Ancient Enemy

Quick writing this review because the game's on giveaway at the moment. If you like this game and its concept, you'll love its predecessor Shadowhand. Just like Puzzle Quest took RPG combat and replaced abstract RNG dice rolls with a competitive match-3 jewels game, Shadowhand and Ancient Enemy replace RNG with a Solitaire game in the style of Pyramid. Uncover and remove cards from the pyramid structure by matching values one higher or lower than the one in your hand. The more cards you remove in a single move, the more mana you charge for your weapons and spells. Different enemies have different elemental weaknesses that you can see before a fight and re-equip your character accordingly. Everything this game does well, Shadowhand does better. Better gameplay with enemies drawing off the same deck as you instead of AE's timed scripted attacks. Better graphics, better music, better story, MUCH better equipment system. Slightly higher difficulty. So if you enjoyed your free play of Ancient Enemy, by all means snatch up Shadowhand

It's basically solitaire with a twist. The core concept of the game is amusing. Match cards in ascending or descending order to charge your actions. The more you match in one turn, the more combo points you rack up, which boosts your actions. Simple. But, that's where the game falls short. It doesn't know whether it wants you to play your actions or go for combos. You charge actions (attack, spell, defend) by picking up cards of the same color (attack = yellow, spell = orange, defend = blue.) But once the action is charged (i.e. 3 yellow cards for basic attack,) additional cards of that color that you pick up go to waste. But, since that's how you build up your combo points, you're left with two choices: 1) Use the action as soon as it charges, which is weak and ends the turn, but at least you have more options next round, or 2) Build up your combo points for a boost, but then be left with meager pickings next round. It's a lose-lose situation. Another big issue is that practically everything ends the turn. Play an action, ends the turn. Use an item, ends the turn. Run out of cards to pick up, ends the turn. Reset the board, ends the turn. The core gameplay is picking up cards, but once you do, you don't have much to do other than end the turn. And honestly, all of this wouldn't be all that bad if it weren't for the fact that the game solely relies on full RNG. While a handful of cards are faced up, the rest are faced down in stacks and you have no idea what the next card will be. You can't strategize and plan out your next turns, only pray to RNG-esus for one playable card. I have had battles that took me 7 turns to win, but on a retry, only took me 2 turns. All based on pure luck. This isn't a good mechanic for a tactical card game. There are easy ways to fix it and improve gameplay. I'm honestly surprised it was released this way, but I guess that's also why is giving it away for free.

The game's main mechanism is directly lifted from Faerie Solitaire, but you play with smaller number of cards (which might be good, less randomness) but also colours of the cards power your other abilities. Visually cards are placed in interesting shapes, but I think this mostly just makes the board less readable for no real benefit. Still, it's a very enjoyable game even if very derivative.

The gameplay of Ancient Enemy is based on the mechanics of the popular solitaire game. There are stacks of covered cards on a table, with one uncovered card on top. A player also has an uncovered card - with values from zero to nine - and can take a card from the table with a value greater or less than his own. On the grounds of the colour of the card, he charges his physical attack, magical attack or defence. To keep things interesting, there are also special cards on the table - for example, keys to unlock other piles of cards - and a player can use abilities or expendable items. Locations on the map are of two types - combat and puzzles. The latter, often optional, allow you to collect items or magical power, which is currency for learning new spells at the end of each chapter. As each enemy has its own specific resistances and there is only a limited number of spells, abilities and items to use during a given battle, it is important to choose them properly before each fight. This is a small strategic feature of the game. Being relatively simple - compared to other card games with bulky manuals and rules - the game is highly addictive and satisfying, so I can recommend it to any card game fan without hesitation. There are, however, two drawbacks. The first is the story. The protagonist is a mage who wakes up - as the last man? - after years of lethargy in a world consumed by the evil magic that once made him weak, he embarks on a crusade to regain his strength and fight his enemy once more. Despite the fact that there are a lot of monologues by the magician to read, they are not very convincing and the story seems to be a simple excuse for the gameplay. The other con concerns the gameplay. Enemies only have immunities and no weaknesses. For example, a charcoal golem has resistance to fire-type damage. It would be more logical to make it immune to other types and take double damage from fire.