GWENT: Rogue Mage

Rogue Mage tries to be Slay the Spire, but completely missed what makes that game so replayable. The fundamental problem comes down to AWFUL pacing. You start with 1 of 3.5 premade decks (with no ability to edit them) and runs are so short level wise that you'll only remove and add a few cards before you're at the final boss. This means that no matter what theorycrafting you might have in mind, you will never be able to change your deck up enough for it to have any more than minor changes from the starting deck. This results in player agency being almost completely removed. There is no real strategizing and thinking on your feet, you're simply playing the same deck over and over and over again until the RNG blesses you enough to let the AI lose. As implied, this drastically affects the difficulty level too. Losses are random and unavoidable based on what super power the AI happens to pull out of nowhere (or just directly counters you) and no wins feel satisfying. It never feels like your strategies are winning so much as the AI didn't get its super draw. There's also a weird and obnoxiously heavy emphasis on using magic. ALL of my successful runs were based around having the energy to spam enough spells to win. It ends up mattering way more than what cards you're using. It's a deckbuilder where the decks don't matter. It took me 16 hours apparently to reach level 45 and unlock the 4th and final deck. I was horrendously bored with the other 3 by then and hoping the last one would change things up enough to keep me playing. Nope, it's just a lazy "lol all cards are random" deck. Once again, all RNG, no agency. It's a fun distraction that seems like it has potential at first, but ultimately after just a few hours you've seen and played everything the game has to offer.

Rogue Mage is now the... 4th installment of a "Gwent game", iirc, but the FIRST one that does not totally mess up the rules and gameplay you maybe know from another gwent game. This one uses the engine and some of the cards from the Gwent online game and turns it into a game of several one round battles with random card rewards. Is it "roguelike"? Yes. You lose one battle, you can start the map all over. Is it fair? Depends. Some bosses are way harder than others, depending on the deck and starting hand. Is it fun? Yes, but I liked thronebreaker better so far. OK for the price, I´d say. 3-4 Stars.

I would love to just love this game as i enjoyed thronebreaker very much am a huge fan of the witcher and rogelite/roguelikes. On top of that the voice acting and artwork are absolutely fantastic. It is very sad though that the game as some problems that really break the fun for me long term. The biggest one is deck variety. You only have 4 starting decks and cannot really adjust/improve them from the start. Most of your roguelike power progress is in the form of unlocking card drops, spells and trinkets. On top of that the runs really arent long enough or have enough card drops where you'll ever feel like you've built something very neat. To rub salt in the wound most enemies have super elaborate decks where goddamn everything synergizes. But all you can do is watch in awe and try to make up for it by spamming magic. Super unsatisfying, dangling the unachievable in front of you while letting you play with a mediocre deck which you'll stuff with singular powerful cards if youre lucky. But its very, very rare youll actually get a coherent deck going. The next big thing is the enemy ALWAYS gets the last turn. You cannot counter what he wil do last and only calculate for it to some degree. Ive had so many runs end by the enemy just pulling some op card out of their ass last turn and turning over a 50+ point lead. Extremely frustrating. The enemies position also are absolutely random it seems. Often times i get someone as a second enemy that i really just cannot handle with the base deck making the run end then and there. And to come back to my first point some enemies are just incredibly frustrating to play against. Worst offender is the High preator for me. This guy starting units, power and artifacts are so stupidly obnoxious its almost impossible to travers. no matter what you do you get punished hard. And once again All of his stuff has ridicoulus syngergy. I feel like this could be an amazing game if the problems where adressed.

Rogue Mage (RM) is like endless Gwent with competent Ai and interesting lore. The overworld is more like inscryption; the gameplay is a mix of Gwent online and a bit of Thronebreaker (TB); If you like Gwent Online but hate having to queue or wait for matches, RM is great. I LOVE it. I'm a big fan of Gwent's art; imo it's the best of any card game! RM is much closer to Gwent Online than TB. The story snipets in RM are actually surprisingly compelling, but they are far less frequent than TB and FEEL less impactful. TB's story experience is far better. RM has cut all battles to one round; it's something I like for the minion fights, but I wish elite and boss battles were two rounds. You can't craft a starting deck; I wish there was a little more choice, like Inscryption's starting deck choice, then the addition choice. Also, some of the starting decks feel off with unintuitive/questionable synergies. Difficulty depends on your starting deck/area-choices, but it is mostly fair; the greatest exception is last-say. If we can't get two rounds for boss and elite battles, I stongly feel we need to be able to influence last say. In conclusion, there are a few issues, but I am a big fan of Gwent, and RM feels like an 'endless' extension of the multiplayer. If you want a more casual yet challenging Gwent experience, RM is that!