GWENT: Rogue Mage

I've been playing online Gwent since beta, and before getting Rogue Mage I was playing draft mode exclusively. Now I'm finding that I prefer Rogue Mage to the online draft mode. Others have expressed dislike for the switch to one round, and the fact that you always play the first card, but personally I have no problem with either of those changes. The one round format seems to be a good fit for a single player experience, and always playing the first card isn't much of an issue for me. Once you have played all the AI opponents a few times, you know all their tricks, and you know what to expect from them, so them playing the last card seems like a fair balance. In terms of what I'd like to see improved, the AI could be a little better, and there should be an option for speeding up the transition animations. There's too much waiting time between games, and sometimes the interface is unresponsive because it's not finished playing some transition (especially at the start of a game, sometimes I click on a card "too soon", the game being unable to receive input for another second or so). Also, I hope they don't abandon this game, and that they will add more content in the future (I'd be willing to pay a few bucks for a small/medium DLC with more cards and other content).

It is a typical roguelite where the first 8-10 hours or so are a grindy mess full of cheap losses with a few joyful battle victories. You'll think you have the upper hand on the final card being up 30 points and then the enemy hits you with an impossible combo swing that nets them 33 points. That can be especially frustrating when you get a good deck going. If you can get past thew initial grind I'm sure it can be more fun as you unlock other decks but man, the first 8-10 hours are brutal. Don't expect to win a run in those intiial hours.

I think that this game, whether you're new to Gwent or not, can reward you with a very positive experience. Speaking as a person who has both Darkest Dungeon and Gwent among his favourite and most played games (over 6000 hours in Gwent), I think what this game has achieved was a successful combination of the two respective genres - ccgs and rogue-likes. Does this mean the game is perfect, or the best on the market in this category? No, definitely not. I think the game could still expand on the base formula with more areas, opponents, playstyles. Nonetheless, what is already in there is rich, captivating and enjoyable. If it gets refined and expanded upon (in particular replayability and variety) even further, I think it could have potential to become a cult classic. Mainly for this reason, as I believe that the base formula is very fun and has a lot of potential to be pushed further, and because the game is so acessible with a very, very low price, I give it 5 stars. A few negative reviews that I've read compared this game (imo, unfairly) to PVP Gwent and I found that a bit jarring. This game uses the foundation of PVP Gwent, but of course it has to change some elements to accomodate for the different genre. Expecting this to be a 1 to 1 copy of PVP Gwent and seeing any change as a problem seems unrealistic to me, both from the perspective of how the game could be made, and from the perspective of what you actually expect from the game. I think that if you come with an open mind, this game shouldn't disappoint you even as a Gwent player, the very opposite. The tricky thing about rogue likes and ccgs is that, imo, they are both very niche genres, so if you like either/or, you should be fine, but if you're completely new to this, I'd recommend trying out Gwent (or other CCGs) first to see how you enjoy the experience before buying this. A great game, hope it will grow into something even better.

I generally don't like Roguelikes and this game has, sadly, not been an exception to that rule. The most damming flaw is that there is no way to save mid run. A run generally takes about 45 minutes, which is long enough that I can be interrupted by any event in my life. I cannot simply close down the program and open it at the same place where I left off. This flaw is honestly unforgivable. Beyond that flaw, the game is hard. Very hard. I usually dislike roguelikes because I rely on memorizing patterns and making use of that memorization. There's simply too many random events, and too much useless information thrown at me for me to be able to get my bearings and take command of the space. For one thing, a lot of units are marked as "Doomed" and this would be important in the multi-round Gwent games played in Thronebreaker or witcher 3. But in Rogue Mage, since every game is a single round, this information is worse than meaningless. It adds unnecessary visual clutter to the playspace and makes it harder to understand. Also, it's just plain too hard. Full stop no further elaboration required. I tried to like it, but after several hours and many runs, I'm mentally exhausted and not in a good way. I tried walking away from the game and coming back more refreshed several times, and I find that it's simply not enjoyable being beaten about the brain. That being said, I managed to beat the initial frost dragon on the second try, unfortunately, as losing the card that let me do resurrections put a severe crimp in my strategy and singled a major difficulty bump. The cards and character portraits are beautifully drawn. The graphical effects are OK. The playing boards are visually boring.

super game super sound