Chosen Card Chronicles

This is an incredibly ambitious game with an immensely wide scope. The art style is very charming, and the mechanics to the card system are very complex and deep. Between the complexity of the mechanics, the "bit crushed" card designs, and the 8-bit-style music, the influence of GBA Yu-Gi-Oh and similar games is very apparent. The writing is clever, humorous, and at times even sentimental. While some might feel overwhelmed by the options that the game presents you with and how little the game holds your hand beyond explaining the rules of the card mechanics, others will welcome the amount of trust and freedom that the devs have chosen to provide you with as a player. Overall, this is a game that's trying something new and, in many ways, succeeding. Incorporating the most engaging elements of modern online gacha/mobile games without demanding you swipe your credit card is an interesting touch that's sure to keep you coming back for more. The fact that an entire card battle system has been developed within RenPy, a system ostensibly function-built for VNs, is another example; imagine what would be possible with a more permissive engine. For fans of complex deck-building and card-battling games, this will surely be a welcome and unique distraction. For those new to the genre, one might be left confused. However, there's plenty that the game does to make it accessible and interesting even if you're not engaging with every single system in the most nuanced and min/max manner. As with any indie game of this scope, there are certainly sacrifices made. However, from what exposure I have, none of those sacrifices were to the scale of the deck-building system, the sheer amount of cards available, the systems able to engage with, etc. Where you'll notice the limitations of this project are the fine details: item icons, text coloration, and, say, menu art are what come to mind. Other reviewers have highlighted the lack of card sorting/searching mechanism, which is certainly something that would be useful for a player of a game with hundreds and hundreds of cards, many of which mutually interact. Check it out for the unique art and writing, and you'll find the complexity and scope of the systems at play keeping you hooked. Recommended for fans of card battlers, deck builders, retro Yu-Gi-Oh games.