It's very hard game that require grasping certain "flow" from the player but after finally getting it it feels very rewarding and almost never feel not fair unlike the other games from this genre. When you dying you always know why and what you missed in your calculations. It's one of the few deck builders that have so big vibe of TCG instead of just feeling like RPG with extra layer of RNG. The customization within runs is huge due to charms, but game could have some bigger variety of bosses and better progression because there are really few unlocks. Graphic, music and overall design are top notch.

Mais um roguelike de cartas, logo mais um para eu me aventurar e se ter a diversão garantida, cara que jogo gostosinho para matar aquele tédio rápido, sua mecânica consegue funcionar muito bem e consegue ter diversas variações muitas que até o fim do game ainda não testei, juntamente com todo seu capricho visual que torna tudo melhor ainda, consegue transmitir uma carisma muito boa, só queria uma maior variação de bosses além do boss final, mas como um todo foi bem divertido e que me fez passar umas boas horas, mesmo eu não sendo um grande fã de rogue like.

NOTE: only played the demo

fun card-battler with a gorgeous artstyle and lovely soundtrack, but, much like with most of these games, i just don't see what sets it apart from its peers.

the town upgrade mechanic is neat, i guess, and i liked the card aiming idea, but there're no characters, no real story, the core gameplay loop felt too simplistic, and the RNG overly punishing.

i don't know why i'd play this game over its myriad competitors.

Really solid and fun core gameplay. Impressively well-designed in most ways. I really only have 2 issues with the game:

1. There are 3 playable factions, but the first one is basically The Boring One.

2. You lose your run if your leader dies, and it's very easy to cause this simply by not noticing something (for example, there's a unit you can use which automatically kills all allies in the same row as it at the start of combat, so if you use that unit and ever accidentally leave it in the same row as your leader when you start combat your run immediately ends). The game ends up being more cerebrally intensive than it needs to be because you really should check over every single card every single round to make sure something bad doesn't happen. Inevitably once you get comfortable with the game you'll stop doing this and occasionally randomly lose runs to something you failed to notice because you're in an easy fight.

That's a lot of negative stuff, but seriously, the game is incredibly fun and full of a ton of really clever and elegant ideas. It's also shockingly well-balanced for a roguelike.

Update to my previous review:
This game honestly deserves to be as big as Balatro. It’s fun and addicting and charming it’s hard to put down. I bought this on steam recently and have been playing it a ton. It’s improved a lot since I played the demo back in May 2023, and I already liked it back then. The game feels a lot more fair and balanced, and you’re constantly rewarded for your progress. I’ve not been a fan of the rogue-like genre in the past, but I’ve been absolutely hooked on this. Even if it gets repetitive at times (which is the case with all rogue-likes) the incredibly satisfying animations and sound design and buttery smooth gameplay make up for it.

My completion log here comes with an asterisk as I felt like I ran out of new things to pull out of this game while I was on the path toward the true ending, so my best achievement was only a 5 bell regular completion.

Wildfrost is of course utterly adorable and the tactical depth that comes from its focus on positioning is lovely and I'd suggest any fan of deckbuilders give the game a shot, but I do think it's too reserved and focused for its own good. You'll quickly unlock every deck and by then you'll already have created a full mental tier list of each build type available at which point there's no longer really any new possibilities to explore and you're simply left to fiddle with the intricacies of the combat system with some rng on top. I'd love to see more added to this as I think most of Wildfrost's problems would be solved by more cards, encounter types, and more complicated effects to maintain the discovery and (at least seemingly) emergent behavior that roguelites thrive on.

Wildfrost boasts an adorable art direction, a wonderfully vibrant soundtrack, and numerous fantastic design decisions. The combo system and the golbling enemy keeps early game fights interesting: with every different hero and pet combination comes a different strategy to maximize money on the early fights. The charm system is great, its very customizable and provides a lot of run variety. And runs themselves aren't overly long; Wildfrost isn't a rougelike that takes over an hour to get through, rather a shorter and sweeter thirty to forty minutes. Its good that the run length is shorter because Wildfrost demands a lot of your attention. Battles are quite tactical and you need to be very attentive in them or things can quickly go wrong. No matter what difficulty setting you're on you're never more than two steps away from losing.

Wildfrost's difficulty progression is also not extremely stretched out in the way other games in the genre are. Seriously, Slay the Spire is a great game but having to grind through 20 ascension levels for 4 different characters is obnoxious and a huge time sink. Instead Wildfrost has a difficulty modifier system where you pick and choose diffuclty bells that add additional challenge (similar to Hades). You only have to level up the difficulty five times before the max is unlocked, and the levels carry over across factions, its so much nicer to the player.

I can comfortable say that the difficulty is well balanced. The game starts out tougher than other games I've seen in the rougelike deckbuilder genre which I believe is a good thing, as it means I'm not having to grind my way through several difficulty tiers before actually feeling any resistance. Still at the start its easy enough that its not overly difficult to get some wins. There's plenty of resistance later on though. I've now beaten Wildfrost's ultimate challenge 3 times, and it at first looked near impossible. But now I can comfortably say its a well designed challenge that pushes the game's difficulty to its limits, but not past them.

I love the way that the final boss works in this game, its a creative idea implemented extremely well, in a way that smooths out what otherwise could've been some very rough edges. The card designs are good, using a fairly simple set of mechanics that are implemented in a well balanced and interesting way. I enjoy the timer system, it makes me think about card value in a way a traditional mana system doesn't. Enemy designs are also on point, each encounter has its own distinct flavor and tests a different aspect of your tactics and deckbuilding. Wildfrost has cemented itself in my mind as one of the best of the genre. In fact I'm brave enough to say that for me it IS the best in the genre. I encourage you to give it a shot, hopefully you'll like it as much as I did.

Wildfrost ist ein gelungener Roguelike Deckbuilder mit schönem Artstyle und einigen Kniffen, die es von der Konkurrenz unterscheiden.

Der größte Unterschied zu Slay the Spire ist hier sicherlich das Pacing. Man hat nur wenige Kämpfe, doch dafür gehen diese über mehrere Wellen. Zwischen einzelnen Kämpfen kann man sein Deck signifikant upgraden/verändern, sodass sich die Kämpfe nicht repetitiv anfühlen. Generell gefällt mir der Aufbau der einzelnen Runs sehr gut und sorgt dafür, dass ich immer noch einen und noch einen Run starte.

Auch die Build-Vielfalt kann sich durchaus sehen lassen. Wildfrost hat vielleicht nicht ganz die Komplexität eines Slay the Spire, aber das ist auch eine sehr hohe Messlatte. Trotzdem kann man viele verschiedene Kombos bauen, die sich gut anfühlen.

Jeder Run gibt einem außerdem Fortschritt beim Ausbau eines Dorfes, wodurch neue Karten und Spielmechaniken freigeschaltet werden. Für diesen Fortschritt muss man immer wieder neue Herausforderungen lösen, die dazu motivieren verschiedendste Decktypen auszuprobieren.

Insgesamt ist Wildfrost ein Deckbuilder, der sich nicht vor der Konkurrenz verstecken muss und mir persönlich ähnlich viel Spaß gemacht hat wie Slay the Spire.