While successful Griftlands is a game that deserves much much more recognition than it got. While it lacks the replayability of other deckbuilders it is hands down the greatest experience I've had in a deckbuilder.
Why? Because it succeeds at telling amazing stories while doing it. This is a narrative heavy game with major choices and consequences in the story of each of the 3 characters.
The world building is phenomenal, each character is complex and really interesting with major major kudos to Smith, a complete train wreck of a drunken *sshole who surprised me in becoming one of my top 10 favorite game character of any game ever.
Some game design decision might be shocking: a run is 8 to 10 hours long and if you die, you die. What's on the line is big and when during the final boss your heart will be pumping. Now, the difficulty is also adapted to that: I beat all 3 stories on my first try and never had to redo anything. So this is a design choice that is scary but in my case I found it created a powerful tension that made me really care about my choices and immersed me really deeply.
The only caveat is that there is no Griftlands 2 and by the time I beat the game the only thing I wanted was more Griftlands and more stories about it's characters.
Oh yeah, and the soundtrack by Emmett Hall is absolutely incredible and haunting. There is so much care in it with a unique track for dozens of NPCs you barely meet for a few minutes, multiple combat and negotiation tracks for each character depending if it's day or night... Dynamic tracks during combats affected by which side is winning. It's kinda insane how good it is.
Why? Because it succeeds at telling amazing stories while doing it. This is a narrative heavy game with major choices and consequences in the story of each of the 3 characters.
The world building is phenomenal, each character is complex and really interesting with major major kudos to Smith, a complete train wreck of a drunken *sshole who surprised me in becoming one of my top 10 favorite game character of any game ever.
Some game design decision might be shocking: a run is 8 to 10 hours long and if you die, you die. What's on the line is big and when during the final boss your heart will be pumping. Now, the difficulty is also adapted to that: I beat all 3 stories on my first try and never had to redo anything. So this is a design choice that is scary but in my case I found it created a powerful tension that made me really care about my choices and immersed me really deeply.
The only caveat is that there is no Griftlands 2 and by the time I beat the game the only thing I wanted was more Griftlands and more stories about it's characters.
Oh yeah, and the soundtrack by Emmett Hall is absolutely incredible and haunting. There is so much care in it with a unique track for dozens of NPCs you barely meet for a few minutes, multiple combat and negotiation tracks for each character depending if it's day or night... Dynamic tracks during combats affected by which side is winning. It's kinda insane how good it is.
The negotiations in this game are soooo fun. Many games give you options to talk your way out of a situation, but its often at the cost of interacting with the fun mechanics - but i love that in this game the negotiations are their own thing, and theres quite the emphasis on playing them AND fighting normally. The art style is quite good, and I love the designs.
The music could be better, but outside of battle themes I found myself ignoring a lot of it. I could see it made that way as to not distract from reading, but it still feels like a miss. I also don't see myself doing more than a few more runs after beating the campaigns once, but that's a personal thing.
I liked this title a lot more than I thought I would! The writing was also very witty, and while the plots were not life-changing, they were fun and engaging. I'll def be picking up a run here or there to pass time.
The music could be better, but outside of battle themes I found myself ignoring a lot of it. I could see it made that way as to not distract from reading, but it still feels like a miss. I also don't see myself doing more than a few more runs after beating the campaigns once, but that's a personal thing.
I liked this title a lot more than I thought I would! The writing was also very witty, and while the plots were not life-changing, they were fun and engaging. I'll def be picking up a run here or there to pass time.