Gordian Quest

This is a tough one for me to review. I'd give it a neutral rating if I could, but since I can't it's a thumbs down. The game is well made with a ton of content, but a few things make me want to stop playing. The biggest problem is that most combats play out exactly the same. It doesn't matter if I'm fighting bandits or spiders or demons or animated patio furniture -- just spam area damage and everything dies. For some reason, my characters all have obscene initiative bonuses (probably something like +25), so my entire party always acts before any enemy, and by that time the enemies are all dead. There are lots of characters I didn't play, lots of choices I didn't make, and lots of strategies I didn't try. There's a huge game out there. But I just don't see the point in playing again. My very first run, on Hard difficulty, I didn't lose a single combat after the first 5 (when I was learning the game mechanics). The stakes are so low, there's no excitement or suspense to the combat. It's just a question of how much time this one is going to take, and when do I get to move on to the next act, and when do I finally decide I've had enough.

Everything about this game says that it should be right up my alley but nothing about it seems to land with me. Everything falls flat and I just end up feeling extremely bored after only a short time of playing. This is one of those games I keep trying to pick up and always find a reason to put down. A shame.

So, this is a weird review to write. I played this game a lot, and... it's my kind of game in many ways. I love StS, I love deck building, and adventures. But unless you're a die hard card game player for a game like this, and even then, I can't recommend this game. The basic gameplay loop isn't terrible... but the game system is terribly convoluted, and many of the fine detail mechanics aren't obvious. I played it through the first time on Roguelite mode on the Hard difficulty setting, and had a few close calls as I got to know the game, but then hit a point where my decks got good and just kinda soared through the last half of act 3 and all of act 4. And, the main problem with the game is that it's all balancing on a knife's edge with difficult to track mechanics. Both you and the AI are usually playing an all or nothing game. You either trounce their whole team, or find yourself killed in one hit. If you're playing on Roguelike mode, that means that character is dead forever. If not... the game is incredibly easy. Simply put, the game balance is off. Either the game is too easy with a very convoluted progression system, or it's too hard to understand to play at the highest level and isn't fun. Many mechanics in game aren't described at all, and there's no way to know the order of operations of different effects. You've no idea how your cards and abilities interact sometimes until you play them, and some are so poorly worded that I've no idea what they really do. Games like this live and die by their mechanical precision, and this one doesn't cut it. But, if you don't feel the need to push yourself that hard, and just want to kill some monsters... I guess if you've finished StS and want something a little different? Nah, just get StS

In short you find a combo an repeat it infinitely, there is no reason to swap heroes and each hero progression is boring. After certain time new cards are worse then what you already have. Judging by the achievement stats 70% of players never made it past the ACT 1. They left all these positive reviews and stopped playing?

✅ Amazing turn-based card battler ✅ Addicting gameplay ✅ Several heroes to play with each with their own unique builds ✅ Equipment system was a nice twist for a card battler - you're gonna spend so much time tinkering and optimizing hero builds ✅ Huge skill tree system ✅ Artstyle looks pretty good ✅ Highly replayable ✅ Endgame content after beating campaign ✅ Can fully reset skill tree quite easily ❌ After Act 1, you can't rest at an inn. And it becomes quite annoying to remove exhaustion status ❌ Story is quite forgettable for a game that tries to put a lot of focus on story ❌ Somewhere after early game, I was able to beat most battles in 1-2 turns. It made a lot of sense for normal encounter (as the game features too much encounters) but even boss battles I was able to beat them within 2 turns which felt pretty underwhelming ❌ Game features too many encounters which can become tedious ❌ Enemy intent were very hard to understand ❌ Navigating dungeons were a confusing mess ❌ Some main quest were confusing to follow through. Particularly one of the main quest in Act 2 (Reactivate the Waterway) has a major problem of where to go and people are likely to get stuck there ❌ You can't use controller to use the 'Adaptive Strategy' skill for intelligent builds ❌ Enemies coming in waves and those soul balls having pointless second life were really annoying ❌ Inventory should not have been limited ❌ Map exploration was an odd addition to the game

[h1]Gordian Quest[/h1] 📝 [b][u]Story[/u][/b] Ihr seid als Söldner in einer Fantasywelt unterwegs, welche mit den üblichen Problemen wie Untoten und Monstern zu kämpfen hat. Aktuell jedoch mehr als jemals zuvor und ihr müsst der Ursache davon auf den Grund gehen. Die Geschichte ist recht spannend wird aber durch den Fokus auf die Kartenkämpfe sehr langsam erzählt und kommt leider nie so richtig in fahrt. 🎮 [b][u]Gameplay[/u][/b] Diese Kartenkämpfe bestreitet man mit 3 der 10 Helden. Zu Spielbeginn wählt man sich einen aus, im Verlauf der Handlung schließen sich die meisten einem aber nach und nach an. Welche man mit nimmt ist frei wählbar, selbst der Hauptheld kann ausgetauscht werden. Das gibt sehr viele Freiheiten für die Spielweise und zum experimentieren. Ebenso, dass jeder Held über 4 unterschiedlichen Starter Decks verfügt, zwischen denen man bei Aufnahme des Helden entscheiden kann. Die Karten werden dabei in die 3 Attribute des Helden unterteilt, also Stärke, Geschick und Intelligenz. Wird der Held in einer dieser Kategorien besser, werden auch die Karten effektiver. Dadurch ist eine Spezialisierung auf 1-2 Farben/Attribute meist sinnvoll. Die Werte der Helden könnt ihr beim Stufenaufstieg verbessern. Bei diesem erhaltet ihr einen Punkt für den Skilltree, welcher sehr komplex ist und Stück für Stück erweitert werden kann. Neben der Verbesserung der Attribute könnt ihr aber auch Karten aufwerten, neue erhalten, Talente freischalten und vieles mehr. Auch durch Ausrüstungsgegenstände und Runen könnt ihr eure Helden noch verbessern um in den Kämpfen besser bestehen zu können. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3257660660 Die Reihenfolge, in welcher die einzelnen Figuren dran sind, wird durch einen Würfelwurf sowie die Initiative des Charakters entschieden. Auch ansonsten ist es ein typisches Karten-Kampfspiel. Es gibt verschiedene Arten von Angriffen um Schaden zu machen, defensive Skills um Schaden zu blocken und Unterstützungskarten die heilen, buffen und vieles mehr. Nach der Hauptkampagne gibt es weitere Spielmodi, wie Soloherausforderungen oder das Malstrom Tor, was eine Art Endlos Modus ist. Dieser ist bei mir leider mehrfach abgestürtzt. 🎥 [b][u]Grafik[/u][/b] Sowohl die Helden als auch die Gegner haben ein sehr hübsches und auch sehr unterschiedliches, comichaftes Erscheinungsbild. Die Bossgegner sehen oft sehr impossant aus und die Animationen sind flüssig. Hinzu kommen diverse Hintergründe und Objekte (wie z.B. Felsen) sind auch auf einigen Karten und sorgen für Vielfalt. Hinzu kommen die Ortschaften in den einzelnen Kapiteln und wirlich große Karten. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3257660693 🎶 [b][u]Sound[/u][/b] Die Vertonung ist gut, aber auch etwas eintönig. Es gibt einige Musikstücke die im Hintergrund laufen sowie passende Soundeffekte für die verschiedenen Angriffe und Fähigkeiten. Eine Vertonung der diversen Texte gibt es jedoch überwiegend nicht. ❤︎ [b][u]Fazit [/u][/b] Ich finde Gordian Quest sehr gelungen und würde es Genrefans auf jeden Fall nahelegen. Allerdings wirklich Kartenspielern, da es für reine Rollenspielfans vermutlich zu wenig zu bieten hat. Aber auch Genreeinsteiger können einen Blick riskieren, da der Schwierigkeitsgrad sehr gering ist. Deswegen auch noch als kleine Anmerkung: Genrefans sollten nicht auf Normal starten, sondern gleich eine der höheren Schwierigkeiten nehmen. Wenn ihr euch mit solchen Spielen auskennt, dürftet ihr auf normal nämlich unterfordert sein. Die Schwierigkeit kann ansonsten aber auch jederzeit umgestellt werden. Die Kampagne spielt man laut Entwicklern in 15-30 Stunden durch. Ich persönlich war nach etwa 26 Stunden durch, würde das also bestätigen. Danach hält einen das Spiel aber auch noch gut bei Laune. [quote]Wenn euch die Review gefallen hat dann folgt doch unserem [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/8049466/] Reviewprogramm[/url] Lasst doch einen Daumen nach oben da, wenn euch die Review geholfen hat und wenn nicht dann schreibt mir gerne, was ich verbessern kann.[/quote] Das Spiel wurde der GGC für Reviewzwecke zur Verfügung gestellt.

It's a mix of RPG-style for story + character equipment + party building, deckbuilder for actions (with multiple upgrade paths), open world exploration for strategy, and grid-based movement + turn-based combat for tactics. Unfortunately, I think it spreads itself too thin and doesn't do any of these particular well. First, the art and music are amazing. However, the story is so-so. While there is character equipment, and you'll see a lot of it, the vast majority doesn't really change anything in an interesting way (just +1 damage, +1 block, etc.). In fact, I'd go so far as to say that's the defining characteristic of the game: tons and tons of decisions, that I spent a lot of time agonizing over, but very few actually mattered. Party building seemed promising, except that you're faced with 32 options to choose from with zero information except a list of their cards. Not even a brief description of what the character/class/subclass does or a general idea of their playstyle. Just read through each of the 10-20 starting cards and figure it out. Times 32. In skirmish mode, you're stuck with the characters you start with. In campaign mode, you'll unlock new characters (which is neat), but it takes a LOT of effort to pivot the party to a different makeup. And while you're trying to switch things around or try something new, the enemies keep scaling up. The level-up system is neat enough, although I didn't really see a point in mixing archtypes with the grids. The variable placement mechanic was fine, though I wish it let me rotate grids before placing them. I wish there were more card-level-up nodes, given how weak a level-up is and how many cards you tend to have in the deck. It really felt like the game was pushing towards a super-thin deck with 1-2 leveled up and mastered cards, which made experimentation hard. I liked the deckbuilder in general, except that most cards reward you for picking a single stat to stick with. This means that most of the off-stat cards offered by equipment are just diluting an already large card pool. It's super easy to get new cards, but removing or modifying cards is not, which made experimentation hard. The combat grid is a neat idea, but just doesn't end up impacting much. There are good and plentiful options to move the PCs around, which is good. But there are very few ways to influence the enemy's positions, so sometimes you're just stuck with bad placement. I'm fine with being in a bad position because of a decision I made and can learn from, but that's not this game. Finally, the UI needs some work. It's very unclear which enemy is doing what without mousing over every one of them. Sometimes the estimated damage is wrong. There are way too many times I asked "why did that happen?" without any way of figuring it out. More information is needed. There's a ton of potential here and I'm excited for Gordian Quest 2 (or whatever the devs do next)!

i really wanted to like this game - it has a very nice visual feel and interesting story - but the gameplay is just not good. As others have stated, it becomes clear pretty quickly that the best thing to do is just spam aoes to kill the enemies before they act. looking through the skill trees, it is obvious there is meant to be other tactics, but they are just implemented terribly. looking through the abilities, it seems they have sacrificed balance for flavor purposes. take fire/frost/electric damage. fire does 50% damage to adjacent, electric causes adjacent units to trigger their electric, and frost causes an attack penalty. additionally, a unit cannot have both fire and frost, obviously for flavor reasons. while on paper that might seem good, in implementation it makes fire significantly better than the other two, and makes frost just a trap build. theoretically, frost would be better against single targets (i.e. boss fights) but since the vastly overwhelming amount of fights are groups, and you cannot swap decks easily, frost is just bad. add on top of that the card pool for fire has better synergies and frost builds just are bleh. bad ability balance could be overlooked, if the other mechanics of the game weren't also just so terrible. the leveling system uses this awkward plate system where abilities you want to learn next are sometimes just not in reach, which means you don't really have a lot of control over what abilities your characters actually know. Or at least, that is how it appears at first. However, you can farm money to get books to get respec points, and then you have a small chance for each of your abilities to reroll into something that you like. which means you can actually build your character how you like, but you hafta sit through grindy battles that all play out exactly the same for a few hours just to tweak things how you like. Of course, you might be wondering, why bother with that grind, why not just accept the random abilities you get? because the way the game is "balanced" is that they obviously assume you have done this grind in order to get through fights, which means that if you don't do it, your team will just get wiped by random average monsters. starting in the second act (of 5?) average monsters start doing OHKO attacks. So if you aren't going first and killing them all before they act, your characters die and you need to start a new run. Since you need to go first just to get through, all the fights start becoming the same exact fight. Added to that, by the time you are done with act 1 you prolly have all the abilities your characters will ever need to learn. So you get through the first area and then its another 20 hours of the exact same fight, no new tactics, no new abilities. just damage going up, and monster hp going up. basically i think the core of the prollem comes down to the over-use of randomization in character growth. if players could actually plan their builds, the abilities and fights could be tuned to not just be rocket tag. the player and enemy damage could be lowered, and more creatures could be added in that require specific tactics. to put all this in perspective, in my last run after clearing chapter 1, my main character that always went first had over 74k damage done. the other two characters each had about 1k damage done. i had grinded a bit more than normal, so that i could get respec points onto the two side characters, because i wanted to see if different builds were viable, but it really didnt matter, the one character that went first just always did the same thing.

Guardian Quest привлекает добротным артом, интересной боевкой, где мы заранее полностью видим ход врага, есть активное перемещение по рядам и линям. 10 героев у каждого 3 пути, 5 актов, несколько режимов игры, куча шмоток разных уровней редкости и тиров, крафт, руны. Казалось бы, контента на сотни часов, чего тебе еще надо? Гейм-дизайна, мне очень надо гейм-дизайна и немного UI. Играл на максимальной сложности, за 30+ часов дошел до второго акта. Бесконечные битвы начинают утомлять, а тут как на зло квест: проведи еще 8 боев с элитными врагами. Спустись в данж, а там за каждый ключ снова эти рутинные бои, и снова, и снова. Там уже нет никакой сложности, но врагов много, десятки. Каждый ход на каждого нужно навестись, чтобы посмотреть кого они там бьют, с линии на линию всех переместить, это все затягивается, а потом снова такой же бой, и снова, и снова. Уже собрана и прогрейжена кор дека, ты редко берешь новые карты или не делаешь этого вовсе, а подавляющие кол-во вещей- мусор. Из-за неудобного интерфейса, возня с картами, рунами, перековкой, расходниками, артефактами, древом прокачки затягивается буквально на часы. Это просто пытка. Этого всего слишком много, ты в этом просто тонешь. Казалось бы, 10 героев должны внести разнообразие, но ты не будешь их менять ведь под них уже нароллены карты и собраны артефакты. И вроде хочется играть, но, когда ты в самой игре, в очередном бою тягомотишь это и в награду очередной раз получаешь хлам и 20 золотых, а потом смотришь сколько тебе их еще надо до финала и просто опускаются руки.