The joy of Cobalt Core's screen-wide walls of incoming death attacks

There's a little masochistic streak in me that croons with joy whenever I reach the moment of impending doom in turn-based strategy games. You know the moment I mean. The one where the world fills with enemies patiently bobbing and snarling while you try to conjure up an impossibly perfect set of moves that'll keep things going for one more turn? Cobalt Core is great at this. I've only played a couple of runs so far, but boy, you'd better believe I know when the end is drawing near. It's hard to miss, because the entire screen fills up with rows of damage numbers beaming down onto your hapless little spaceship.

Somehow, Cobalt Core's rows of deathrays feel even more intimidating than other games that have given me that feeling. I guess it might be that the straight lines and numbers make for a very clear visual representation of just how royally fucked I am. You know what it reminds me of? That moment in the third Pirates Of The Caribbean film where all the East India Trading Company ships appear slowly out of the fog, and there are way more of them than expected, and it's super intimidating, and they're in rows? Yeah, I think maybe I just have a phobia of things in rows.

But anyway, that's not to say that there's nothing you can do when an enemy ship comes along with a cheshire cat grinful of cannons and a love of using them all at once. Even with my starting crew and ship, there are plenty of ways to save myself. I can shield myself, or dodge to the side, or block certain rows with midrow objects like missiles, drones, and asteroids. Cobalt Core is generous with its abilities, but not very forgiving when it comes to mistakes. Into The Breach gives you the ability to undo moves or reset entire turns during those moments where you forget that there are consequences to your actions. But in Cobalt Core, you just gotta live with it. All you can do is say, "Ah well, all things come to an end", as the unbroken wall of attacks turns your ship into chaff.

I think the reason why a wall of 1- or 2-strength attacks feels worse than a single equivalent-strength attack of 9 or 10 down a single row is down to the game's emphasis on manoeuvring across the screen to avoid damage. Both attacks would kill me, but a single attack is much easier to deal with, requiring just a simple sidestep to postpone judgement. When it's all split between attacks, you can avoid some but likely not all of them. It chips away at your hull (and resolve) until you reach the final turn, where you only have 1 hit point left, and are willing your ship to somehow shrink down to occupy that single row that isn't about to become an irradiated ball of scrap. It's not a criticism, of course. I'm glad the game is tough. It's merely the experience I'll most closely associate with Cobalt Core when I think about it years later.

I did look up to see if there was a name for a phobia of things organised in rows, but alas, I came up dry. I humbly suggest it be named "Cobaltphobia" going forward. That way, pedants like me who hear it can immediately launch into their rehearsed "Oh no, it's not a fear of cobalt" spiel.

Also, I just realised I've been calling them rows, when actually they're columns. But I'm not going to change it. They're rows to me. And besides we're in outer space. Who's to say which way is "up"?