It is a "backpack" roguelike autobattler, where you buy units to place on a grid, that can influence each other and how they work depending on their position. Then you have them face an opponent automatically and rinse and repeat with a break every couple nodes for an event or boss. The presentation is good, gameplay is enjoyable and strategic, I haven't seen any bugs, but there are some major flaws to this game. Luckily most should be fixable with some patches and additions. The main one being that there's only a few viable units and strats for most heroes that can grow to the hundreds and thousands that is needed to win the game on harder difficulties. Though about half the roster is filled with units that grow, most are too slow, too late, or too rng. Your end rosters will look pretty similar after a few wins. Some other minor issues- Juggling the grid to get units where you want them can be annoying. Esp for shop refresh where you only need them when you reroll (should prob just allow them to activate in the bench). Most other games have some kind of unlimited temp area that is cleared per wave. You should be able to check the enemy units like your own and not just their stats (ie. ranged attack, special moves, enchantments). Arena also makes clear that the normal enemies look way too similar compared to the colorful cast you have. There is no archive or record or collection or anything - to look at past runs, unit/enemy stats, unlocks, whatever. There's not a lot of progression - just the 3 difficulties, and some hero unlocks that you can probably finish in ~5 wins. Most runs will prob take 1-2 hours.
The gameplay largely follows the first game - Your team explore around a hex-grid map encountering loot, monsters, and the native. Both combat and skill based checks are based on rolling special dice linked to your heroes and equipment and then using the symbols shown (ala elder sign). There's a number of changes esp with combat, but the main change isn't gameplay focused at all - you are no longer completing against CPUs on score, instead going for a story/objective based goals. Like the difference between PvP and PvE gamemodes. Even with mostly similar gameplay, it is much more relaxed and freeform. The other big changes reinforces this - it is MUCH easier (but not easy) than the first game even without the accessibility options or any progression unlocks. And even if most mechanics stayed, there are more ways to reduce any of the pain points of the first - easy trait curing, easy recruitment, ways to reduce starting cost, MUCH better starting item choices, etc. Overall I would say two is a better game - combat is much more enjoyable (though easily trivialized with shield and/or stuns), easier to get into, more choices, and much more content. However it is a very different game and for those who enjoyed the challenge of the first, might be disappointed.
I'd consider it similar to the first Pyschonaut or possibly Kids Next Door in terms of childlike themes and hankering back to a nostalgic "olden time". Sorry to hurt you like this but when this game was released, the 90s were already 30 years in the rear mirror. As such the main "bait" would be middle age+ gamers and those enamored with the turn of the century early morning Saturday cartoons. Which somewhat explains all the various old references and the higher than expected difficulty. The higher difficulty was partially my doing as I purposely choose to ignore stickers as I kinda felt it was cheating and I'm also one to save a rare health potion til the end of time. But also clearly the vision with its challenge battles and roguelike gauntlet mode. The gameplay itself is both simple and functional. The base game at least - the stickers and later goo mechanics greatly expand the possibilities and makes it much less balanced. It's also not exactly a TCG - more like a TG? You get cards mainly through quests or trade, and there's not exactly a way to grind or purchase packs of cards for the whole C part. Though a somewhat short game, side quests and optional dialogue make up ~80% of the content. And gauntlet offers quite a bit of grind if you really care for more. That said, unless you are both a fan of the theming and willing to dig into deckbuilding, I would probably withhold my recommendation. I didn't feel it was all that compelling and even if decent is quite niche.
This is somewhat hard to rate. It is kind of a love it or hate it game. It largely follows the script of Slay the Spire but pivots wildly on many fronts. For example difficulty might follow something like - 2,5,15,3,12,2,30,100,15,300 Yes, the 2nd to last battle is one of the easiest. And often the later commons can be done blindfolded. Most battle cards are outright bad to include besides some support. Strong combos are vital to beat the last bosses and some later elites - and ONLY those. Either everything else becomes dull until then, or you just die once you get to the end. Mana also shifts wildly - at first you play half your hand. Then you play everything and still have half your mana. Finally you play half your hand. Passives can be incredibly potent and vital to many combos. Too bad the majority are very situational and don't scale. The base parts aren't bad - The art is great, there is strategic depth, there's a decent amount of progression and unlocks. There's just enough pitfalls that I'm not sure who's going to really like it and who is going to bounce off.
Rather than a roguelike, it feels mostly like a standard turn-based RPG game with TCG (Trading Card Game) playstyle. You control three heroes, each with their own deck that has their actions. You gain cards from leveling and equips, and can change your decks (using the cards you've collected and with a min. deck size) during any downtime. The card picks are rather scarce compared to other deckbuilders though (maybe once every 3-5 levels and couple equips). There's a lot of points of customization with your deck/equips/gems/leveling/talents/etc. There's a decent length campaign (stated 15-20 hours - though much quicker once you aren't staring back at your char to decide what equips/cards and level up options every few battles) And a realm/Slay the Spire like run mode, which really doesn't feel to be the focus and requires going through the campaign (or grinding) to unlock its relics anyway. Lots of characters with differing options, though not entirely balanced and generally fairly easy even on hard difficulty in the campaign. Much harder in the STS mode, where you both face harder enemies (esp. bosses) and have less chances to improve your char. The story, music, and art are all decent/standard but not that notable. The main draw is the gameplay and progression - though somewhat hampered by the points mentioned above - it being a bit easy on campaign and kinda hard to really customize in STS/realm mode. Overall quite decent and polished RPG but not compelling or unique enough for me to rate 5.
A rarely seen "golden age of circus" (ie. industrial age/late 19th cen) Americana theme that doesn't go steampunk or is particularly harsh/satirical on it. It's kind of replaceable but they really did try to embrace it and make it atmospheric. The setting dressing is probably the best part of the game by far. Gameplay is standardish deckbuilder roguelike like Slay the Spire. But despite it being pretty standard, even with the tutorial it can get really confusing due to its use of different terms that are not intuitive at all. And for some reason, its quick right click inspect only explains SOME of the terms. So if you are going to play this game - PLEASE copy down this quick guide and keep it at hand until you are very familiar with them: focus - player hp impress - player damage vitality - player mana (cost) stash - duration/stack ignore - shield boredom - enemy hp sneer - enemy damage pantomime - player reflect scrap - remove(d) card from deck max hand size is 10 Balance is pretty bad - there are reusable cards that give you mana AND draw cards. Most attacks deal ~4 damage per mana to ~10 with some setup. Ring of Fire deals 20 for 1 mana. Sure you need to flip it to use it again, but there's a card that can flip all cards for 1 mana. It kinda tries to balance that by having many unique heroes, a lot having a few broken cards each. Too bad you can have multiple copies of a card or even hero. Then you find that +dam doesn't increase the damage. It increases the damage NUMBER. What's the difference? Well, if the card says deal 1 damage per hand in hand, +3 makes it 4 per card. There's also various bugs such as game not loading correctly upon going back to main menu, needing a full restart. HP sometimes not displaying correctly after an attack. Glossary only for current members and not all seen. Just a general lack of polish in many places. Overall, only would recommend it for the setting. It's not a bad game, just not very good.
Fairly standard but fun and competent Deck Builder Roguelike of the Slay the Spire type. Rated Teen - Whimsical cartoonish art style, fairy tale backdrop, and light hearted writing but with not really child friendly - with ref about drinking, naughty nuns, and slavery. Nothing actually explicit and rarely serious. There's an overarching Campaign/Story mode with leveling and stats without premadeath that has the STS stages as nodes in a larger map. Plus a more standard roguelike run mode that uses a grid map instead of nodes. I didn't find it all that hard even without grinding after getting a handle of the cards and strategies. Overall enjoyable and very polished. Not sure if it's that replayable without future mods even with its "infinite mode". Various minor issues and notes- There's a number of balancing issues with the big one that it's not too hard to make infinite loops. One of the biggest sources of variety is held in consumable "relics" (called bling) that only last one stage but can be saved and stored. So you'll need to grind to get enough or just use strategy that doesn't depend on them. Some later bosses are kinda BS unless you have an OP loop/build which can trivialize them like everything else. Though I guess that's fairly inline with STS. No option to view upgraded forms of cards - which can sometimes differ greatly (ie. a one-time becoming reusable) Defense is kept between rounds by default. Luckily turtling isn't really recommended save a few builds/enemies. Mana economy is weird by default. Some heroes recharge only 1 per turn, some not at all. Mana cards are easy to come by and generally cheap. Food economy is mostly a nuisance. It only really matters if you spam commands (which can be powerful - one is to make all cards 0 cost for the turn).
You explore around a hex-grid map encountering loot, monsters, and the native. To fight or accomplish anything that doesn't use money, you'll need to roll special dice and use the symbols shown (ala elder sign). The gameplay is solid and addictive but takes a while to get used to, and even with the tutorial, they really are not holding your hand. Easy will likely take a couple tries and normal requires you to have a strategy laid out and prepped should any... accidents occur. It's like darkest dungeon but there's no way to hire higher lvled chars. The major bottleneck early and mid will be how to keep up your "sanity" (I feel that stamina or fatigue would have worked much better. This is NOT a horror game.) The easiest way is to master the combat system, kill all the wildlife and then bring a cook to eat it all. Plus the horns you gain from hunting are good trade items, can be carried over and don't take up space. The plot is very basic and fairly tongue in cheek of your rampant British Colonialism. The art and music are all fairly charming though can get repetitive. There are however, quite a few design choices that I do not like or feel they work out- They really should just have a glossary of all the possible combat combos. Turn on the auto combat helps but not enough. The "discovery" part of this is just a hindrance than insightful given how vital it is to most builds. Wound rate is way too high. Without a healer, you'll need ~2 medkits per battle. Resting should at least remove bleed. I really do not care for the initial trip cost. Sure, it makes trips more tactical and discourages inching forward. Still do not care for it. You should be able to peek at enemies to see how many/hp they have before attacking them.
It's what I'd call a "backpack" fighter where you place different items on a limited board to fight instead of select commands in a menu, or press a button to do x action. Except rather than squeezing in tetris shapes or merging, it combines it with a deckbuilder and has you pull dice to be used on a grid. Some are basic do X damage, gain X armor, but others react with the board - dices X steps away gain X power. Try out the demo on itch.io if you want to have a better idea of what's it like than my ramblings. It's (mostly) rather simple and intuitive to grasp but still makes you want to plan and optimize the grid each turn. So far it seems pretty good and polished for an early access (or even full release). Art, music, gameplay - all very nice and charming. I do have some suggestions/complaints, besides common issues like too little enemy variety, some artifacts being OP (and others mostly useless), minor bugs - The board can get a bit crowded with 2nd char. In general, spacing and readability can be improved. Max hand is confusing. I have no idea how it calculates it and why sometimes I can't use my draw ability. Needs more interesting ways to hinder/alter your board. Think traps or portals or enemy dice that attack yours. A bit too easy to find a killer combo and mostly just repeat that for most of the game save a few bosses (coughOrnstein and Smoughcough) that you need to be reactive to. I suppose this is true of many roguelikes and RPGs.
Rather than a typical turn-based RPG, this feels more like a tabletop RPG with tactical grid based combat, emphasis on positioning and low numbers aka Paper Mario (final boss has only ~40ish hp). That said, you mainly will want this for the gameplay. Though the graphics are colorful and detailed, the music, characters, plot, and general settings are all okay or rather standard. There's 25 missions with 5 being short puzzles, and a few being multi-part. On avg, prob took about 15-30 min each. In all, a fairly short game for RPGs esp at full price, but decent on sale. On normal, battles usually aren't too bad but completing with bonus objectives can be challenging. Most battles are either timed or have constant reinforcements that forces a mad scramble to complete the tasks. It encourages you to restart and try again knowing exactly where things will spawn and to minimize wasted movement. There's not a lot of damage synergy or weaknesses but it is still rather strategic in nature. For example, in the very first battle, you'll be surrounded by 4 enemies with only 3 heroes and no meaningful AOE/multi-target, and the bonus objective is to not take any damage. So how are you meant to get it? Well, the mission says to not take any DAMAGE rather than to not get hit. The melee has a guard ability that increases his armor. So just have him sit on one side and pick off the others with your range units. Some things that could be done to improve it - Show the enemies attack pattern and not just movement and range. Like "attack closest melee", "shoot weakest from as far as possible", "heal most damaged ally" Give longer warnings when more enemies will come and not just 1 turn ahead. Make the redo turn ability not one-time use. Or at least allow undo of combat and not just movement.
