If there were a neutral thumb for this game, that's actually what I would give it. Instead I chose to go with a positive rating, because I do enjoy the combat a lot. Note that this review only addresses the tutorial and the single player missions. I can't speak for multiplayer.

Chaos Reborn is a turn-based tactical boardgame, in which are trying to destroy your wizard opponent through spells and creatures. You can choose to play in Law Mode, where you get a set amount of mana each turn to spend on your spells, and creatures have hit points; or Chaos Mode, where cards have a percent chance to succeed at being cast and one successful hit kills (that includes your wizard). I tried both, and I thoroughly enjoy Law Mode much more.

Pros:

The game is stylistic and attractive. The creatures have a unique design I find interesting. It's bright and cheerful. Spell effects look nice.

The game is 3D, so you can rotate the camera to see the whole board.

Combat is fun and tactical. You can cast creatures onto the board, but you can also cast them as illusions. They act like real creatures, but if the opposing wizard chooses to disbelieve them, poof! It's a neat gameplay mechanic.

The two gameplay modes, Law and Chaos, play differently enough to provide completely different experiences. In Law Mode, you have a bit more freedom to experiment with different tactics. Your wizard won't necessarily die in one hit, so you can risk them a little more. Chaos mode is trickier. Definitely the harder difficulty, but there's something satisfying about pulling off a spell with only a 35% chance to succeed and have the opposing wizard waste a Disbelieve trying to prove it's not really there.

The Intro short story was well written and pulled me in. It's a bit longer than most intros, but if you have the time to read it, I recommend doing so. It's nice that they don't force you to read or click through it, though, for those who don't care.


Cons:

The tutorial is harder than it should be. The purpose of a tutorial is to teach you the game. Instead, this plays out like a series of standalone missions that teach you a new element of combat. They're actually rather difficult when you're just getting into the game, and you can fail them and have to repeat them until you succeed before you can move on to the next one. No one wants to feel like they have to play a tutorial for hours just to get to the "real" game.

Each campaign in the single player campaign is separate from the others. They're loosely connected, storywise, but all your gold, equipment, and karma reset. This was frustrating, because I felt like all the work I'd done in the first campaign was for naught when I got to the second one. I had some really nice staves and talismans I would have liked to keep using.

Edit: A commenter pointed out that it's possible to equip the equipment you got earlier when you're in Limbo (between campaigns), so this is no longer relevant.

The campaigns are time-based. Every space you move on the overland map costs you days. As you're moving around, the wizard king (the big bad of the map) is getting stronger. This by itself isn't the problem, but when you die in a fight, you return to the last respawn point. Which might be 20 days away.

Respawning also costs you gold. Again, not a problem except for the fact that a) each death gets more expensive, and b) you could actually run out of money and find yourself completely stuck and forced to redo the entire campaign. There's no way to save your game before a fight so you can just reload and try a different tactic. I hate redoing content, and I especially hate redoing it when it means the game actually gets harder every time you fail.

You can hire mercenaries in towns (that's not the con). These are creatures that appear on the board at the start of combat. If they die, they're gone for good, but if they live, they go on to the next combat. That's not a bad mechanic, but there are also a limited number of them to hire, and if you die, they're gone as if they, too have died. So again, the game gets much harder every time you die, because now you don't even have the option to hire more mercenaries to assist you in the fight that already killed you.


Neutral:

You don't create a deck. Instead you pick a staff that determines which cards *might* appear in your deck. I would much rather be able to create my deck manually. It's not a terrible mechanic, and it does keep your deck from feeling stale.

The combat map is also timed. I feel like there are too many timed elements to this game, but I can see why putting a timer on combats would keep a game from being trapped in a stalemate.

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I feel like a rework of the death mechanics (as simple as allowing me to save and reload before a battle) would make this game stellar. It's not a bad game, and in fact I'm still enjoying it. But I can see giving up after having to restart an entire campaign for the nth time because I was struggling with one mission for too long. I have way too many Steam games to frustrate myself with one game for too long.

If there were a neutral thumb for this game, that's actually what I would give it. Instead I chose to go with a positive rating, because I do enjoy the combat a lot. Note that this review only addresses the tutorial and the single player missions. I can't speak for multiplayer. Chaos Reborn is a turn-based tactical boardgame, in which are trying to destroy your wizard opponent through spells and creatures. You can choose to play in Law Mode, where you get a set amount of mana each turn to spend on your spells, and creatures have hit points; or Chaos Mode, where cards have a percent chance to succeed at being cast and one successful hit kills (that includes your wizard). I tried both, and I thoroughly enjoy Law Mode much more. Pros: The game is stylistic and attractive. The creatures have a unique design I find interesting. It's bright and cheerful. Spell effects look nice. The game is 3D, so you can rotate the camera to see the whole board. Combat is fun and tactical. You can cast creatures onto the board, but you can also cast them as illusions. They act like real creatures, but if the opposing wizard chooses to disbelieve them, [i]poof![/i] It's a neat gameplay mechanic. The two gameplay modes, Law and Chaos, play differently enough to provide completely different experiences. In Law Mode, you have a bit more freedom to experiment with different tactics. Your wizard won't necessarily die in one hit, so you can risk them a little more. Chaos mode is trickier. Definitely the harder difficulty, but there's something satisfying about pulling off a spell with only a 35% chance to succeed and have the opposing wizard waste a Disbelieve trying to prove it's not really there. The Intro short story was well written and pulled me in. It's a bit longer than most intros, but if you have the time to read it, I recommend doing so. It's nice that they don't force you to read or click through it, though, for those who don't care. Cons: The tutorial is harder than it should be. The purpose of a tutorial is to teach you the game. Instead, this plays out like a series of standalone missions that teach you a new element of combat. They're actually rather difficult when you're just getting into the game, and you can fail them and have to repeat them until you succeed before you can move on to the next one. No one wants to feel like they have to play a tutorial for hours just to get to the "real" game. [strike]Each campaign in the single player campaign is separate from the others. They're loosely connected, storywise, but all your gold, equipment, and karma reset. This was frustrating, because I felt like all the work I'd done in the first campaign was for naught when I got to the second one. I had some really nice staves and talismans I would have liked to keep using.[/strike] Edit: A commenter pointed out that it's possible to equip the equipment you got earlier when you're in Limbo (between campaigns), so this is no longer relevant. The campaigns are time-based. Every space you move on the overland map costs you days. As you're moving around, the wizard king (the big bad of the map) is getting stronger. This by itself isn't the problem, but when you die in a fight, you return to the last respawn point. Which might be 20 days away. Respawning also costs you gold. Again, not a problem except for the fact that a) each death gets more expensive, and b) you could actually run out of money and find yourself completely stuck and forced to redo the entire campaign. There's no way to save your game before a fight so you can just reload and try a different tactic. I hate redoing content, and I especially hate redoing it when it means the game actually gets harder every time you fail. You can hire mercenaries in towns (that's not the con). These are creatures that appear on the board at the start of combat. If they die, they're gone for good, but if they live, they go on to the next combat. That's not a bad mechanic, but there are also a limited number of them to hire, and if you die, they're gone as if they, too have died. So again, the game gets much harder every time you die, because now you don't even have the option to hire more mercenaries to assist you in the fight that already killed you. Neutral: You don't create a deck. Instead you pick a staff that determines which cards *might* appear in your deck. I would much rather be able to create my deck manually. It's not a terrible mechanic, and it does keep your deck from feeling stale. The combat map is also timed. I feel like there are too many timed elements to this game, but I can see why putting a timer on combats would keep a game from being trapped in a stalemate. -------- I feel like a rework of the death mechanics (as simple as allowing me to save and reload before a battle) would make this game stellar. It's not a bad game, and in fact I'm still enjoying it. But I can see giving up after having to restart an entire campaign for the nth time because I was struggling with one mission for too long. I have way too many Steam games to frustrate myself with one game for too long.