter the same map more than once.

I encountered that goddamn terror map with the tanks like, 3 times.

Which sucks, because all the civilians are in the building at the far end, so you lose 3-4 civs a turn.

Just beat it on normal and it wasn't too hard, I lost everyone except the "chosen one". But to be honest its because I rushed through it, I wanted to see the ending and if I would have moved as slow as I did in the first alien base I would have made it without a scratch.  Oh well, the ending was pretty neat I thought.

@Benny said:

I mind controlled the two elites before the final room and had them both dash in and do as much damage as they could before sending everyone in and psi storming my way to an easy victory. I thought the ending was fine, it leaves humanity in a strange place that's for sure. I'd like to see how the world changes after advancing science a few hundred years in the space of a few months.

Is there some way to unlock the psi storm ability on a normal dude or were you using Sid Meier?

@BelligerentEngine said:

@Benny said:

I mind controlled the two elites before the final room and had them both dash in and do as much damage as they could before sending everyone in and psi storming my way to an easy victory. I thought the ending was fine, it leaves humanity in a strange place that's for sure. I'd like to see how the world changes after advancing science a few hundred years in the space of a few months.

Is there some way to unlock the psi storm ability on a normal dude or were you using Sid Meier?

The Volunteer learns it after interfacing with the Gollup Machine.

So I tried the last boss encounter twice, the first time I threw a battle scanner in there and I was totally unprepared to fight all of the crap that uncovered, they killed or critically wounded 2 of my dudes and one of them was mind controlled and that was from just one turn. I knew there was no coming back from that so I reloaded at the start of the mission (Any other way feels like cheating. Its the Fire Emblem fan in me.) On my second try I shot a rocket at the uber ethereal, and then killed him with my sniper. Didn't even realize that would end the fight.

Also throughout the whole ending cinematic the sound effects were gone. It sucked.

Yeah, just kill the boss Ethereal dude, and everything else despawns. I kind of chuckle when I read exasperated forum posts from people who tried to kill everyone. I discovered this by accident, because I always prioritize psi units (since mind control on your units suuuuucks), so I targeted him first anyway.

But yeah, the final mission was kind of "meh". Just a gauntlet of dudes, some unsatisfying last-second exposition, and a "boss fight" that ended in one turn for me. I was hoping for a bit more of a post-mission wrap up, too - wondering if maybe they left it the way it is, to justify tacking on DLC later. Though if they do, will your "volunteer" presumably be dead?

Just beat it on Normal Ironman, and honestly I was a little underwhelmed by the last mission. Of course by that point I'd learnt to be extremely patient with my troops. I went into the last level with 2 heavies, 2 snipers, 1 assault, 1 support, all Colonels. My only psionic soldier was my chosen one - Stanislav "Sledge" Dobropov (I think that's right...), my Russian Heavy. I had all plasma weapons and all titan armour, except my assault who had ghost armour and my psionic who had psionic armour. The last level just seemed so easy in comparison to some of the earlier levels that raked me over the coals big time. I used the rift ability to put a dent in the two sectopods and killed one before it got a shot off, then the second one missed my assault and when it was back to my turn I killed it.

Then, the last encounter with the Ethereal...well I basically just exploited it, to be honest. And I felt really bad about it; probably why the ending was unsatisfying for me. I camped all my guys at the entrance out of range and waited for them to come to me. First damn unit that appears is the Ethereal. Two shots from my double tap sniper and it was dead - taking all the elite mutons with it. Got through the mission without losing a single guy; didn't even have to revive anyone with my support guy. I kept waiting for something totally fucked up to creep up on me during the last cutscene, and I honestly thought that Sledge was going to be brainwashed by the aliens to attack my own crew. But no: ship goes to safe distance, humanity rejoices, look at the stats, credits roll.

A relatively minor blemish on a totally kickass game, and I am definitely going to do a Classic Ironman run almost immediately.

I liked the ending, but for the (terrible?) reason that it steers this XCOM away from the direction the plot of the original games took. And also because I think it sets up future games for more interesting stories revolving around humanity and its evolution.

So, spoilers here for the original games. The end of Terror From the Deep had you destroying a base that spewed all sorts of toxins into Earth's atmosphere and basically destroying the environment. As a result, in Apocalypse the surviving people on Earth lived in domed cities. I thought Apocalypse was mechanically sound (it's been a while), but I really, really disliked its setting.

Underwhelming, and a bit frustrating.

I spent an hour taking my time, going through that base, making sure almost no one got shot... and I get to the final door to find it locked. So I throw a sensor in that room. Nothing. I send my two assaults all around the rest of the ship to look for anything I missed, and sure enough I find two snakemen hiding in some high, middle platform. As soon as I kill them, two guys teleport right on top of the volunteer and do 14 points of damage to him, and 8 to my other heavy. Super.

But here's where it gets lame. So I mind control one of the XRays, kill the other one, and send the MC'ed XRay into the final room. I discover the kill box, and knowing that my MC'ed alien is going to die, I chuck a grenade at (in hindsight) the final ethereal. I set up my guys to prepare for a charge outside that room, and so my two assaults can catch up to the rest of the unit, and my sniper overwatch one-shots the final guy as he just parades outside the final room.

Cue cutscene, and I'm wondering what's going on. It took me a second to realize that killing that one ethereal was all I needed to finish the level. Since the ending seemingly came out of nowhere, I was a little disappointed in it. Either/or, still a fun game. It just has a few annoying features that for some reason don't stop me from continually playing the game.

So. Finished up earlier this evening. Question:

Say your volunteer gets mind controlled by the boss ethereal. Say you don't have a second psi capable soldier to break the mind control because he died in the previous mission. Say you're playing on ironman. Are you then automatically screwed?

I ask because that happened to me just now. Thankfully was not playing ironman and was able to reload my somewhat recent save. If you kill the boss ethereal while your volunteer is mind controlled, the game pops a big red screen that says MISSION FAILED and gives the option to reload a previous save or restart the mission. The last room was fairly trivial on second attempt with knowledge of the exact enemy layout- I just floated my SHIV in and kept everybody else outside the room. Plan A figured the SHIV would probably survive one set of enemy turns given the only threat was the 2 muton elites. Plan A successful, SHIV kills boss in the expected two turns, done and done.

Ending was fine. I don't need a whole bunch of hammy cinematics. The reveal was good. Hope this sells well enough that we get a sequel.

@HerbieBug: Mind control has a limited duration. If the thing you described happens simply run away with the rest of the squad (so they don't get killed by your own dude). Then regroup when mind control wears off.

@Tennmuerti said:

@HerbieBug: Mind control has a limited duration. If the thing you described happens simply run away with the rest of the squad (so they don't get killed by your own dude). Then regroup when mind control wears off.

Ah, I see. That makes sense. In previous missions I had always been able to complete them before the mind control duration had expired.

@HerbieBug: Weird, I killed the main ethereal while he was mind-controlling my volunteer and it still gave me the win. Sounds like a glitch of some kind.

I found the final mission fine for the most part. I agree that the initial encounters with all the different enemies could have been more challenging and varied. The only challenge were the sectopods, which I took out with two rockets.

The alien voiceover annoyed me as well. I had to constantly turn up the volume when it started up and ended up missing most of the ending story. From what I gathered the ethereals were looking for the perfect psi-lifeform? For what purpose I have no clue, I'll have to google it I guess.

Great game though, time for the classic/Ironman playthrough The ending stats surprised me, I was looking good on almost all of them other than solders killed. I ended up with 22 solders killed compared to the average of 4. I'm guessing most people reloaded way more than I did.

@Funkydupe said:

80 maps is few maps? My first playthrough lasted 45 maps and I was lucky and didn't encounter the same map more than once.

I encountered that goddamn terror map with the tanks like, 3 times.

Which sucks, because all the civilians are in the building at the far end, so you lose 3-4 civs a turn.

@carnifexseverian said

The alien voiceover annoyed me as well. I had to constantly turn up the volume when it started up and ended up missing most of the ending story. From what I gathered the ethereals were looking for the perfect psi-lifeform? For what purpose I have no clue, I'll have to google it I guess.

The voice over in the last room implies that the Ethereals were also test subjects of an as yet unseen other alien race. The person talking during the final mission is not an Ethereal.

@HerbieBug said:

The voice over in the last room implies that the Ethereals were also test subjects of an as yet unseen other alien race. The person talking during the final mission is not an Ethereal.

Probably the Outsiders? Screenshots from Irrational's 1st person XCOM game also hint at the existence of Outsiders, and their polygonal design motif seem similar.

Oh yah, and to get back on topic, I finished the game on Normal and it was pretty easy. Used Rift on the Sectopods (from Ryan's advice on the Bombcast), and killed them both instantly. The rest of the aliens were cannon fodder. In the final chamber, I dashed my ghosted Support lady to get line of sight for the Ethereal. Then I Blaster Launchered the middle of the chamber, and Double Tapped the Ethereal (he missed the first time, critted the second) unto death.

Ended in a 'meh' way. But their upcoming DLC sounds interesting.

I, too, had the unfortunate issue where my two favorite soldiers died because I killed the Uber Ethereal while they were mind controlled. I suppose it doesn't really matter since the game is over now, but it still was frustrating to see Cesar 'Boom Boom' Rivera the Heavy die after he'd been the lone survivor of the opening tutorial mission and with me on every mission since the beginning (I think this also screwed me out of the Ain't No Cavalry Comin' achievement.)

What does everyone think of the "bad ending"? As in the ending after the doom counter is full. I just saw it a couple of hours ago when I failed while grinding the 40 UFOs achievement. I know it sounds crazy but I think it's better than the actual ending of the game.

@Mezmero said:

What does everyone think of the "bad ending"? As in the ending after the doom counter is full. I just saw it a couple of hours ago when I failed while grinding the 40 UFOs achievement. I know it sounds crazy but I think it's better than the actual ending of the game.

I wish there were two versions of it.

One before the alien base, which we have now.

And one after the alien base.

Like, the current one is "ooh, look at the Sectoid Commander, that's neat". And then it ends with you staring at a dark screen as the world slowly festers around you.

After the alien base, the Ethereal Overlord patches in and is like "I'm ramming a battleship up your base's ass, enjoy our advanced form of proctology bitches". And it ends with your crew members being rounded up and shot off-screen, as the world burns around you.

@Terramagi said:

After the alien base, the Ethereal Overlord patches in and is like "I'm ramming a battleship up your base's ass, enjoy our advanced form of proctology bitches". And it ends with your crew members being rounded up and shot off-screen, as the world burns around you.

Brilliant!

@Terramagi said:

I wish there were two versions of it.

One before the alien base, which we have now.

And one after the alien base.

Like, the current one is "ooh, look at the Sectoid Commander, that's neat". And then it ends with you staring at a dark screen as the world slowly festers around you.

After the alien base, the Ethereal Overlord patches in and is like "I'm ramming a battleship up your base's ass, enjoy our advanced form of proctology bitches". And it ends with your crew members being rounded up and shot off-screen, as the world burns around you.

Yeah I thought it was a little strange that it was a Sectoid Commander behind him even though I was basically in the end game. Your alternate ending would make more sense in the continuity.

Just finished it today. God damit, if I had known that the soldier I send into the Gollop Chamber sacrifices herself I would have chosen someone else. My french sniper died saving the earth and she was in my squad from day one. God damit.

Final Boss was....pretty easy, killed him in one turn and the cutscene afterwards was a bit anticlimactic as well, I would have expected some sort of parade and a statue for my fallen heroine.....

I did not like the ending at all, too rushed and the impact was lost due to the incomprehensible audio on the voice narrating each species. Terrible.

Really enjoyed the game though, fantastic challenge and very rewarding. Played on normal, never having played an XCOM game before. Started a Classic Ironman run, but it's so punishing I don't think I'll bother continuing.

@max_alford said:

My experience with the last level was great. I lost all but two of my guys, and killed the main ethereal with a 49% shot.

But I guess you can't lose too many countries, because after the end cutscene I get the defeat screen. It was super frustrating, to say the least.

I was really looking forward to a memorial scene or something, but instead it told me I lost, and it was like a slap in the face. I felt completely deflated. You would think they'd tell you if you're going to lose, instead of letting you carry on until the end before it failed you.

has this happened to anyone else?

This just happened to me at the end of my normal ironman run. Volunteer stayed alive, got the cutscene with volunteer making his sacrifice and saving the world...then it switched to the defeat cutscene with the full doom meter. Very strange.

In the normal run I finished before that, the final door didn't open on the Temple ship. I searched the entire ship looking for stragglers but found none. Had to start the ship over again.

Lots of bugs...

It was super easy, but I really enjoyed the alien talking to you, telling you about the Gift and how they came to use all 'lesser' creatures. The cryptic talk of being prepared for what's to come was well and fun too.

I hope with all the success they had with this one they'll be able to make a bigger and better sequel. Or an expansion. Whatever, just give make more XCOM!

A little late to the conversation. I tried X-Com Apocalypse before, didn't like it. I had X-Com idling in my Steam library after the winter sale, I finally decided to give it a try 2 weeks ago. And oh man, these past few days I friggin ate, breathed and dreamt X-Com 24/7. It'll be coming in into my all-time top 10 (where it joins Final Fantasy 7, Outcast, Wing Commander, Monkey Island,..) Congratulations to Firaxis to finally pulling off a worthy 3D X-com after all these years.

Played it on Normal with constant save-reloading: a critical hit over 5 constitutes a load because of the will penalty. I was totally ignorant about the game but luckily a friend of mine gave the tip "satellites are gold". I still had a very tough time, especially in the middle parts of the game when you have Captains, your first light plasma rifle and the first Cyberdisks - and 3 continents were on the brink of panic. Luckily the alien base assault cooled everyone down. My toughest mission was the Supply Ship. The lobby was guarded by a Sectopod, 2 Elites, 2 Mutons, 3 Chrysallids, and 2 Heavy Floaters. I lost my main team for like 5 times on that one.

My final team had 3 snipers (Volunteer was a Korean sniper who was on the team from day one with 90+ kills), 2 supports and 1 assault - all Colonels (screenshot).

I liked the final mission. In hindsight, it wasn't too hard as the central avenue was a cakewalk for my sniper mamas. But I did move up slowly and carefully, so there was a sense of foreboding throughout.
The Ethereals kept Mind Controlling my support medic, most of my other team was untouched. My Psi Support (a badass Belgian dude) dodged 4 Elite attacks and 2 Sectopod strikes and gave my snipers perfect vision for them to double tap away.

The game was patched so I had no audio issues or victory/failure glitches.

My mind likes the ending - I'm happy my best soldier had the gift, was the Volunteer and saved the Earth ~ if anyone, it had to be her ~ but my heart laments that I lost another Shepard :(

I'm not sure I'll be doing the Classic difficulty with/without Ironman. I thought the game was pretty hard already - and Normal allows you to make mistakes without being (too) brutally punished for it.