Recent reviews by Quesare

To recommend the game or not?
I'd say a big yes to that... here's why:


First off, when going through the forums, you'll find a lot of posts and threads about the cost. Yes, if you wish to play expert constructed, you'll likely spend a bit more on a top deck (I thikn if you add another roughly 20-30$ to that starting 20$, you should have a very competitive top deck already also for that).

That said, that's the only mode in which you'll need to put in more money. The casual modes are 100% free, even draft tournaments can be played for free fully. Expert mode requires a token to play, but if you win 3 before you lose 2, you'll get back the token (and if you win more, you get packs that value 2 tokens each). You also already start out with 5 tokens when you purchase the game.

So cost wise, the game is perfectly fine - it could very well be considered cheap even.


The release of the game was a bit of a mess, and it's still early days for the game itself. Some improvements were made in the days after the release, and a few more are still set to come. Personally I'm waiting for a fully ranked mode, where the ranks are also visible somehow, and ways to qualify for larger torunaments with big $ prizes... but that's just me.

The gameplay itself is never the same, even if you play the same deck. It's very similar to the other game the developer made (Magic the Gathering) as in how to build up a deck, but it plays out very strategically due to the 3 lanes for which you can play your cards, and the need to either win two of the lanes, or to win one very hard before the opponent wins the other two. It might be a little bit of a challenge to get into at first as now most players have some time in the game already and have the experience of knowing the cards and what to expect, but even a new player can get into it quite fast. It's got a learning curve that's easy to learn, but tough to fully master - even with there only being one card set at the moment (once most people will have gotten close to mastering it, then a new card set could theoretically turn things around quite a bit again due to the new possiblities players would have).

What are the downsides of the game - there must be some?

Well, yes... a draft tournament pits you against others who also choose to play draft - not per se against those that were choosing cards when you did. This means that picking a card for the reason that at least your opopnents don't get it, is almost useless - a difference compared to most draft tournaments. Also it's possible to be placed against the same opponent twice in a row (I've had it happen within the same tournament). It's rare, but it happens.



Looks and sounds are things I generally interested in much less than the average player, and due to where I play, I always have the sound turned off. But the game is made to be fun; the two little dragons (or whatever they are supposed to be) are a lot of fun added in to the gameplay, without actually affecting the game in any way.


I'll be very positive here and give the game an 8/10 rating right now, with a very likely chance for that rating to go up even more with future small improvements like the ones already announced.

It's easy to state if a game is terrible, bad, decent, good, or outright genius - much of this will be depending on the opinion of the player on certain types of games.

Let's instead state the issues the game has - and in particular, after you also install the bug-fitched patch.

List of issues:
1: Beauty stat is almost useless. In a game where a lot of possibilities exist, this one could have somehow been given a little more importance, or otherwise at least some extra gameplay options (quests that require high beauty for example).
2: Some spells will pretty much never be used, and are pointless to learn, aside from sometimes you needing them to reach higher in a school of magic.
3: Most follower characters are not voiced - a few key ones are, furtinately - but it could have been easy to have added this for the other roughly 15-20 followers that are now left voiceless.

Yeah... that's pretty much it.

Greatest things on this game though, and I think anyone would agree there:

1: Storyline is awesome, with lots of pun in it too (Gilbert Bates and his competitor who will never invent anything decent, Cedric Appleby both stand out for just char names alone).
2: This game has one of the best and most difficult side-quests of any game ever (Gods quest, or blessing from the gods quest... just try doing this one without looking up online how exactly to do it... will take you ages to figure out and then it STILL would be worth it :))
3: The "discrimination" of races in between eachother is a genius move on how it was implemented.


It's one of my favorite games from years and years ago, and Im happy to see it on Steam. Added it simply because of nostalgia, but this game is more than just that - it really is one of the best games in its genre of all time.

I invite anyone to try it if they have never done so - do install the patch, but don't read up on anything else about it online that provides spoilers about the story or about the quests... let it be as interesting to you as it can possibly be.

Cool game, though there's still some words that are weird to say the least (Rnase?) but all in all it's fun.
Pause function can be abused too easily - it's not needed to be allowed to pause during a round, when a round takes a few minutes only anyway and you have pauses in between rounds. Like this its too easy to go for a very high score.