Developer: Klei Entertainment
Publisher: Klei Entertainment
Rrp: £15.49 (Steam)
Released: 1st of June 2021
Available on: Steam
Played Using: Mouse and keyboard
Approximate game length: 14 hours
Living in the Griftlands has never been easy, every one is after something and their willing to steal, cheat, lie and even kill to get it. Nothing comes without a price, not even friendship. But if you can fight your way to anywhere even close to the top of the food chain you can find yourself swimming in riches. Just make sure to always watch your back.
This is a roguelite deck building game where you play as a human called Sal Fallon, at first, there are other characters that become available as you play, each of which have their own story, location, cards and mechanics. You play with two decks, one for negotiations and the other for combat, and you’ll be doing a lot of both.
As I mentioned each character has their own story to follow and you get to influence how that story goes, who you ally with and who becomes your enemy. It all comes down to the choices you make, perhaps you didn’t take on a job and so a friend died that you could have helped or perhaps they died because you took on that job. Each time you play the story will play out a bit differently, although the core of the story stays the same, such as with Sal Fallon who wants revenge, that motivation doesn’t change as that is core to the story.
Whether you’re in combat or in a negotiation your turns always start the same, you draw five cards. Each card has an action cost and by default the amount of action points you have at the start of your turn is three, however there are cards that can increase that.
In negotiations your ‘Resolve’ is your health, or rather the health of your ‘core argument’. This resolve doesn’t regenerate between negotiations, unless you get a drink or sleep… usually, there are a few other ways but they’re random events that can’t be relied upon. If you run out of resolve you don’t die but you do lose that argument which can have disastrous effects.
In both negotiations and battles you can perform a ‘flourish’. This is an action that fills up over the course of all your negotiations and battles (though it should be noted that they both have their own separate meters). These fill up by dealing damage, defending from damage and killing opponents (or arguments in negotiations case). A flourish is a single move that doesn’t use up any action points and can be something that breaks a stalemate by causing a lot of damage or debuffing your enemy.
While playing you’ll end up occasionally working with an ally who will assist you in battles and negotiations or perhaps you’ll get a pet. You only control yourself though your allies etc will do as they see fit. Thankfully, you can play certain cards of yours upon your allies and you can see who your allies (and enemies) are targeting for their next attack. You can view this by hovering the mouse over the ally (or enemy) and it will show a red arrow to their intended target.
You can choose to not kill an enemy by getting their health below a certain point known as the panic threshold. When their health reaches this point they will want to surrender and you can choose to kill them or not (although you can’t do that if there are other enemy combatants still active). However, killing them can have a social impact such as a friend of theirs hating you. It’s not all bad though because killing an enemy also gives you a card to use in your battle deck, typically these are temporary but some aren’t.
Now you may be thinking why should you care if someone loves or hates you? Well, in this game if you’re loved by a character then they will grant a boon and these boons can be incredibly potent (although many are just a bit helpful). So, if being loved gives a boon its only logical that being hated does the opposite and it does, being hated gives you a bane. Banes are negative effects that can really hamper you.
There are two currencies in this game, Shills and Mettle. Shills are the main currency that’s used for bribes, buying cards and equipment etc. This is the currency you’ll be paid when you complete a quest. Mettle though, mettle can only be used at a specific shop to buy ‘meta’ improvements, as in permanent upgrades for that character. Mettle also transfers from playthrough to playthrough (although not between characters).
As you use your cards they will gain experience and eventually evolve, when that occurs you’re given two choices on how that card will change. Cards aren’t the only thing that evolves though, while playing you’ll occasionally be rewarded with an item called a ‘graft’. Grafts are implants your character can use to enhance their negotiation and battle abilities and just like the cards they too also evolve as you play.
Eventually every run comes to a somewhat abrupt end where your luck just runs out. Well thankfully that isn’t necessarily a bad thing because regardless of how you end a run, whether by dying or completing the story new cards, outfits and abilities become unlocked.
As you play you’ll naturally hit certain milestones known as ‘grifts’. For each of these that you achieve you gain a ‘perk point’ which are spent on unlocking perks that you can have active during your run. However, the only time you can spend these points is when you’re starting a new run.
Of course, completing the story is the aim of the game and when you do you’re given the extra reward of unlocking a prestige level which increases the challenge but also allows for greater perks to be purchased.
Even when you’ve completed a characters story that doesn’t mean you’ve seen everything that story has to offer. There will still be new missions to take on and even a few that are hidden behind certain cards and events.
I quite like that when you’re in a conversation certain words are highlighted so that you can hover over them with the mouse and get a brief explanation or in the case of people it shows your standing and history with them. This is a great way to give the player a bit of understanding of the world without giving exposition dumps.
In case it wasn’t apparent I really rate this game highly. There’s so much to this game that I actually have had to cut out a lot from this review because I want there to be some surprise for those that decide to buy the game. If you like a deck builder you’ll love this.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Slay the Spire
Hand of Fate 2
