Tainted Grail: Conquest

great game...I wish the blood mage and the necromancer - which IMO are just variations of the summoner - would not spend blood (or be inflicted blood) to use their cards; health is just too rare in each run. But maybe I just do not understand how to play them. The summoner is great though...and the rest are quite ok too

I’ll be the first to admit that I not terribly bright when it comes to roguelike deck builders. In fact, I went into Tainted Grail: Conquest expecting my taint to get [strike] grailed [/strike] grilled? (hur hur). So it was much to my surprise, that I found I could quite easily grasp the main mechanics of the various classes quite easily. Yes, it definitely requires one or two playthrough with a class to understand. But despite that accessibility, there’s actually a surprising amount of depth to the various classes here. As with any deck builder, the joy comes from discovering a new tactic/card/synergy and TG:C definitely delivers in this aspect. The gameplay actually reminds me a bit of the very old Magic: The Gathering Shandalar (like 1997 old), with mild narrative elements and bits of lore about the denizens of the Wyrdness - the mysterious realm the game takes place in . That said, because of the game’s rather niche status (i.e. a roguelike deckbuilder) there’s not a tonne of information or build guides out there. What does exist is scattered across different sites and communities. So be prepared to do some digging if you want optimisation tips or quest info. I played this game primarily on the Steam Deck and for sure, frame rates were decent, though it does drain battery at a slightly faster rate than average. There were occasional freeze frame during battles as well (it’s apparently a known issue even on PC). Though the usually resolve in about 5-6 seconds - it’s annoying, but not severely game-breaking. Though the control scheme is serviceable for the most part on the Steam Deck, I did notice the occasional input lag (or even nonresponsiveness). But again, nothing game-breaking. Managed to 100% the game easily enough, though there is honestly quite the lack of information out there. In fact, the closest I found was [url=https://www.trueachievements.com/game/Tainted-Grail-Conquest/achievements] TrueAchievements [/url]. 
 You’ll need proficiency in all the classes (i.e. progress through the game and level all classes to Level 20). Most challenging achievement by far is ‘Quick One’ which requires you to complete a victorious run in 15 encounters or less. Definitely takes some class mastery and know-how and perhaps a little RNG for good skill/passive/cards. Took me a few tries but nothing too difficult. 

 All-in-all, I had a great time with TG:C. It’s a moody roguelike deck builder with great class variety and a solid atmosphere. Performance quirks aside, it’s absolutely worth a shot - especially if you prefer your deckuilders slower-paced.

[h3]⊰═🕀═⊱≼[b][i]Cards among the shadows of Albion[/i][/b]≽⊰═🕀═⊱[/h3] I couldn't understand why people liked this game until I tried it myself ... Now I think it's on of my favourite deckbuilding game (along with Monster Train) ... 🜂 [u][i][b] Positive [/b][/i][/u] 🜄 ☉ [b]Engaging gameplay[/b] that’s challenging and addictive... It was really tough at first, but I soon got the hang of it ... As always, there’s a real sense of satisfaction when your character development strategy proves successful ... ☉ [b]Interesting character progression:[/b] cards, runes, passive abilities, meta-progression – it’s all fascinating, and because it’s challenging to play, it motivates you to become better ... ☉ [b]A magnificent atmosphere[/b] for all fans of a bleak, gloomy world that straddles the line between body horror and despair ... ☉ [b]Fairness ... [/b] It’s a rather minor detail, but I’ve noticed that the game rarely leaves the enemy with a few health points remaining, yet it never hesitates to calculate damage fairly (that's right, Darkest Dungeon !)... 🜁 [u][i][b] Negative [/b][/i][/u] 🜃 ☽ With time, [b]the gameplay does, after all, become rather repetitive,[/b] although this is probably a problem with all games of this sort ... ☽ [b]The game’s low-budget nature is evident [/b] in the graphics, although I haven’t encountered any bugs ... In any case, it was a great experience ... [h3]⊰💧⊱═𒍟═⊰🩸⊱ [i][b]11/12[/b][/i] ⊰🩸⊱═𒍟═⊰💧⊱[/h3] ☔[i][b]Dr_Andrain [/b][/i]☔

I played Tainted Grail Fall of Avalon so of course I got to get another game set in the same universe because I love the lore so much. It's a deck builder thats pretty similar to Slay the Spire. But in my opinion I like this game better. There's more of a coherent story with side quests. Also great for idiots like me, it has an easy mode. I'm more of a casual gamer, and I prefer not to have too much of a challenge. Its not like Slay the Spire where I want to rip my hair out because I cant get to the end. I'd absolutely recommend this game to anyone who loves card deck builders.

Slay The Spire if it was a little bit less effective at communicating what stuff does, and a lot more roguelite with the progression. To that end, I think if you want a really polished deckbuilder roguelike, you'll not have a great time. But if you wish to feast upon jank, there's a lot of game here. Arthurian fantasy has been kind of a "we didn't know what to do so we did that" genre for a while, which has resulted in devs putting very intentional spins on it to try and stand apart. Tainted Grail takes a sort of acid folk angle, where the world has dissolved into dreams and you're slowly repairing it. Graphically, this means the enemies are silent hill residents and half the time you're playing there's a blur filter over everything. The other half of the time you're looking at mud and fallen in cottages. It's not an especially pretty game. It sounds gorgeous, though. The soundtrack reminds me of a Wardruna album. There's not *too* much variety to the tracks and some of them loop pretty heavily, but there's a boss song that goes incredibly hard and the chanting and strumming is a nice vibe regardless. Progression is decent. There's a lot of content, some of which you have to do pretty ideosyncratic stuff to get, but the pacing is fine and you get noticeably stronger whenever you unlock something. I'd say on a pretty deep sale, this is a safe pick. Edit: There's a weird initial hill where you're unlocking the things you need to grind. For example, you can't start improving your candles until you find the chandler. But improving your candles is really important, and the chandler appearing feels sort of random, so you kind of have to bash your head against a few runs for minimal returns until the rng blesses you. If you can get past this hill, the game gets significantly better.

One of the best roguelite card game I have ever played

This game hits all my boxes. Turn Based? Check! Amazing soundtrack? Check! Rogue-lite with multiple characters to unlock so it doesn't get dull? Check! Card combos out the wazoo? Check! If any of the above even REMOTELY interests you, then by all means, buy this game!

Great deckbuilding roguelite game. It is not very difficult (at least in default difficulty) if you have experience with other deckbuilding games and remember that adding a new card into the deck is sometimes worse than skipping it. Pros: [list] [*] Metaprogression available to boost your stats (some of it being very strong, like more hp/armor/card draw) [*] Solid world/ambiance design, including graphics, story. Although it is quite dark. I really like Boss theme - Danheim Reida [*] 9 classes that play very differently, with 3 different set of class cards. [*] Achievements are relatively easy to get, although you might want to look for the [spoiler]bard[/spoiler] one as it can be painful to get if you don't follow the right path. I ended up doing one rune with each class + an extra run to get the achievement for winning in less than 15 fights and that was enough for all achievements. [/list] Cons: [list] [*] Overall game can be slow, although it depends on the character [*] If you are looking into min-maxing then you must make the right choice in a few events as they are not reversible from one run to another [*] If you want to unlock all meta-progression then it can be quite grindy. I am not there yet even after 40+ hours [/list]