My last recorded game of 2022 is one I imagine people would think is most-removed from my tastes: A Hearthstone-esque roguelike deckbuilder set on a train in hell. I haven't had much opportunity to discuss it here, but one of my lowkey genre obsessions is card games - I don't play all of them, I couldn't tell you a lick about Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh, but when I find one that hits my brainworms just right, it becomes a violent headspace fervor. Pokemon, CvS Cardfighters, Battle Network and Star Force, Slay The Spire - all games I've burned near-hundreds of hours into, bordering thousands in Mega Man's case. I'm already a firm advocate in self-expression through combat, but there's an extra layer I love about compartmentalizing every identifiable quirk, ability and rote-movement into a simple, compact card. The deck is a sum of assimilated parts equaling the self; a diary and bibliography to long-forgotten warriors, expert tacticians and wandering mysteries. The synergies, parallels, complements, one-shots, patterns AND pattern-breakers are colors to a palette - freely interchangeable and taking on unique roles in context-dependent builds. I can't get enough of it.
I hopped onto Monster Train after glancing it in a favorite roguelikes list and a glowing recommendation from Vee: It immediately drew to mind STS with the unit management of more traditional tabletop card games. In execution, it resolves what I imagine are a lot of common grievances for basically everyone that likes STS but not enough to ascension-climb it: RNG is mostly less-prevalent to deck-building and encounters, there's enormous payouts between fewer-but-grander battles, most default cards remain useful over the run, and everything is heavily-upgradeable with little to no cost. You can start winning runs as soon as the second or third attempt: The intent was clearly for ascension-climbing to be the game's evolution of difficulty, rather than starting hard and escalating further into madness. And most surprisingly, it actually has good music: The melodies are strong, and the instrumentation is both distinct and memorable. It's a good orchestra/rock blend with very powerful acclimations during boss themes, conveying the rickety engine-like movement across Hell's frozen terraform. This is music I would actually consider listening to outside of gameplay, and wouldn't be out of place in a proper JRPG.
With that said, the 2-faction system ends up putting somewhat strict reigns on the outcome of your build: Not only are some factions just better than others, but they don't always synergize well with each other. In STS, all your tools are incredibly simple and individually-weak, but create violent perpetual motion machines with even a little tandem play. But in Monster Train, there's so many systems and situations going on at once, that some card picks vary between being run-winners to being almost worthless. This gets worse as you climb ascensions and get randomized starting cards, many of which won't offer a meaningful boon until your toolkit gets fleshed out mid-run.
I wanted to compare this much further to STS, but I think that's largely pointless when the two games have unique design goals: One is a lone journey where you start and struggle through hell and high water; the other is a communal quest, with more traditional 'save your people' narration and challenge. Monster Train's dispersion of tools across units has the co'op-like effect of splitting your responsibility across the rest of your team, diminishing the blame of a failed run. And due to the way the pyre and floors work, you have multiple opportunities to avoid receiving 'damage' through defensive play and low-floor snipes. The few moments a unit does land a hit are acceptable scrapes in order to mush onward, and if an enemy IS strong enough to land a hard blow, chances are it'll kill your train anyway. The sight of a 40HP Pyre never invokes dread; only caution. On the other hand, STS relentlessly punishes you and wants you to know it: You hardly avoid damage, just diminish it, and constantly have to weigh odds around survivability. Even at peak performance, crushing blows have to be accepted. You constantly feel the blood leaking out of your system, and there's merciless pressure dragging at your heels on every floor. I love that these games manage to have totally unique ways of letting you interface and fight through their worlds without ever being 'replacements' for each other, and I'll always respect them as masters to their own devices.
But all said and done, I don't anticipate myself getting into Monster Train long-term the way I did with STS. The difficulty pacing remains all too bizarre throughout a run: I started noticing myself going through runs, finishing a fight, seeing the rewards and just, flatlining. My investment would randomly drop on a hat and I'd put the game down immediately, come back to it later, and restart my run just for sake of not having to eat leftovers. I think by having huge piles of payouts at smaller frequencies, it feels a lot more miserable in those few times you don't get what you want for a build. Hell, often times I don't even know what I NEED for a build until it's too late. You can smoothly coast through everything and then hit a boss and get your ass whupped because you forgot to specialize in HP support, or your deck was too spell-dependent and trigger their incant abilities, or any range of weird hiccups. While STS is also an extremely matchup-dependent game, I feel better-compelled to balance out my tools there because there's so many reality checks before the final encounters: Attack, draw, energy, defense, spread, and status effects are heavily evaluated by all of the game's major enemy encounters, and there's few points you can coast by with an under-developed corner of your deck. But in Monster Train, it's all too common to win the first 5 fights by just overpowering the small fries, only to realize you lack endurance to beat the quadruple-digit-HP bosses.
You also can't really 'flow' through Monster Train: You have to be proactively thinking at every turn of a run. Even after roughly 20+ hours I couldn't auto-pilot any one part of a run or ever play on 'instinct' until a challenge called for patience. I have to dedicate all my mental energy to this, just like a CCG, but the game just isn't challenging that dedication in a smooth-enough curve. And it doesn't help the factions aren't balanced at all. If you made a ranked list of class strength by the order you unlock them, you would get a diagonal line; the disparity between the starting Hellhorned and the late-game Waxed units is maniacal. I'm not a stickler for balance - I love OP things, - but I think roguelikes need a good baseline, or at least should make the weaker builds fun in unique ways, like a self-imposed challenge with the tradeoff of getting a distinctly-gimmicky play experience.
But hey, the word salad ain't a condemnation of love; just addiction. Love this shit and it's maybe for the better that it won't eat the next 4 months of my life. Kinda respect that.
---
It felt good to end 2022 on a strong note with this and Symphony of the Night, though I gotta admit I'm burnt out and lost a lot of time trying to clear out my growing backlog while scooping into new territory. I think going into 2023, I'm resolving to play less games as a whole, and focus on quality over quantity.
Happy new years to all, and a very merry sega-tape-waffle-making
I hopped onto Monster Train after glancing it in a favorite roguelikes list and a glowing recommendation from Vee: It immediately drew to mind STS with the unit management of more traditional tabletop card games. In execution, it resolves what I imagine are a lot of common grievances for basically everyone that likes STS but not enough to ascension-climb it: RNG is mostly less-prevalent to deck-building and encounters, there's enormous payouts between fewer-but-grander battles, most default cards remain useful over the run, and everything is heavily-upgradeable with little to no cost. You can start winning runs as soon as the second or third attempt: The intent was clearly for ascension-climbing to be the game's evolution of difficulty, rather than starting hard and escalating further into madness. And most surprisingly, it actually has good music: The melodies are strong, and the instrumentation is both distinct and memorable. It's a good orchestra/rock blend with very powerful acclimations during boss themes, conveying the rickety engine-like movement across Hell's frozen terraform. This is music I would actually consider listening to outside of gameplay, and wouldn't be out of place in a proper JRPG.
With that said, the 2-faction system ends up putting somewhat strict reigns on the outcome of your build: Not only are some factions just better than others, but they don't always synergize well with each other. In STS, all your tools are incredibly simple and individually-weak, but create violent perpetual motion machines with even a little tandem play. But in Monster Train, there's so many systems and situations going on at once, that some card picks vary between being run-winners to being almost worthless. This gets worse as you climb ascensions and get randomized starting cards, many of which won't offer a meaningful boon until your toolkit gets fleshed out mid-run.
I wanted to compare this much further to STS, but I think that's largely pointless when the two games have unique design goals: One is a lone journey where you start and struggle through hell and high water; the other is a communal quest, with more traditional 'save your people' narration and challenge. Monster Train's dispersion of tools across units has the co'op-like effect of splitting your responsibility across the rest of your team, diminishing the blame of a failed run. And due to the way the pyre and floors work, you have multiple opportunities to avoid receiving 'damage' through defensive play and low-floor snipes. The few moments a unit does land a hit are acceptable scrapes in order to mush onward, and if an enemy IS strong enough to land a hard blow, chances are it'll kill your train anyway. The sight of a 40HP Pyre never invokes dread; only caution. On the other hand, STS relentlessly punishes you and wants you to know it: You hardly avoid damage, just diminish it, and constantly have to weigh odds around survivability. Even at peak performance, crushing blows have to be accepted. You constantly feel the blood leaking out of your system, and there's merciless pressure dragging at your heels on every floor. I love that these games manage to have totally unique ways of letting you interface and fight through their worlds without ever being 'replacements' for each other, and I'll always respect them as masters to their own devices.
But all said and done, I don't anticipate myself getting into Monster Train long-term the way I did with STS. The difficulty pacing remains all too bizarre throughout a run: I started noticing myself going through runs, finishing a fight, seeing the rewards and just, flatlining. My investment would randomly drop on a hat and I'd put the game down immediately, come back to it later, and restart my run just for sake of not having to eat leftovers. I think by having huge piles of payouts at smaller frequencies, it feels a lot more miserable in those few times you don't get what you want for a build. Hell, often times I don't even know what I NEED for a build until it's too late. You can smoothly coast through everything and then hit a boss and get your ass whupped because you forgot to specialize in HP support, or your deck was too spell-dependent and trigger their incant abilities, or any range of weird hiccups. While STS is also an extremely matchup-dependent game, I feel better-compelled to balance out my tools there because there's so many reality checks before the final encounters: Attack, draw, energy, defense, spread, and status effects are heavily evaluated by all of the game's major enemy encounters, and there's few points you can coast by with an under-developed corner of your deck. But in Monster Train, it's all too common to win the first 5 fights by just overpowering the small fries, only to realize you lack endurance to beat the quadruple-digit-HP bosses.
You also can't really 'flow' through Monster Train: You have to be proactively thinking at every turn of a run. Even after roughly 20+ hours I couldn't auto-pilot any one part of a run or ever play on 'instinct' until a challenge called for patience. I have to dedicate all my mental energy to this, just like a CCG, but the game just isn't challenging that dedication in a smooth-enough curve. And it doesn't help the factions aren't balanced at all. If you made a ranked list of class strength by the order you unlock them, you would get a diagonal line; the disparity between the starting Hellhorned and the late-game Waxed units is maniacal. I'm not a stickler for balance - I love OP things, - but I think roguelikes need a good baseline, or at least should make the weaker builds fun in unique ways, like a self-imposed challenge with the tradeoff of getting a distinctly-gimmicky play experience.
But hey, the word salad ain't a condemnation of love; just addiction. Love this shit and it's maybe for the better that it won't eat the next 4 months of my life. Kinda respect that.
---
It felt good to end 2022 on a strong note with this and Symphony of the Night, though I gotta admit I'm burnt out and lost a lot of time trying to clear out my growing backlog while scooping into new territory. I think going into 2023, I'm resolving to play less games as a whole, and focus on quality over quantity.
Happy new years to all, and a very merry sega-tape-waffle-making