Monster Train - The Last Divinity

I truly admire how distinct they managed to make all the clans - and then they just add another one. At that point you're just flexing, right? Just showing off how much better you are as a game dev compared to the competition. There's a sense of brittle resilience to the Wurmkin deck, which lacks the healing or defensive power of clans like Umbra or Awoken yet in specific situations, when played right, suddenly outperforms either of them. Likewise Reap is not just another version of Frostbite, since it's tied to the gem economy. Then there's cards that deal with consuming, eggs, etching, inspiration, the list goes on. I haven't even mentioned the new boss yet. I sincerely hope that the dev didn't get crunched or put under undue stress to make this DLC or the base game. It's excellent, but it's also the sort of excellence that the parasitic games industry loves to tear apart and destroy. Let's hope the vampires of capitalism ignore this

This DLC adds... a lot actually. The new Wurmkin clan brings a new mechanics, new creatures and new spells. They mostly revolve around the charged echoes thing, which are counters you place on each of the rows of the train using "infused" cards (normal cards that can randomly have the "infused" trait), so you have to balance building up those charged echo charges with everything else to maximize your potential. They are both used as currency (spend them, get stuff) and as means of powering up abilities (do X stuff, where X is number of charged echoes). I haven't unlocked the second champion, but the first Wurmkin champion is a beast. Saying "Oh, they added a new clan" doesn't sound like much, but I like how they managed to design the Wurmkin so that they would have a distinct identity and unique mechanics. One cool thing about this game is that each of the clans has a unique theme, and I am happy to see that the developers didn't take the lazy approach of just rebranding an existing clan, swapping a couple of palettes and calling it good. The new clan stands on its own. The other significant thing this DLC brings is that in the world map now there are also altars where you can optionally engage pacts. Pacts are basically trade-offs where you get "something" (for example an artifact) in exchange for pact shards that increase difficulty. The increases in difficulty are significant, so you actually have to consider whether the trade-off is worth the risk. There's also apparently a new end-boss but I haven't seen it yet, so I can't comment on that. Then there's lots of other things like new events, more cards for the other clans and so on. Bottom line is: this is a DLC with good content, and not just some lazy cash grab. It is a bit pricey, but I think it is worth it - I honestly can't see myself playing Monster Train without it now.

So in theory this DLC is purely enhancing the base experience. + 1 new clan that looks weak on the outside but offers a number of interesting ways to build decks around - buffing units with their new mechanics, applying massive, persisting debuffs to enemies (potentially doing upwards of 1000 damage), or using a new egg hatching mechanic. + New events and cards enhance the base roster of clans and playstyles without becoming so much that it clutters the decks, there are still many ways to build around and mitigate RNG. + The new mechanic to sacrifice units and combine them offers some interesting ways to build that perfect road block level. However, there are two negatives to this... - some of the existing champions and clans are in need of a rebalance. Stygian in particular feels very underwhelming and very hard to work around. - the new super boss straight up nullifies any deck that builds around applying debuffs the enemy, making many cards and decks useless if you plan on taking them on. This is a huge negative point that brings down the DLC several notches for me.

While I love Monster Train, I could not get into this DLC. It adds a new resource to the game that also adds a layer of complication that I did not find interesting. Also, the new wurmkin faction was not as engaging as any of the existing 5 clans. Kind of a chore to play and adds nothing fun to the original game.