ꜱᴘᴀʀᴋ Posted May 30, 2020 Share Posted May 30, 2020 (edited) GAME INFORMATION Platform: Microsoft Windows Developer: Shiny Shoe Publisher: Good Shepherd Entertainment Release Date: 21 May, 2020 Price: CURRENTLY OFF (10%) $7.64 USD GENERAL Monster Train is a strategic roguelike deck-building game set on a train to Hell. Hell has frozen over, and it’s up to you to protect the last Pyre from the forces of Heaven to make the underworld burn once more. Monster Train adds an extra strategic element to deck-builders with three vertical play fields that must be defended at a time. Build a deck of spells and minions from over 200 cards, and position your champions on each level to protect the train and your Pyre from invaders. With five clans to combine and fight for, challenging enemies to balance your deck against, and multiple routes to take through Hell, no playthrough is ever the same. Monster Train’s unique time-based online multiplayer mode "Hell Rush" lets up to eight players compete against one another in time-based challenges for an exciting experience under intense pressure. Create your own custom challenges and share them with the world to see who can top the leaderboards. GAMEPLAY Monster Train isn't a sequel, but the way it builds on Slay the Spire and other roguelike-meets-deckbuilder card games kind of makes it feel like one. It reminds me of how Doom Eternal piles on more and more things you have to juggle in combat, making Doom 2016 look calm and simplistic by comparison. After just a few runs in Monster Train I was fighting bosses with more than 1000 hit points, leveling up three separate "clans" of card types, and increasing the game difficulty by starting at a higher "covenant" rank, all while still figuring out the basic strategy of this card game. It's a little bit messy and a little bit overwhelming, but also the rare case where piling on more and more features really does make for an excellent game. The gist of Monster Train is that it's a roguelike deckbuilder: As overseer of the minions of Hell, you're the conductor of a fiery train speeding towards Hell's heart to relight its flame, which has been extinguished by some real jerk angels from Heaven. Unlike in Slay the Spire, where you control a single character, the setup here is a bit more like Magic the Gathering, with a dash of tower defense thrown in. You play cards to deploy minions on three levels of the train, and in each battle enemies enter at the bottom and move their way upwards towards the fourth floor, where your Pyre sits. That's your HP, so if the Pyre is destroyed, you lose. Different selectable factions form the basis for your decks and champion each run, consisting of core cards and an upgradeable leader. While you can liken some of them at the base level to mage, healer, or aggressive melee archetypes, there's a lot more going on here. Each faction plays quite differently, and you combine two different factions in each run to determine your spell, monster, and artifact pools. These synergies lead to a ton of fun experiments, and each faction feels unique on its own as well. From the candle-creatures that boast incredible power but burn out over time, to the umbral race that feeds upon little morsel-monsters that look like they escaped the forges of Spirited Away, the choices are distinct and a blast to concoct curious alchemy with. Decks are a bit like Magic, too, in that before each run you choose a primary and a secondary clan. The starter clans, the Hellhorned and Awoken, are basically Red and Green, demons mixed with direct damage fireball spells, and sentient plants that can amass big pools of health. Positioning your units is a big part of the strategy, because attacks always pile up on the front unit of a row until it's dead. The setup only takes a few minutes to understand, but there's deep strategic potential in a decision as simple as which row of the tower to place a unit, and whether it should go in front of or behind another one. The structure of Monster Train will otherwise not be a surprise if you've played any roguelike card game released in the last few years. Progression makes you choose between splitting paths, one side leading to a shop where you can upgrade your units, the other to more gold and an artifact that offers a powerful buff. There are random points of interest that can reward you with a new card or riches, but with some risk attached. Compared to Slay the Spire, there are fewer fights, but each is longer and more involved. It's a fun rhythm, where you're guaranteed some nice rewards between each battle, and basic upgrades to your cards are cheap enough that you'll get to do a lot of them. KEY FEATURES You’ll never play the same deck twice! * over 220 cards * 5 monster clans with each very different gameplay * Each clan has 10 levels to unlock, bringing new cards to your deck * Upgrade your clan specific champion multiple times * 88 artifacts * Upgrade any card twice * More than 21 unique random events * 25 covenant (difficulty) levels You can weed out unwanted cards from your deck as well as add and modify new ones. Combining your cards with artifacts that have persistent global effects can make or break a run, like an object that randomizes the play cost of all your cards, potentially letting use your high-cost options for free. Each little synergy you discover is a joy, and then putting multiple concepts together to tackle a high-difficulty run is incredibly satisfying, stacking many layers of strategy on top of each other. However, runs can start to feel too much the same after you discover the various ways you can break things extra hard by stacking multi-strike effects or armor incantation. On the mega difficulty modes, you are forced to seek out the most brutal and broken combos each time, and although the core bosses change a bit, the game can feel like you’re simply playing against yourself and some randomization each time instead of any real enemy. Monster Train is a pleasant, mind-blowingly addictive exercise that’s well worth your time, especially if you’re a fan of roguelikes, card games, and deck-building fare. Hours of entertainment await, often chained back-to-back like a crazy card combo. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ( RECOMMENDED ) OS: Windows 10 Processor: Core i5 Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: GTX 1050 DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 2 GB available space OFFICIAL YT TRAILER Edited May 30, 2020 by May_hem__ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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