Hunter's Moon: A Sovereign Syndicate Adventure

I picked this up after playing "Menace from the Deep" (it was recommended) and I was really pleased with the game. Addictive gameplay loop, cool cards and upgrades etc. I quite liked the variety of missions - gave me something to keep coming back to play. Characters were pretty decent if a little archetypal. I couldn't find fault with much of anything - except H.U.G.O. - H.U.G.O. is about as useful in battle as a marzipan sword.

In the week since I’ve gotten Hunter’s Moon, I’ve put more than 30 hours into it. While it has a few fun twists on common rogue-like deckbuilder mechanics and a solid theme, I suspect it grabbed me because of how powerful the characters feel when they revisit old locations or find the right synergies. But initially, I had mixed feelings about the game, because the first few locations seemed too easy to provide a sense of accomplishment. I kept waiting for an optional way to ramp up the difficulty, but outside of a randomly-available tarot card that accelerates monster growth, I couldn't find one. This was worrying, because as the player gains experience, they also gain access to upgrades that make their decks even stronger. Eventually, I realized that the difficulty selection comes from deciding which of the four mission locations to visit. If I wanted to relax and feel powerful, or to gather materials to unlock permanent upgrades, I could send the armored scientist Grizwald back to the initial location and leverage the upgrades I’d already unlocked to zap the enemies into oblivion. When I wanted more of a challenge, I could dispatch my least favorite character to face the ultimate big bad. Revisiting the less challenging locations to relax still gave me the occasional sense of discovery by exposing me to sub-missions or single-choice encounters I hadn’t seen before. It was also fun to experiment with different deck compositions in a low-stakes environment. The game’s card pool feels small, but it’s augmented by three other ways to power up decks outside the permanent upgrades: relics, powerful objects that grant passive bonuses; tarot cards, which either offer minor upgrades or significant benefits at the cost of downsides; and consumables, which can only be used once but sometimes have powerful effects. Add in the ability to upgrade cards, which sometimes significantly changes their effects, and there’s plenty of synergies to explore. As much as I enjoyed Hunter’s Moon, I have a few minor quibbles with it. For example, the game has a status called Focus that says all aggressive actions must be directed at the character with it, yet the player can ignore it and attack other characters. The enemy seems to have the same freedom when one of the player characters gains Focus. I also found some of the card designs strange. It baffles me that a character who eventually gains the ability to regenerate every turn has cards that encourage her to be at low health or provide healing, but those cards at least have some use early on. Other cards, such as the attacks that bypass enemy defenses or the ones that encourage Grizwald to toggle between different passive abilities called modes, never felt like they justified their cost. On the bright side, the characters’ unlockable talents and the cards themselves do a good job of pointing the player in fruitful directions. For example, Nandi has one upgrade path related to protecting herself and another that focuses on weakening enemies, hinting that her decks can build an impenetrable defense or poison enemies and watch them gradually expire. Meanwhile, the reformed thief Molly has talents that focus on hitting hard and fast or give her loyal dog extra staying power. The story is solid as long as you’re looking for a pulpy steampunk setting rather than a character-driven tale or a deep mystery. Hunter’s Moon can be compelling, but if you have a tight budget and enough free time to need something that will consume hundreds of hours, I’d look at other roguelike deckbuilders, such as Monster Train 2, Chrono Ark or Slay the Spire. I doubt the final mission, the various strategies for each character, or the story encounters offer enough variety to push the game past 40 hours. If that isn’t a problem for you, I’d recommend Hunter’s Moon, especially if you like the steampunk aesthetic or want something where you’ll eventually feel quite powerful.

From what I read, just like the original Sovereign Syndicate game was heavily borrowing its gameplay elements from Disco Elysium, this one borrows heavily from Menace of the Deep. Having played neither of them as of writing this review, a sucker for anything steampunk and Victorian fantasy, who very much enjoyed the atmosphere and lore of the first Sovereign Syndicate game, for me this game was an instabuy. Very different genre from the original, but nonetheless very fun, if a little bit short and occasionally grindy for my taste.

What a great idea having the final boss's attack pattern be to stun you first and then follow up with 150 damage while you have no control of your character.

Solid game. But not much unique stuff. A lot of mechanics were taken from "Menace from the Deep" and imroved. Also music and voice acting are quite good, but sometimes Ukrainian subtitles are wrong after boss fights

This is one of those that define good, but not great. It's like any number of deck building rogue lites that you've played before. So the backdrop of this one is you get 1 of 4 different characters that allow you to play as with 4 unique deck styles. Good. The story. I actually really like the way the story is presented. I think the quest system going through each of it's 4 maps is pretty neat (The last map is just the final boss run) I think they do a good job establishing the lore and give some contact to the things you're doing in the game. It's rare you get that a whole lot in the deck builders so I'm happy with it. Sound design. Both in terms of voice acting and music. I wouldn't call either great, but both are very solid for a base price game of $20. Art direction. I think they do a good job with the eldritch style both for the monsters, characters and the backgrounds. Bad. Class balance. The game really only seems to have 2 viable end game classes . with one other one being kind of mid, and one being just awful. This is pretty disappointing. Difficulty spikes. The games difficulty spikes feel more frustrating than fun. Especially going to the last fight where it seems grinding out levels and additional bonuses is the only way to win due to how little you get before the fight. Overall number of cards. The game really feels out of sorts with the different builds you can do within each class. It looks like the game really wants you to play one of two ways if you want to win which is disappointing. Overall grade: C+ For $20 it's solid pick up if you get it on sale like I did I think it's a very worthwhile buy. Just don't think it's going to reach the heights of a Slay the Spire, Inception, or even the Tainted Grail card game.

遊戲內容夠豐富，不需要你狂動腦，節奏明快。 戰鬥演出可以再強化一下就很完美。