Got a lot of time out of this game before the development team changed.
Truly enjoyed this when it first came out as it created a fun premise my friends and I enjoyed. I didn't just recommend this game, I regularly bought friends copies so I could play it with them. It was unique in its initial execution, allowing you to strategize with your friends, build around each other, and feel powerful with fun cards, buffs, and interactions. Very unique mechanics for a turn-based multiplayer game.
Unfortunately, some aspects of it haven't aged particularly well. Slay the Spire 2 allowing everyone to act within the same turn makes multiplayer combat feel dramatically faster and more natural by comparison. A lax run of Across the Obelisk can take several hours with friends, while our comparable Slay the Spire 2 runs tend to be significantly shorter.
That doesn't suddenly make Across the Obelisk bad, but it does make how slow and precise every individual turn can be much more noticeable now.
End of initial review. Very sad to see the state of this game.
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What we started to receive after Sands of Ulminin slowly became unsustainable as the development team started changing and, at times, seemingly stopped understanding what made the base roster and mechanics work so well.
New characters have repeatedly arrived with bugs, incorrect descriptions, tooltips that don't match what is actually happening, and mechanics that don't feel properly tested against the rest of the game.
There has also been far too much focus on Shadow as seemingly the easiest damage type and mechanic to continue expanding. Too many newer characters and mechanics revolve around it while other damage types, curses, and existing systems feel neglected.
Simply adding meaningful options to each damage type in the perk tree could vary gameplay WAY more than another new character would, probably with considerably less effort.
Some mechanics such as Stress technically have perk support, but are used so seldom that I have to ask why I would ever spend 3 perk points specifically protecting myself from it.
There are systems already IN the game begging to be expanded.
Some level 4 talents also feel like capstones in name only because bosses are immune to the very effects those talents are built around. That means you can finally finish putting a build together, use its defining mechanic for maybe 3-4 meaningful fights, and then reach the encounters where the build should be at its strongest only for the game to tell you that mechanic doesn't work anymore.
Sleep is one of the most obvious examples, where depending on the encounter your supposed capstone mechanic may barely activate at all.
A capstone should feel like the culmination of your build, not something the game disables right when your build reaches its climax.
The alternate ending fights also contain too much visual clutter, RNG, and mechanics that simply erase the advantage you've spent several turns building.
You'll be winning, having fun, building stacks and setting everything up properly, and then suddenly:
Cleanse everything.
Heal.
Reset.
Difficulty is fine. Having an enemy counter your strategy is fine. But having an encounter invalidate your board state after you've successfully built it doesn't always feel challenging so much as exhausting.
It makes those fights fun a few times for unlocks, but not something I particularly want to replay.
Maybe if they:
Upgrade the artwork and animations. The old stretch-and-puppet After Effects style used to have charm, but as the game grew, its price increased, and Paradox expanded its ownership and support, I expected the presentation to grow with it.
Properly plan and develop a sequel instead of endlessly stacking more characters and systems onto a foundation that already needs attention.
Acknowledge the state some recent content has shipped in and actually prioritize fixing the remaining bugs, incorrect descriptions, and broken interactions.
I would return to playing this game regularly.
And that's probably the saddest part.
I got almost 750 hours out of Across the Obelisk.
I loved this game enough to repeatedly buy it for other people just so I could play it with them.
I'm not saying those 750 hours were bad. They weren't.
I'm saying I can no longer recommend the game it has become.
It feels like I played and loved almost 750 hours of a game that slowly destroyed the reasons I loved it in the first place.
