It's not a bad game, but it feels way more luck based than other roguelikes I've played. I wasn't a fan of the art initially but I suppose it grows on you. After 18 hours of play time, at no point did I feel like I had any more control over my runs than I did the very first game I played. I will probably play more cause I want the achievements.

Here are the ways the luck annoys me.

You choose your path, but your choices are nearly meaningless. You wanna go down a path with fights? You could end up fighting a bunch of enemies that hard counter your deck. Win the fights easy? There is no guarantee they will offer anything of value, you should at least get a consolation for skipping rewards. They offer something good? There is no guarantee you will get a single card that synergises with your one good card. You wanna go down the question marks? You will get a bunch of fights anyways, and the events you get feel like a coin toss anyways. Shops? I mean cash is finite so no point in going to more than like 2-3 shops an entire run. Elites? Well at least they drop something of value, and chests are good too. What if you are fighting an enemy and get consistently bad hands? You lose.

There is not zero strategy to this game to be fair, but the problem is there is no consistency. If I find a strategy that works for a run, then try the exact same thing, it tends to fail more often than it succeeds. I don't play games to win, I play to have fun, and losing constantly because of bad luck is not fun. The game is like gambling, you get a dopamine rush when you get lucky and things go well, but that's the least likely outcome.

Now, some of you may think "But blah blah blah is a strategy and it's really consistent and yada yada yada." Dude, I have played this game for 18 hours, and that isn't a ton, but this is like the amount of time a casual gamer may spend on a single game ever. If you can't notice yourself getting better at the game whatsoever in 18 hours of playing, then it's probably designed poorly. I'm not going to invest 1000 hours into this game to get good, not 100 hours, honestly 50 hours is pushing it.

Here is the topper of it all. I love this style of game, and idk if STS popularized it, but so many games have done it better, so why play this one? I can put my time into a game that feels less luck based and makes me happier. I would put my time into other games but I want a few more achievements lol.

Ultimately, not a bad game exactly, but there isn't exactly a rating system, so I round down my reviews to compensate for the absurd number of people who write positive reviews. I think most people who don't enjoy a game just stop playing and don't write a review, so reviews are always skewed in a positive direction.

It's not a bad game, but it feels way more luck based than other roguelikes I've played. I wasn't a fan of the art initially but I suppose it grows on you. After 18 hours of play time, at no point did I feel like I had any more control over my runs than I did the very first game I played. I will probably play more cause I want the achievements. Here are the ways the luck annoys me. You choose your path, but your choices are nearly meaningless. You wanna go down a path with fights? You could end up fighting a bunch of enemies that hard counter your deck. Win the fights easy? There is no guarantee they will offer anything of value, you should at least get a consolation for skipping rewards. They offer something good? There is no guarantee you will get a single card that synergises with your one good card. You wanna go down the question marks? You will get a bunch of fights anyways, and the events you get feel like a coin toss anyways. Shops? I mean cash is finite so no point in going to more than like 2-3 shops an entire run. Elites? Well at least they drop something of value, and chests are good too. What if you are fighting an enemy and get consistently bad hands? You lose. There is not zero strategy to this game to be fair, but the problem is there is no consistency. If I find a strategy that works for a run, then try the exact same thing, it tends to fail more often than it succeeds. I don't play games to win, I play to have fun, and losing constantly because of bad luck is not fun. The game is like gambling, you get a dopamine rush when you get lucky and things go well, but that's the least likely outcome. Now, some of you may think "But blah blah blah is a strategy and it's really consistent and yada yada yada." Dude, I have played this game for 18 hours, and that isn't a ton, but this is like the amount of time a casual gamer may spend on a single game ever. If you can't notice yourself getting better at the game whatsoever in 18 hours of playing, then it's probably designed poorly. I'm not going to invest 1000 hours into this game to get good, not 100 hours, honestly 50 hours is pushing it. Here is the topper of it all. I love this style of game, and idk if STS popularized it, but so many games have done it better, so why play this one? I can put my time into a game that feels less luck based and makes me happier. I would put my time into other games but I want a few more achievements lol. Ultimately, not a bad game exactly, but there isn't exactly a rating system, so I round down my reviews to compensate for the absurd number of people who write positive reviews. I think most people who don't enjoy a game just stop playing and don't write a review, so reviews are always skewed in a positive direction.