The most important thing if you are on the fence about this game:
I would buy this game ONLY if you like BOTH dialogue heavy/visual novel games where you basically just read and make choices, and also roguelikes that do things different. The fact that this is a deck builder is important but you likely wouldn't have looked at this game if you aren't into deck builders anyway.
While it doesn't call itself one, there are many similarities to a roguelike. However this game isn't really that- your build and runs will all feel very similar. It takes a little time to get your engine going and, as I go through more runs, there aren't exactly multiple "optimal builds". There are characters you can make decisions on, such as to take them as followers or not, but it didn't make sense to end their questline instead of adding them to my deck to help me out.
So you end up making many of the same choices over your runs as you learn what the "best" choices are- notice though you aren't getting better at the game, you just know what is a good idea and what isn't. I didn't feel like I was getting good I was simply aware of an event that resulted in choice A being "you get 5 monies" or choice b "You get this really good follower but it doesn't seem like you would based on how this is worded".
I really enjoyed what I was reading and got into role playing my character making these awful choices but it sucked so bad that I straight up ended quest lines over what seemed like an irrelevant choice. Once you know how you are supposed to do an event, it takes the mystique out of it.
Now, I do want to say here that despite having 34 hours in this, I haven't actually BEATEN the game. I have had multiple runs that got close but I did not utilize my sultan cards effectively. Much of that is on me, though again its not really a skill issue I just know the better choices now that I failed a bunch of times figuring out what I should have selected.
I still recommend because I liked playing this, nothing quite like it out there. The art design is carrying some serious weight though, I doubt many people would play if the game didn't ooze style. Some minor issues I have is that the UI of the mission board is cramped and it can be easy to misclick missions or not see them easily. There are also many typos and some events don't exactly make sense what you are choosing. You ever play an RPG where your character makes choices and choice B reads" I disagree with that idea" but then your character says " You are an idiot let me fight you rn"? It's that.
I feel like a sequel that expands on this, cleans up some of the awkward parts and allows for more flexibility and replayability would be a great idea. Once I beat the game there are some new game plus bonuses to try, different end routes to go for, but I'm going to need to grind out the same build for at least 50% of the way before I start making seriously different choices in my run. I have definitely gotten my money and times worth but once I am done with this, I don't think I would ever come back like similar games like slay the spire or enter the gungeon.
