Chrono Ark - High Quality Roguelite Deckbuilder, but Anime

[Rean]

Imagine Darkest Dungeon, but it's with cards and it's anime, and there's twice as many mechanics and impactful unlockables underneath all the death.

Combines grittiness with cuteness in a refreshing way.

Very high quality game, and it will get you hooked super fast.

Heard the story's pretty good too, but I'm not far enough in to confirm. Obviously everything on that front is discoverable in pieces, there's almost zero frontloading.

The translation's not ideal but it's not bad either.

Definitely a gem waiting to be played by you my dear friends, and it received some really good recognition too (well-deserved). Don't worry about the recent reviews, it's Chinese brigading about some recent drama and nothing to do with the quality of the game.

 

[Rean]

Poseidon00 Please let us know your thoughts (without spoilerinos ).
Falksi Just confirming this has nothing to do with Chrono Trigger.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I played some of this over a year ago. Was pretty good, didn't get to the ending. Characters were neat but was lacking a bit in variety, would assume it's much better now.

 

[Reinhardt]

it's some grimdark stuff?

 

[Poseidon00]

Poseidon00 Please let us know your thoughts (without spoilerinos ).
Falksi Just confirming this has nothing to do with Chrono Trigger.

Gameplay-wise, I think it's great. Each character is very unique and it takes some experimentation to really learn how to use them efficiently. My least favorites at the beginning became my favorites at the end, once I learned how to use their mechanics to my advantage. At it's hardest, I personally found it more challenging than Darkest Dungeon, or at least at the same level, but your mileage may vary. The characters are significantly deeper than in Darkest Dungeon, at the very least.

Narrative-wise, I think it's unique and interesting. I actually cared enough to want to see how it ended. However, I began playing when it was still well into early access, so my experience of the story may be somewhat different to how others experience it now.

 

[Reinhardt]

tried it. died to witch curses after she was already dead. for a tank, knight nigga hits like a fucking truck.

 

[Reinhardt]

it's addictive. killed twins in second area first try. couldn't do anything in direct combat when they were near death because of stacked stigmas but i had relic which nukes enemies when fog comes and they have shared health, so that was more than enough to delete them.

how many locations in the game right now? saved after second.

 

[Poseidon00]

it's addictive. killed twins in second area first try. couldn't do anything in direct combat when they were near death because of stacked stigmas but i had relic which nukes enemies when fog comes and they have shared health, so that was more than enough to delete them.

how many locations in the game right now? saved after second.

Spoiler

There are 4 main areas to the core gameplay loop. But they change with every run. For example, you won't always be fighting the twins or the witch in the first or second areas. Also, you are expected to complete the loop more than once. There are also branching paths to harder, optional areas, you have to unlock these by exploration. Also, there are areas you won't access until you reach certain parts in the story that aren't part of the "core" loop.

 

[Reinhardt]

killed forgotten kang with charon, parry girl, ninja girl and guy in gas mask. 5th or 6th loop total. almost died twice in second area before reaching him because i've put relic in showcase which showers you with cards but if you draw too many it discards everything and stuns everyone. unlocked blood mist difficulty.

 

[Saark]

Great game, even though I really don't like the coomer art-style, but this is easily one of the best Roguelite card-based turn-based games I've played in the last few years. Story also is quite interesting, which is rare these days. Anybody who isn't immediately put off by the art-style should give this a try.

 

[Elttharion]

Wow, this looks great, I will wishlist it

Chrono Ark is already in your Steam library

I think I am getting senile in my old age as I have no recollection of purchasing this game

 

[Poseidon00]

killed forgotten kang with charon, parry girl, ninja girl and guy in gas mask. 5th or 6th loop total. almost died twice in second area before reaching him because i've put relic in showcase which showers you with cards but if you draw too many it discards everything and stuns everyone. unlocked blood mist difficulty.

Have you discovered any of the optional bosses by now? Surely you've seen at least one of them lurking around.

 

[KafkaBot]

Wow, this looks great, I will wishlist it

Chrono Ark is already in your Steam library

I think I am getting senile in my old age as I have no recollection of purchasing this game

Make sure to get the bikini DLC

 

[Damned Registrations]

Picked this back up. It's way easier than I remember, back when I played I never even finished a run, the 3rd boss almost always got me. This time I started a fresh file, picked hard mode, and won the first run. There was even an easter egg for doing it. Probably a good thing, I'm assuming there's more difficult content later and the game I played back then was tuned pretty brutally. Bosses still rely a ton on unremovable debuffs, which is kind of annoying, as I tend to favour defensive strategies and those don't work of your party steadily gets crippled as the fight goes on.

 

[Poseidon00]

Picked this back up. It's way easier than I remember, back when I played I never even finished a run, the 3rd boss almost always got me. This time I started a fresh file, picked hard mode, and won the first run. There was even an easter egg for doing it. Probably a good thing, I'm assuming there's more difficult content later and the game I played back then was tuned pretty brutally. Bosses still rely a ton on unremovable debuffs, which is kind of annoying, as I tend to favour defensive strategies and those don't work of your party steadily gets crippled as the fight goes on.

Defensive strategies work quite well if you stack damage over time abilities. Ms. Chain and Gas-Mask-Healer both have very good damage over time abilities. And both of them can support a defensive party.

 

[Reinhardt]

killed forgotten kang with charon, parry girl, ninja girl and guy in gas mask. 5th or 6th loop total. almost died twice in second area before reaching him because i've put relic in showcase which showers you with cards but if you draw too many it discards everything and stuns everyone. unlocked blood mist difficulty.

Have you discovered any of the optional bosses by now? Surely you've seen at least one of them lurking around.

not really sure what considered optional here. like when you feed tokens to vending machine?
still can't kill 4 witches for unlock. she's very rare after initial runs.

 

[Saark]

Picked this back up. It's way easier than I remember, back when I played I never even finished a run, the 3rd boss almost always got me. This time I started a fresh file, picked hard mode, and won the first run. There was even an easter egg for doing it. Probably a good thing, I'm assuming there's more difficult content later and the game I played back then was tuned pretty brutally. Bosses still rely a ton on unremovable debuffs, which is kind of annoying, as I tend to favour defensive strategies and those don't work of your party steadily gets crippled as the fight goes on.

The first run ends up being quite a bit easier, since you haven't unlocked any of the additional bosses per area yet which widens the pool of possible bosses. Most of these are quite a bit harder than the initial ones. It is a neat little detail though that theres extra dialogue and even a reward for getting to the tower on your first run.

Spoiler

Also, that's not even remotely a "full" run.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Finished the second run. Game is much more fleshed out than I remember, more characters and story stuff mostly. Story is predictable so far, but it's not bad, and it's told well.

I like the characters; the edgelord dark priest is just too fun, and the party banter is a nice touch.

I also forgot just how good this game is mechanically. It goes so damned hard on the synergies and I love it. As an example:

Hein gets moves that deal extra damage base on his max hp and missing health. Obviously that synergizes with healers and tanks to keep him alive. But there's a healer that can increase his max health with a buff, and a character that can injure him to create other benefits. On top of that, he's got an ability to heal another party member by suffering half the missing health, which works great with a tank that can redirect the damage and survive a deathblow OR with the dark priest injuring her allies. And that's not even his full toolkit, he's got other shit that synergizes with other stuff as well, like debuffs or attacking multiple times. When you've got a party of 4 people it becomes a ton of fun trying to figure out the best actions to pair up for the optimal result.

Edit: I'd forgotten about the clock boss. Dear fucking god this was some sort of repressed memory. It's like an Escher painting of turn order bullshit.

Edit2: Finished a full run. Unlocked bonus difficulty stuff as expected. Jesus christ that was a long cutscene.

Winning party relied on 3 main strategies; Lian giving Trisha extra cards to trigger her passive more often, Trish copying Miss Chain's skills so combined they could drown the enemy in pain debuffs (I got lucky with the relics there, had 3 DoT themed relics right off the bat) and Trisha's bandage skill synergizing with all the pain debuffs left behind from Huz's healing. Definitely a lot of things I'd do differently if I did the run over, but it felt great seeing the team come together as I refined the deck into a cohesive whole. I want to do a team more focused on the parrying thing next time, that aspect of Lian didn't really work well with anyone here, as they had almost no countdown skills. Lots of team ideas kicking around honestly, this one was mostly used just to clear a couple more item unlocks, I hadn't gotten Lian or Huz past the 4th area yet.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Welp, started this thanks to Steam sales and hookes right from the start. Using Ms.Chain and cleric lady, for reasons...
Really liking combos between characters eventhough I didn't pick them thinking like that. Also need to learn reading again I guess >_>

 

[Poseidon00]

Pleasantly surprised to see people discovering this game. Glad to see it getting the recognition it deserves

 

[Reinhardt]

could be better without cards tho, that's one thing i absolutely hate in games.