Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Jan 5, 2022

  [i] My Experience [/i] I'm a big fan of deck-builders that aren't roguelikes, so Deck Adventurers - Origins was right up my alley. The game was challenging, and (especially towards the end of the game) I had to alter my deck often and change the combination of characters that I was bringing to certain fights. You'll often fight with an ally, and although you can use the deck that you've constructed with your hero, your ally will follow one of two preset attack patterns. For instance, he/she might 1) shield themselves, 2) attack, 3) rest, and 4) attack again before beginning the sequence anew. The only real issue I had with the game is how often I seemed to be fighting undead creatures. There were two issues here. One, all of the undead creatures needed to be eliminated in the same two turn window to complete the fight. Otherwise, they would resurrect each other. The challenge here was often not in building a deck that was effective, but in timing your attacks and changing the focus of your ally's attacks so that he/she didn't kill an enemy before you were ready to deal a final blow to the others. It was quite an unwelcome tedium. Two, many effects are ineffective versus this enemy type, such as attack debuffs and bleeding damage. The enemy attack debuff modifier that I added to Berem's attacks was one of the most satisfying aspects of using the character, but this did nothing vs. undead enemies. I have no issue with certain enemies being immune to certain effects, but when it feels as though these effects are useless for half of the game it can be disappointing. Despite the preponderance of undead, I did enjoy my time with the game. I find it surprising to see that I put almost 8 hours into the game, since the time just melted away. If you're interested in a tricky, tactical deck-builder, give Deck Adventurers a try. I'm excited to see what developer Junjo does with the sequel.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 10, 2022

  This one was tough for me to review. On the one hand, I had a lot of fun in the early game customizing my deck and trying out strategies. I should mention I started on Hard mode from the beginning, which was apparently the default mode when it was first released. This will be relevant throughout the rest of the review. But then the fun basically stops once you hit the Fire Elemental as Tasha (I can't remember the exact level but it's around 11 out of 24). At that point, the game becomes more of a puzzle than a card game. You're basically forced into specific strategies because enemies will be immune to most of the options available to a specific character. For instance, Undead are immune to Weaken and Bleed... so there's no point in taking those as the warrior anymore. It'd be fine if enemies had immunities sprinkled throughout the game to keep fights interesting, but once you hit that chapter I mentioned, virtually every single enemy will be immune to certain deck archetypes, forcing you down a particular path for each level. Oh, and there is no way to see this information beforehand, so expect to make a lot of blind decisions, then quitting a fight so that you can prepare properly. This problem is compounded further when the latter half of the game makes you rely on AI teammates. You can only use very specific defensive moves to give them protection against attacks, which makes later fights more frustrating than tactically interesting. If I know the enemy is going to attack my teammate, but I don't have any cards to protect them, what good does it do? Future fights become super reliant on RNG, because you pray the enemy will target you so your idiot teammate doesn't die. I really hope they change this in the sequel, because I don't want to waste time on RNG in a game that should have otherwise been focused on my decisions. There's already enough RNG with the deck, don't compound it further with random targeting and an inability to help my teammates out. Yes, I know you can heal them (with moves that provide a limited amount of healing per battle... -_-) and as Berem I could provide the Fire Shield to Tasha, but later fights make this far more of an RNG crisis than it should be. The difficulty should come from me learning from my mistakes, but Tasha getting targeted 8 times in a row by enemies is not my mistake, that's just shit luck. This is even worse in the final fight, where you're forced to fight 4 consecutive battles without any kind of checkpoint system. And each fight takes quite a while compared to the rest of the game. Finally, I'd really appreciate it if the dev could figure out a way to make enemies interesting without every single one having some kind of "Gets +1 Attack each turn of the game" mechanic. They all do it in a different way, but come on, there has to be something else you can do instead. So, that's a lot of complaining to still recommend the game. Why? Because it's an indie dev and the first half is a lot of fun. There's some really cool ideas in here and I can't deny the joy I felt from getting to customize my deck. If the second half was its own game though, I'd thumbs down it in a heartbeat, though. I hope the dev has learned their lessons from this iteration, because while I'm still somewhat interested in the sequel, that enthusiasm has waned considerably from the first time I booted this up. I guess we'll see what happens.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 1, 2022

  This is an amazing, marvelous game. It's a work of art. It's also not for everyone. Technically, this is a turn-based card battler, but it's nothing like Slay the Spire -- or anything else I've seen. Key phrases might be: - challenging - incredibly thoughtfully designed content - no random content/battles - combat puzzle ish ("ish" because there are multiple avenues to victory in every battle) - incredibly varied combat challenges - 100% free respecs - nuance-oriented - you DON'T get "big" choices about your decks - you do get "small" choices about details, and those matter A LOT - you cannot coast through the game using a single deck composition, single way of using tactics in battle, or even single character. you will need to constantly adapt on all three counts to succeed - it's worth repeating: CHALLENGING The target audience may not be broad, but Deck Adventurers scratched some brain-itches of mine that games rarely reach. If you're a thinky player who enjoys depth over breadth, this game may be a real diamond for you. Two more notes: INTERFACE -- The UI gets the job done but it is mostly not explained well. This can be confusing at times because the UI also evolves as you progress in the story (and a few display elements change without explanation at various points). If you don't mind learning it through trial and error, you'll be fine. If you're not used to turn-based RPG or card mechanics, though, I'd definitely start somewhere else. STORY -- The story starts out as very generic fantasy RPG fare. It ramps up only a little bit over time, and then after you beat the final battle -- BOOM! All of a sudden, the story explodes in the best sense. Out of nowhere, I found myself invested in the PCs and NPCs, wanting to know more backstory, and impatient for the sequel.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 3, 2021

  Okay, so I wanted to try this one out quickly because I was concerned that it somehow only has one legitimate review and it looked very interesting. To no great surprise, it is really good! It has a great pixel and old school music aesthetic combined with a legitimately interesting deck building progression that gives you upgrade paths and cards with multiple use options on them. For this low price, this one is a steal. Give it a shot!