One Step From Eden

A steep learning curve, but those who've mastered it will know about the flow-state of combat and how good it feels.

Too fast paced for my liking. Can hardly react to the amount of stuff thrown at you from the enemies and bosses.

A roguelite game with the gameplay of Mega Man Battle Network (action grid combat) but at hardcore difficulty, only the battles, & without a proper story (but it has indirect worldbuilding). There are 9 characters to play (with some alt versions) and they differ in their default (non-card) ability and in what cards they start with in the deck. Like Slay the Spire, you travel through several maps with a series of paths with locations (battle, miniboss, camp, shop, treasure) that end with a boss fight at the end of each map. You add/remove/upgrade your cards, gain new passives, & try to beat the bosses at the end. Other thoughts:[list] [*] If like me you aren't a bullet-hell fan (someone who enjoys dying and having to repeat encounters to learn patterns because of very high permanent damage and scarce health recovery) just go into settings & turn on Angel mode to the max setting. It'll increase up to 50% as you die though after the first few runs I wished I could have just skipped deaths and freely set it higher [*] Because of the difficulty it feels like there are a ton of useless cards for me (in that adding them makes your deck worse). It feels like I'd only want high damage single target spells because adding AoE & random target area spells are usually too mana expensive for the damage and are strictly worse against single high HP enemies (bosses, which are much harder than regular enemies and who I'd build my deck to beat). It feels like channel spells are really limited against bosses (who move so frequently and channeling just stops you from dodging) and the self-harm type of cards (self-fragile/damage self/destroy own tiles) are more for the people wanting an even harder challenge than normal since the upside of a slightly better card doesn't really make up for the larger punishment of permanent health loss if you're not good enough to consistently dodge everything. And since you can only have 1 copy of a card in a deck, it feels better to just have minimal cards (but key cards upgraded) so you can cycle through and play the key cards as much as possible [*] There should be some in-game info about what a red path means (unless I missed it somehow) https://onestepfromeden.fandom.com/wiki/Worlds#Modifiers [*] There are 3 basic endings https://onestepfromeden.fandom.com/wiki/FAQ#What_are_the_different_routes/endings? [/list]

It is a hard game for micro reaction bullet hell dodging reason, not so much strategy but there is strategy but it takes a backseat to moving and dodging. I think that is core so it is not for you if you do not like to play on short timers and get punished for being slow but once you learn patterns and move to memory it feels nice.

I definitely underestimated how much I would have played this game. Perfect for playing on a laptop from 2020s with a gamepad. Might even run on older laptops too. So if you dig roguelites and action then it's a game for you!

I'm no achievement hunter but this stand as one of the very few games I got every single achievement for. This game is still my go-to when I just wanna have a good time. It's MM Battle network slay the spire, you probably figured out as much, however it is a much better experience than the sum of its parts. [b]For deck builder fans (and haters?):[/b] There's so much to love about the way Eden lets you shift the odds, e.g. the focus system makes it easier to tell the game what kinda build you would like to go for and the luck system is the most literal implementation of a risk/reward mechanic. The fact that you can dodge every single attack means your deck isn't as vital and makes it way more doable to recover from unlucky early drops and stabilize in the latter half. It's not a free ticket as eventually your bad choices will come back to bite you if you are clueless but you can totally go for weird builds and not die the first half as you assemble its pieces. If the action feels too hard, just keep at it, it's super rewarding and not as hard as it might seem. You get a pretty big roster as every mid-boss is an unlockable character with some having pretty busted builds (Manafire Frost is insanely OP) but generally the starting build (Saffron) is the all around queen. [b]For battle network fans:[/b] Let's be honest there's like 6 games made in the last two decades out for you, this one is so well done they turned it into a fighting game later on.

So much nostalgia for Mega Man Battle Network.

It's as good as I remember battle network being, but without the initial drag of playing a decade old RPG intro