I have always believed that there are generally just two different (but not mutually exclusive) paths to achieving greatness: through originality or through execution. In simpler terms, you either do something novel and unique that (almost) no one ever did before - or, alternatively, you do something that is already tried and true, but do it really, REALLY well.
When viewed from such a standpoint, Kamifuda - as I can say with certainty after almost twenty hours of my playtime - surely falls into the second category. There is not a single aspect of this game that I can in full faith can call completely original, but whether it's the art, or the writing, or the main mechanics - everything is done with such level of care, passion and attention to detail that I honestly can't bring myself to be bothered by it.
In terms of gameplay, all I can say is - it's good. I am no card game guru by any means, but I *have* played a fair share of them over the years (both single-player and multi-player, as well as tabletop IRL) and enjoyed Kamifuda quite a lot. The mechanics are easy to understand and pretty familiar, the cards themselves vary from "boring deck filler" to relatively interesting and niche, and as for the difficulty... it's certainly quite something. Are the battles fun? Yes. Are they challenging? Yes. Are they, perhaps, a bit much at times? Maybe, depending on how much time (and thought) are you willing to spend on trying to beat them. What I *can* say is that all of the bosses starting from mid-game come with progressively more and more ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ decks that require you to build a counter-deck to them from scratch, and the last two fights - at least in my experience - are quite literally decided on the very first turn: either you *can* kill your opponent turn 1 and you win, or you *can't* and you just lose, because surviving until turn 2 and dealing with a full board of neverending ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the boss conjures from thin air to throw at you before you can even do anything is borderline impossible. Though, to give the game credit where credit's due, every single enemy strategy, no matter how stupid and unfair, has a proper counter, so the endgame of Kamifuda basically becomes a cycle of "see the enemy playstyle, analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their deck and find a way to counter the their strengths while also capitalizing on their weaknesses". It's quire engaging, honestly, and I had a lot of fun brainstorming and coming up with equally ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ strategies to out-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the opponent (never had to use a guide, luckly), but at the end of the day ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is still ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and not everyone enjoyes dealing with it like I personally do.
As for everything else? Consistently good-to-great, albeit a a bit generic all things considered. The setting is pretty much "Harry Potter meets H.P. Lovecraft" and a lot of things don't really get explored all that well, forever staying in the realm of simple background details, but what *is* there is extremely solid, and I would be interesting in seeing more of this world if the developers ever decide to do anything else with it. The characters are somewhat trope-y, but well-written and all have an interesting personal drama going on. Also, while on that topic, special shout-out to the protagonist, Tarot, who, despite not having a portrait (or any art in general, actually), is not a bland self-insert for once and is instead his own person with fears, aspirations and beliefs naturally born from his (quite unfortunate) past - he was the biggest surprise for me in all of Kamifuda, honestly, and as far as the protagonists go, he is pretty decent. The plot is... basic, and predictable, and a bit stupid honestly, considering that there are high-stakes conflicts between eldrich beings and their champions being decided by a literal duel via cards like it's Yu-Gi-Oh or something, but it works fine for moving the narrative along, so I won't judge it too harshly.
Overall, twenty hours (and ten or so dollars) well spent. My praise to the developers - here's hoping to see what they will do next.
