Malys

I actually found this game to be extremely compelling, and intensely disappointing. First, the narrative elements are mostly well done, and add an extra layer to the game which is captivating. I stopped to read basically every unique encounter because they were all so well written, from each of the characters who act as merchants basically, to the simple descriptions leading up to even basic enemy encounters, which are worth reading through. The overall atmosphere that is cultivated and especially, ESPECIALLY, the visual design is probably some of the best that I have ever come across in a game, ever. Some of the enemy designs are breathtaking. I would like to think that generally I have a really high tolerance for horror media, I engage with horror media a lot, but some of the enemy designs here are actually, legitimately unsettling. Especially the mini-boss ones which are illustrated to be staring literally directly at you, it's actually slightly hard to pull your eyes off of them to look down at the cards, it's a borderline immersive experience. The gameplay mechanics, when they work and everything goes well, are super fun. I like the resource mechanics more than something like Slay the Spire, especially because of how all of the mechanics are carefully and intricately weaved into the aesthetics of the game's setting. Unfortunately, I give this game a thumbs up because I want to support it somehow, even though a positive Steam review means basically nothing at this point, but I can't seriously say that I recommend it broadly. But there is so much potential here it's crazy. This could be such, such an incredible game. But it looks totally and completely abandoned. Like the production value is so clearly insane. A complex, obviously professionally very well written narrative with tons of dialogue, so many incredibly detailed illustrations, it's obvious that a team of people really worked on this. But there's like not even more than a couple hundred Steam reviews and a tiny amount of social media presence which fizzled out like a year ago. Just, how is that even possible!? Regardless, it looks like the last update was over 6 months ago, and going off of how much attention this is getting I can't even blame them for abandoning it. It must be kind of crushing to make something this good and to have it not be appreciated in the way that it should. But gosh, so much of the experience of playing it just sucks. It's buggy beyond belief. Mechanics not working like they should. Visual glitches. Dialogue glitching and just not playing. Random blank screens. It's non-stop. And the balancing is horrible. The glow deck is totally broken, you just snowball every single fight and it's clear that an appropriate counter to the glow mechanic was never implemented. But the initial damage based deck is horrible. You get whittled down as debuffs get stacked harder and harder while the deck lacks both resources and defense. And like other people have pointed out, the length of the mini-boss fights is ridiculous. I had one which went over 40 turns, they can literally take like 30 minutes if you really draw it out and truly fight for your win. It sucks to play the game knowing that none of these things will ever be fixed, and this wonderful example of how good a video game can be as an interactive art-form will just rot further into obscurity. Most gamers would probably be immediately hostile to these sorts of things but it's nice that Malys includes elements of diversity. It's done in a way which I didn't find to be patronizing, othering, and without drawing unnecessary attention to theses topics. UPDATED THOUGHTS: After playing another 20 or so hours I've found that Malys has undeniably grown on me. Once you get a hang of the flow of each "exorcism" then the balancing feels much more even across each deck and run. At first I thought that the miniboss-esque exorcisms were too long, with three phases and several hundred health usually for each phase 2 and 3, I've found now that it's really not bad at all and once you have a decent deck going you'll just completely blow through everything without any resistance. At first I thought that the game was stacked against the player, but now I'm consistently having runs where it feels basically impossible to die, when you have like 7 phantom, 200 shield, and a mini-boss at like 20 shackle consistently. Card draw is really the number 1 thing, you can get like three or four hands in a single turn while also cutting the cost of pretty much all cards down to 0 for a whole turn. Actually feels really good to pull off. Still, it's just obviously an abandoned, discarded gem of a game. Love the characters too, they're all interesting in their own right and feel well fleshed out. It's nice to see how the MC's and other character's relationships grow, I really like the MC and the hot demon guy as a pair, if this game had the audience it deserved there would be literally so much fanfic stuff of those them.