Across the Obelisk

Before I start my review, I would like to ask you to ignore the negative reviews that call the DLCs expensive. Across the Obelisk, just like other roguelikes, is supposed to be replayed multiple times. With each run, you unlock new cards to build your deck with, more gold and shards, more heroes and more perks to make those heroes more powerful. The DLCs don't make your game longer, they add more heroes and zones to choose from during your runs, increasing replayability. By all means, buy the base game first to see if you like it, and wait for a sale on the DLCs, but don't let the mixed reviews put you off. With this out of the way, here's the review: Like so many games nowadays, Across the Obelisk is a hybrid. The general gameplay, the way you remove and upgrade cards, as well as obtain new ones, is typical for a roguelike deckbuilder. However, it has many RPG elements as well. You have 4 slots for your heroes. To start with, these are occupied by the 4 "starter heroes" - a warrior, a scout, a mage and a healer. As you rescue more characters (12 in the base game) you will be able to replace any of your original ones by simply dragging and dropping them into the desired slot. As you do your runs, you get rewards. In addition to gold for purchasing stat-boosting equipment for your heroes, and shards for crafting/upgading cards, there is XP. As you earn XP, you level up - the player, not the characters. Each level you gain gives you a corresponding amount of perk points (some games call them “talents”) to spend in the perk trees of Each of your characters. This system ensures that it doesn’t really matter which heroes you use, as long as they make a balanced group.The characters level up separately, as you play. The gameplay loop for the Adventure mode is as follows: Encounters are pre-set, and every one has a little story, with a choice of outcomes. At least a couple outcomes are determined by dice rolls; if you have a specific hero in your party, or a specific equipped item, they might unlock an additional one; for some encounters there is an option to skip the fight entirely. When the fight is over, you pick a reward for each of your heroes. The fewer turns you finish the fight in, the better the rewards, so those perk points do matter! Your first run in the save has no special rules. However, each subsequent run in the same save increases the level of “Corruption”, formerly known as “Madness”. The higher the Corruption level of your run, the more likely the fight is to have a “Corrupted” version - with additional buffs for enemies and extra rewards for you (such as a free card upgrade for all heroes). You can choose your reward, or opt not to cross that box, fighting the “normal” version of the fight instead, for the standard reward of “card for each hero to add to their deck, or a corresponding amount of shards”. The corrupted fights are usually well worth the extra effort! The other modes vary the formula: Singularity is the same as Adventure, but with only one copy of each card in the decks; Obelisk Challenge (on the mode selection screen) is a draft mode, with randomised encounters - no story; Weekly Challenge is the same as Obelisk challenge, but with specific characters and rules, rotating weekly. The quality of life features are excellent! You can reset your game data in the General options, “wiping the slate clean” You can surrender at any time during the fight, which ends your run. You can continue where you left off even if you exit the game mid-fight. If one of your heroes dies during a fight but the others manage to finish it, the fallen one will be resurrected after the battle with 70% health and a “bad” card in their deck. There is a Practice Mode (on the title screen) allowing you to practice battles with heroes you don’t own. The multiplayer works great - you decide who controls which heroes at the start of the run, and roll the dice if you disagree which encounter outcome to choose. If you’d rather not argue, just check the “follow the leader” box before starting! In other words, I wholeheartedly recommend this game, whether you are a newcomer to the genre or a veteran!

Can't get past the pointless, unnecessary launher, waste of money 0/10

At one point, this was an incredible game, possibly my favorite card game. Unfortunately once Paradox Interactive acquired the game, they decided to absolutely destroy it. Greedy DLC, unnecessary launcher, selling data, etc. I foolishly keep hoping that it will revert to its former self or someone will make a clone of it that I can support.

I came back to check on this game after a long break and was interested in the many DLCs they have come out with. After looking at the price there's no way I would recommend this to anyone. Maybe on some deep discounts on top of the 25% off, the bundles would be worth it but currently the DLCs are WAY overpriced.

In my opinion about this game is, get the basic game its good as it is and will have fun time. They fix lot of issue when game first came out in 2021. When this game studio sold itself to the new publisher Paradox, they keep making DLC that not worth high price, always highly recommend for discount sales for them. Should think about making Across the Obelisk 2 with focus on working on the basic of the game , cards, classes and make them much better.

This is an amazing game at base. I had a ton of fun with it, and would recommend. I feel the DLC is overpriced, but the base game was well, well worth the money.

Today (03/05/2026), Slay the Spire 2 Early Access was released. Rest In Peace with your expensive DLCs. NOTHING here is better than StS 2. Buy StS 2 instead. You are welcome!