Griftlands

I can't really recommend this game. I was very excited when Klei announced Griftlands many years ago. The idea looked really cool. It was delayed and took a long time to finally release. I think at one point the genre/direction totally changed too. When it came out as a deckbuilder I was disappointed. It wasn't what I was initially expecting. So I never ended up getting it. I do really enjoy deck builders (Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Balatro). Because of this I eventually picked this up on sale. I kind of regret it. There are some good things, and some not so great things. [h3] The main problem with Griftlands [/h3] You might see some people saying "lots of replayability" and other's saying "no replayability." I think I understand the differences people have here. The game technically has replayability, but imo I'm not sure why you'd want to. Griftlands claim to fame imo is it's greatest weekend. That being the story. The story is what holds this game back in several ways. The stories are fairly shallow/generic. At this point I have not even started the story of the third character because I have no interest. The story technically has branching paths, but only 2 in each case. After you play through those (or even just one path) the story gets in the way of the actual game. So much of the mouse clicking becomes skipping over the story. Yes, there is a setting to "skip text," but even this is insufficient. You still have to click a bunch just to get back into the game. For example: click to exit out of story text, click to exit building, click new location on map, click person in new location, click to end text or start encounter. That's 5+ extra clicks that really have nothing to do with the game. And you do this in-between [b]every single battle[/b]. In other deck builders like Slay the Spire every single click is important and directly impacts your game. It puts you on the edge of your seat and makes the game intense. In Griftlands all of that is removed because the story and navigation get in the way. So even though the game has replayablity (in the form of character upgrades, somewhat branching paths, and game modifiers) I have no desire to replay it because of the previously mentioned reasons. It's just slow paced. [h3] Other pros/cons [/h3] [list] [*]The idea of having two decks is really cool. The only main issue I have with the negotiation deck is that's it's a bit confusing. This is largely because of how abstract it is — the keywords they've chosen don't help this either. [*]I wish your pets could do more. If I remember correctly your pet can only be upgraded once (in a pretty generic way). I was really hoping there was a bunch of different ways you could upgrade your pets. Because of this limitation they're not a useful as they could be. [*]As is expected from Klei the gameplay is very polished. I didn't find any bugs or problems while playing [*]As I said above, I didn't even try the third character. It's been a while since I've played this game and don't find it drawing me back at all like other deck builders do. It just doesn't have that intense fast pace deck builder feel that I look for. I'm not sure how true the statement "every decision is important" actually is in this game like it is with other deckbuilders. [/list]