![]() ![]() As a new player, beating the end bosses on normal may seem daunting but players have proved, again and again, that it is possible to beat the heart at the highesr ascension, or difficulty level, once you understand the game space enough. You can delve deep into the debates and discussions about the merits of each card, how to plan to beat particular bosses, and so on and not come up for air for hours. But it’s undeniably brilliant how rich the design space for possible strategies are. Part of this is surely because it spent a lot of time in Early Access and player feedback helped refine the design so I’m just now playing the final polished version. But as you unlock more classes and cards, see more of the variety of monsters and bosses that can appear and get a feel for the different builds that you can go for for each class, you really start to understand how well designed and balanced this game is. The game plays well but doesn’t seem like anything special. You start the game with only one of the classes unlocked, the warrior equivalent called the Ironclad with rather straightforward cards and simple to understand mechanics. This makes each run short enough that I feel less irritated about having replaying them over and over again. I also like that the game is just the right length, with three acts and a short fourth act that must be specially unlocked and can be considered optional. There is just enough art and flavor text to stir your imagination and I love how different monsters can counter specific deck types. I dislike that the art is simplistic and sometimes looks a little generic, but I do appreciate the creativity in the monster designs. That works well for me though as I’ve always complained about games trying to convey too much fake history that no one has any interest in. Even the text for story events and the merchant’s quips are rather basic. You just know that you need to climb the floors and kill the heart at the end. There’s no real story and no explanation for anything beyond some flavor text. Potions can be used to save you when you get into a spot of trouble and relics have the potential to totally change your strategy. Each class starts with its own starter deck of cards but as you win battles you are offered opportunities to draft cards into your deck and removes them as well. You can’t save-reload, this being a rogue-like, but if you made a mistake during a battle, you can just return to the main menu and resuming the game from there just restarts the battle. There is no randomness in damage values either so you can math out turns perfectly and even the randomness of card draws and enemies encountered are all generated in advance. The mechanics are deceptively simple as there isn’t anything like multiple damage and defense types. You play cards from a hand to attack and defend, paying them with energy that is regenerated each turn. Notional because it’s just taking a branching path through a series of battles punctuated by resting spots, special events and merchants. This is indeed a rogue-like as your character has to fight through a notional dungeon. Having put some time into this now, I can say that it really is absolutely brilliant and I was an idiot for putting it off so long. But I always knew that I would probably enjoy this somewhat due to my love for deckbuilding mechanics and this is too important of a cultural touchstone to ignore forever. I never picked it up back then because I hate rogue-likes and the art it uses looked basic to me. ![]() ![]() It turned out to be highly influential as well as many other games have since copied its simple yet highly addictive design. Anyone who knows anything about videogaming doesn’t have to be told how popular this was a while back. ![]()
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