spectre
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2008
- Messages
- 5,603
Slay the Spire wannabe deckbuilder roguelites are dime a dozen. If you've played some, all the mechanics will be immediately familiar - three "action" points to play cards,
some deal damage, others build up defense, bleed effects, poison effects, strenght and weakness, adding and removing cards to your deck, permanently or for the reminder of the battle,
all that shebang.
So why should you care this time round?
Well, KotCL (not to be confused with KotC without the L) tries to do away with one of StS biggest weaknesses - linearity.
It's also pretty story driven (quite surprising for the genre). Without delving too much (you can get the gist of it on the steam page as well as by playing the prologue),
you died and got resurrected by a shady character who keeps bringing you back and will probably be the final boss of the whole thing... yaawn.
Yeah, the bog standard justification for the roguelite formula.
What is immediately noticeable is that the game has a sprawling overmap with numerous branching paths to take (some of them might even take you into different other maps).
It still the same building blocks you know - traders to buy new stuff and thin out your deck, combat, boss combat, camps to rest or upgrade your cards, and events.
At the start, these are all unknown to you and will be revealed as you explore them, letting you unravel the story (again the spiel with the amnesiac trying to piece together what has happened
while they were in the ground). It's mostly the same on your subsequent playthroughs, but the events can play out slightly differently each time, also depending on the character you use in the run.
On top of your standard-fare mechanics, you also get equippable gear - weapons, armors, their effects can range from shuffling new cards into your deck to manipulating your stats.
There's a bunch of interesting choices to be made here which tweak your overall build. Some are organized into sets, with increasing benefits as you collect more pieces.
Overall, it's pretty in-depth.
Now, I've played it a bit, not too far to give a definite opinion. It's open to debate if they actually managed to solve the linearity of StS.
I have a stinking suspicion that once you've explored everything, there will be a singular, optimized path to follow for each character,
but until I'm there, I'm enjoying myself. While there's nothing really grounbreaking about it, it feels competently made and fresh compared to StS,
which I'm not touching ever again unless dementia hits me.
EDIT: Also, it has equipment, character builds as well as choices and consequences. I haven't seen any troons yet, even though the elves in this game look a bir orky.
So, a "dark horse" contender for a RPGOTY?
