FORCED SHOWDOWN

This is a great arcade-style game with a lot of random elements that keep it interesting for a while. It is patterned after a game show where your character fights short battles in a number of arenas, advancing and getting gold to buy cards. The cards system is my favorite part of the game, since it shapes the battles. For example, you can get additional health, more damage, extra attacks, etc. Each of the battles contain 8 arenas, with the last one including a boss fight. The fights are short and intense, and the randomization keeps it fresh. The game does have a few drawbacks. There is not much variety in the bosses, and each will appear several times over the course of the three campaigns. Also, the game, mostly due to the random elements, can have spikes in difficulty, especially toward the end. Some battles will have to be fought multiple times, which can be both frustrating and monotonous. Finally, the game does not have a proper game-saving system, which is a big problem. It does not even autosave properly until the end of a campaign, which requires you to win dozens of arena fights in a row. You can get around this by making a copy of your "Profile" file after each battle, but this gets tiresome overtime. Overall, Forced Showdown was fun for the week that I played it. I gave up on the final boss fight, so I' m not sure what final victory is like. However, I could see playing the game again with another character (there are four). It's worth $10 or so, but might not appeal to people who might not like doing a battle over many times before advancing. Fortunately, the fights are short, and the randomized elements will eventually turn in your favor.

I went in expecting a coffee-brake twin stick shooter with mild replayability, but they've really nailed the pacing, progression and aesthetics with this one! I'm the kind of person who gets bored really quickly and moves on to the next game, but the different playable characters, arena random events and bosses playing cards against you make this a different and nice experience every time through. Don't get me wrong, i'll still probably put this down when i'm finished with all 3 levels and collect all cards, but they made sure the trip towards that goal is neither short nor shallow.

Forced Showdown is a roguelite arena battle game with a deckbuilding gimmick. You play as a contestant in a galactic deathmatch game show. You choose a champion, a companion and a deck, and it's on to 3 battles and a final boss stage. Each battle consists of 2 stages (out of 4) with random effects and a boss stage, and every stage is set to 8 rounds. Each round can reward you from points and gold (dropped from enemies). Points allow you to get boons (upgrades for the run) and gold is used to roll a gacha (no IRL money whatsoever to spend though) for more cards to build your decks. You start at 1 and increase to 8 mana by the boss round (there is a boss in every stage), but some cards give you extra mana. At the start of each stage, you can play the cards you've drawn in exchange for mana (upgrades, spells or consumable items. All aid you in various ways, some being purely beneficial, others setting a risk/reward mechanic for big results. Once you've beaten a championship you can replay it with modifiers for more gold and rewards and an increase in difficulty for even more rewards and challenge. The controls are fine and the controller support is great too, I feel the game is more comfortable to play with a controller, but that's just me. A champion has 1 attack, 2 skills and a passive power. Those can be modified during your run by playing upgrade cards. They also have 4 slots for consumables. You can stop you run and quit the game at any time to come back later, and the battles are usually short and snappy, it's relatively easy once you've gotten a grasp of the mechanics to play safe, also quests gove you upgrades making the game easier. All in all, I like the addictive nature of the game and tthe dynamic and various fights you're facing, bosses may repeat on a single championship but it's fine. In a nutshell, it's a casual roguelite set on arcade action and I have a lot of fun. Maybe buy it on sale rather than full price, but you'll have hours of fun.

Very good game. Its a very nice idea to mix cards, randomness, rogue like and ARPG gamplays. But doesn't work on Linux (Debian 8/9) It works well on Windows though.