Destiny or Fate

Review

Set off on an adventure as you build your deck, recruit monsters, visit the shop for upgrades and new cards in this rogue-like card building strategy game brought to you by Blaster

You start by selecting a hero from the three that are available to you, or you can have a hero randomly selected for you. There are another twelve heroes you’ll have to unlock as you play through the game. Each of the heroes have their own traits, attack, support or defence, and they also have their own unique abilities. To help you decide which hero you’d like to play with, you can check their details, which give you information on their leader skills, passive skills and hero upgrades. You can also check out the cards your hero will start with on the battlefield.



Once you’ve chosen your hero, you start on a map with three paths in front of you. At the end of each path there’s one of five possible outcomes (Battle, Elite, Boss, Shop and Mystery) on offer to you. All you need to do is click on the end of the path which you’d like to move too. If you choose to move onto a battle spot then you’ll go to the battle screen, where you’ll have to battle whichever monsters appear here. There could be one to three monsters waiting to battle against you.

In battle you’ll be dealt five cards; each card has the amount of mana it will cost to use that card, along with the type of card it is (attack, skill, power or curse). The amount of mana you can use each turn is displayed in the bottom left corner, along with the number of cards in your library. In the opposite corner you’ll find the number of cards in the tomb (cards unused in a turn) and the number of destroyed cards (cards used which are destroyed when used). In the bottom centre of the screen you’ll find your current party and cards which you can use this turn. You can have up to three monsters in your battle party with you, but can have more in your party. You can change these while on the map by hitting escape or while in the shop.

Your hero and monsters in your party all have their own abilities; these abilities can only be used once you’ve filled the Skill Bubble of each character. To fill the skill bubble, you must use cards in a certain order (shown on hero/monster profile, bottom centre of the screen) to unlock this ability. So, just using attack cards won’t fill a skill bubble, but using two attack cards followed by three skill cards (Kyle’s skill bubble) will allow him to use his unique ability. Once your skill bubble is full you can activate it straight away.

Using these abilities is a must, as attacking or defending alone will not always help; which order you use them is down to you, your game plan and the monsters you have in your current party. Keep an eye of the enemies as they will show you their next move, so that, with a bit of luck, you can do something about it.  There’s no point building a character’s defence one turn if the enemy isn’t going to attack that character. To win a battle you must defeat all in front of you; your party can die, but if you should fall while in battle, then it’s game over and it’s back to the drawing board.

Upon beating the monsters you’ll gain some gold and maybe some red and blue crystals as a reward. You will also get to choose one of three cards to add to your deck, as well as the option of choosing one of the monsters you’ve just defeated to join your party, provided you have enough blue crystals. The blue crystals can also be used to upgrade your monsters at the shop; the red crystals, which are harder to come by, are used to upgrade your hero. In the shop you can upgrade your hero or any of the current crop of monsters you currently have. You can buy and unlock cards, enchant cards and purchase masteries. These masteries are heroes which you may come across at the mystery points on the map if you set them free. To play with them in game you’ll have to unlock them using the blue coins which you’ll gain as you move from one point to another on the map.

You may notice the Elite spots on the map; these will have sub-bosses along with ordinary monsters to fight. If you do defeat them, as usual you can add the elite monster to your party.  However, they cost more in blue crystals than your standard monsters, so I’d suggest leaving them alone until you have plenty of blue crystals as they will be helpful when you finally take on the boss. The final boss has a lot more health than anything you’ve fought so far, but building your defences while tearing down theirs, and continuing to nibble at their health may just get you through this chapter and on to chapter two.

On the main menu screen, you’ll find the settings, where you can change the volume of the Music and Effects (0-100), Language (English/Korean/Chinese I believe so far), Progress Speed (Normal/Fast), Fullscreen On/Off and Resolution. There’s also Battle and Menu which lets you know the keyboard and mouse buttons to play the game. On the main menu screen there’s a Tutorial (Battle UI when in settings) which doesn’t show you how to play the game but lets you know all the details you’ll need when in battle, such as the amount of usable mana you have this turn, the mana cost of using a card, and card type (attack, skill, power and curse).

Also, on the main menu screen there is New Game, Encyclopedia, Statistics and Quit. The Encyclopedia and Statistics aren’t available as of yet and are under development, as is Adventure Diary in settings.

It’s easy to grasp how to play the game and it’s fun to play, but it isn’t easy to master. It’s quite challenging; the hardest part of the game I found is trying to get enough red crystals to upgrade your hero. I’ve only ever reached around thirteen crystals after revisiting new enemies which appear on the map; I’ll normally get maybe five or six red crystals before I end up dying. The game is in early access, so maybe in the future this will change, and you’ll be able to upgrade a little easier.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!

 


Positives

+ Nice graphics
+ Enjoyable game but very challenging
+ Achievements

Negatives

- Frustrating at times
- Hard to upgrade hero
- No cards currently

Review Summary

A rogue-like deck-building strategy game where your hero will recruit monsters to your party that you’ve just defeated in battle.

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Zeepond Rating: 7/10

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