Recent reviews by Dugong

Well don't expect the world from this storywise, just enjoy the vibe it brings.

It's obviously closely inspired by Slay the Spire, but is clearly it's own thing and turned out quite enjoyable.

-> Having four characters instead of one freshens up the dynamic in a good way.
-> The overall game is easier than Slay the Spire, but still challenging enough to be enjoyable (if you struggle and need help hit me up ;)
-> There are a LOT of viable builds in lower Distortion levels (=Ascension in StS), which is very fun. It grants insane power trips (Killing the endgame boss before it gets a turn isn't all that rare - getting it down in 2-6 rounds is rather normal)
-> Higher Distortion levels require you to play the better characters and use good combos you found while ascending, which is how it should be imho.

Got through the ascensions in about 85 hours as you have to do at least 21 runs and one run can take 2-3 hours. So you get plenty of game time enjoyment for the price. Even at -20% sale it's already a decent to good buy. Get a 50% and it's a steal.

It pains me a bit but there is no way around giving this a "please leave it alone until the devs set things right":
Two main reasons:

- having cleared Aegypt and Roman period, i was led to go European middle ages next. Cool cool. But the big glowy door to Aegypt is pretty tempting, so i stepped in real quick. Aaaaand i'm hardlocked into completing Aegypt again. Game already auto-saved, door is closed without way back. So i had to go through all the walking simulator that already isn't theeeee strongest aspect of the game kinda, while also clearing away completely meaningless fights. It's cool that i can get cards from Aegypt that way if i want some, but ... ye ...
=> Open the door back OR put a "warp to lobby" option that can even remove all progress to be fair or whatevs OR have multiple autosave slots that cycle. Any of those will do it.

- Secondly, the third boss, Arthur, is complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. The fact that he cleanses ALL your buffs on every attack is completely unprecedented in the game. No warning whatsoever. Having built a completely OP Deck that revolves around multiple buff cards (+dmg per buff, heal on attack, 1x5 attack cards basically) surfing through the game kinda chill and then meeting a Boss that basically just tells me "no, we don't do that here" is .... lame as hell. Killed my desire to play the game from 100 to 0. I could probably have managed if he cleansed only one random buff per attack or had a conditional cleanse or something and it would have been an interesting encounter. But this fight was lost before the fight began, basically before i entered the museum even, and that is horrible game design.

It's possible i'll reconsider this review in the future as the game does have potential. The museum theme is cool and the cards are okay. No complaints about the price either, obviously :P

The revolver idea is really good as a base for a game. It's intuitive, but has depth.
Feels like all the framework has been done properly.

A few things need to be fixed (Hand limit works once then breaks and allows more cards .... and is it intentional that I can clear the whole map and gain massive amounts of cash bcs i can backtrack?)

The fun is already there, though. This should cost about 5 Euro (depending on sales strategy put it on 8 and have ppl get it at -50% or smth).

Yeah, that's as free to pay as it gets. I don't know what i expected.

The tutorial is okay i guess. Then you get matched up against "others" in "classic mode" that play so brutally stupid (oh this has an ability that only works if you deploy it in the front row? Better put it to the back row.) even though the game explicitly warns you about mistakes like this before you make them and requires an overwrite. I am 100% convinced that those are A.I.s with "real"-looking names just to bring you "immersion" or smth while they dangle you some carrot of realism just so they can pamper your ego with three easy wins and get you into the game.

Then you get assaulted with a heap of "rewards" you don't really care for at this point and thrown right into the cash shop. Everything's there: Addiction fueling Loot boxes, "premium" loot boxes, ease-in gateway cash (meteor dust or whatever they call it in this cash grab), pre-order hype blabla.

I'm gonna leave the game at that. Disgusting.

Pay to Win mechanics.

...and let's face it flavor-wise it's a pale shadow of the glorious beauty that is BROFORCE!