GWENT: Rogue Mage

While StS has nailed the formula, Rogue Mage seems to be onto something special. I'm loving this game so far! I've only completed 2 or 3 runs so far but it's been enjoyable! Sometimes encounters can feel literally impossible but I guess it may come down to the player's stamina to keep doing runs. For the player that doesn't have prior experience with Gwent and/or experience with the rogue lite genre then this game doesn't do too much by way of teaching you. I have experience in both departments and loved Thronebreaker/Gwent within Witcher 3 so the learning curve has been more favorable than had I not. Hopefully this game gets support down the line. Little things need touching up like the world map, and access to settings during a match. I also wish they took the time to allow you to see the end result of a card being changed/evolved/upgraded in real time. There should be an animation or a before and after showcase at the least to isolate that information. If you decide to transform or evolve a card you have to click back into your deck, find the card that evolved or find the new card that transformed, manually. It's a small thing but those interactions would make the experience a lot more fluid. Overall I still really enjoy the game and can only hope that CDPR supports Rogue Mage with updates. This is a great opportunity to play Gwent over and over within the PvE context. Not all of us care to PvP so here's to hoping!

I've played plenty of multiplayer Gwent over the past few years, but I also introduced the game to a couple of my friends who had never played Gwent, and they are loving it too - this definitely has appeal to those outside the "Gwent is life" fraternity. I love Rogue Mage. People aren't wrong to compare it to Slay The Spire crossed with Gwent, but I definitely prefer it to Slay The Spire. That said I never got super into STS, like I know lots of people did. Personally I prefer the story to that of Thronebreaker. This focuses on Alzur's experiments to create the first Witchers, and is told through cinematics and narratives in boss fights. The devs said they weren't so focused on story in this game, but I think it's a really interesting story, nicely told, and the way it is reflected in the card battles is really clever and nice. The art is amazing, as is the voice acting, and the music is good, as you'd expect from a Gwent game. As for the gameplay loop, I've played around 15 hours so far, and it's very compelling. Lots of fun and interesting mechanics you can build combos around, a whole spell system that's completely new from the multiplayer game, which is the main way you balance how much you commit into a battle versus save for the next battle. The main difference between multiplayer Gwent is that each battle is just one round, rather than three, which at first feels like a big step back in depth, but actually works well for the format - the spell system is used instead for the "how much do I need to commit here" side, I'm sure it's part of how they got the AI so good, and battles are nice and short. Each run takes around 30-60 minutes, in my experience - I'm quite a leisurely player, though :) All in all, I love the game, one of my new favourites, and I think it's great. If you've read this far, I say give it a go, it's well worth the price!

I love witchergames and I love roguelike. This just tarnished both. Made of mostly juniors according to credits and it shows. They copied other games even down to the exact cards even though it does not work in this game. Then so ppl dont notice they just pulled all fun out of the game. Its random with random with random. The "deckbuilding" : There is no reason to take any cards and after you purged the worse cards I dont do anything to the deck because there is no reason. Its nothing to see even at this pricepoint I cant even recommend it to try because its such a waste of time.

Highly recommend! I played for 1h and for someone who has been playing Gwent from the beginning, I can say it's fun, interactive, unpredictable, and worth buying. Great fun!

Basically a waste of money. I wish I bought Slay the Spire instead. It's a half-baked game with no future support from CDPR promised. It's best to avoid it.