The four-class deck system leaves a lot to be desired but when it comes to the game's overall construction, it was delightful. Especially love the depth they've put into map navigation and generation; every event/combat node is static, but has a rarity system where better events - which can be multi-act quest chains that guarantee good rewards - replace certain nodes. Add an item system and character-unique dialogue choices in the mix, and you've got gold. Im not too "in" on deckbuilders admittedly, but its a huge step up from the pseudo-random path generation system that appears to be the norm in the genrespace. Worth playing this game for this system alone.
I do think the decks in this game leave a lot to be desired though. The sore point is how rigid both card draw and energy is. The only way for a character to draw more than 5 cards on turn start is mostly 0-cost situational cards that you put on a character. And every card that draws cards within a turn are all the same: draw 2, put 2 on top, or draw 3, put one on top, with rare exceptions. Energy generation is almost completely dictated by the mage class and some repeatable, boring cards otherwise. And without them, you are stuck generating 3 energy per turn - there are barely any items that help with this.
The end result is that deck building feels like an exercise in exhausting many cards to reduce the deck down to a controllable level that can work within 3 energy, and it feels like a waste of potential depth and especially fun. Im no card game design guy, and I can vaguely understand why they didn't go further, but the end result is too suffocating. By extension, I do wish the decks were more individualistic ala Slay the Spire, rather than this weird class heirarchy system that barely works as a heirarchy when you remove certain cards. Remove the energy gen cards on a mage and you've functionally got an elemental rogue, for example. Its things like that, including the gargantuan hours you need to sink to fully level up character ranks to unlock their full potential, that put me on the fence about going back into this game.
But ultimately, I "did" play it for days on end and really, really enjoyed my time with it. And Im definitely keeping an eye on this developer's future projects based on the systems they've made here, something I do not say very often. On that note alone, I recommend giving this a go!
I do think the decks in this game leave a lot to be desired though. The sore point is how rigid both card draw and energy is. The only way for a character to draw more than 5 cards on turn start is mostly 0-cost situational cards that you put on a character. And every card that draws cards within a turn are all the same: draw 2, put 2 on top, or draw 3, put one on top, with rare exceptions. Energy generation is almost completely dictated by the mage class and some repeatable, boring cards otherwise. And without them, you are stuck generating 3 energy per turn - there are barely any items that help with this.
The end result is that deck building feels like an exercise in exhausting many cards to reduce the deck down to a controllable level that can work within 3 energy, and it feels like a waste of potential depth and especially fun. Im no card game design guy, and I can vaguely understand why they didn't go further, but the end result is too suffocating. By extension, I do wish the decks were more individualistic ala Slay the Spire, rather than this weird class heirarchy system that barely works as a heirarchy when you remove certain cards. Remove the energy gen cards on a mage and you've functionally got an elemental rogue, for example. Its things like that, including the gargantuan hours you need to sink to fully level up character ranks to unlock their full potential, that put me on the fence about going back into this game.
But ultimately, I "did" play it for days on end and really, really enjoyed my time with it. And Im definitely keeping an eye on this developer's future projects based on the systems they've made here, something I do not say very often. On that note alone, I recommend giving this a go!