Spellsword Cards: Origins Reviews

Yet another mediocre cheap game on steam that is easy to play but becomes unplayable if you lose a battle. Your character is out of the game and you have to start over. Really who comes up with these god awful ideas for games and charges for them.

I really like a lot of the mechanics in this game, but the overall experience strongly trends towards disappointment and frustration. Between information hiding and randomness, player agency is really lacking. Also, there are major balance issues.

Interesting. It plays like a book based text adventure with cards and choices matter in a different way than I have seen before. It's fun and different from most I have played. Give it a shot if you like the Spellsword Cards series - it is different but you can see where they started and how they got where they are. At least, that's how I feel.

There's a difference between challenging and poorly designed. The lich boss is an excellent example of this. He counters the first card you play each turn, then fills your deck with skeletons that explode when you draw them and, as a final kick in the pants, he has a spell that renders him invulnerable for a turn. My only regret is that I putzed around for too long to return this piece of garbage. Knowing what I now know, I wouldn't have it in my game library if it was free, much less pay for it.

Wanted to put in a preliminary review that I'm enjoying this very much. I already have a couple hours into it and I can see how this is going to continue to capture my attention. I'm not exactly sure if the campaign continues after the Litch boss, and I'm guessing it doesn't. So that would make beating the game quite short. That said, there are benefits and in game achievements to master by beating him over and over. I found him to be tough enough to need a couple runs to beat him the first time. Much like DnD there are plenty of classes, races, paths and so on to build your deck/pc. I was hoping for a bit more lore like an intro between areas or something to latch onto but there isn't much depth there. Also the book idea is nice, but other than opening and closing it, it doesn't really turn pages or do anything else like that. But the gameplay is still good with balanced mechanics and some interesting combos that arise depending on which path you take (like fire magic, nature, etc). tl;dr: DnD-like fun with CCG gameplay, worth the full price imo 7/10. EDIT: There is a way to play the game again after you beat the litch, but it's basically the same. You do unlock cards and harder modes though, so there is replay value. It's still very fun to keep replaying because there are so many different paths and what not. Hope there is an expansion or the dev opens it up for the community so that people can add their own stories and enemies, that would be cool.

Maybe not hard game per se but there is some unique charm to this game. It has similar vibes to slay the spire but is less luck dependant but also only real challenge is final boss, which is a bit overpowered in a good way. Also it could be easy going to the final boss and then you dead ;]

I really wanted to like this after watching a YT review and reading the reviews here. I was hooked on the classes and paths. However, the GUI is pure mobile IMHO. I usually don't care about graphics, but it feels like a placeholder game that focuses on swiping cards up or down. It's a poor man's Slay the Spire, but overpriced at $5.99. No hard feelings, but can't recommend this if you are looking for a deep CCG/RPG.

So I read through a few of the other reviews and I can see how some may find it negative. No it is NOT flashy and doesn't have 'interesting' characters, but to be honest, it's kinda refreshing. I'm an old school gamer and I've played Many card games, rpgs, whatever and I have to admit I'm addicted to this for some reason. I'm determined to beat the stupid lich with all my characters if possible. That being said, it's also VERY frustrating and will P1ss you off many times! The cards are a bit unbalanced, for example I've reached the lich with no access to mana or healing cards depending on who I choose. This makes it a bit unfair, as well as not being able to meet the boss with a full health. No matter how hard I try to finish the previous battle with as high health as possible, it just doesn't cut it. There was one game I used to play a lot, had over 400 hours until some new dev, crappy pants, redid the whole thing and made it vegas like...I truly hope these devs Don't do that to this game at all! It's a game unto itself and Yes it Does need work but it can be challenging and fun if you know how to use the cards given to you. I noticed the new game from these makers and I wanted to give it a shot thinking it would be similar to this style, but I think they already headed to the slot machines....

I usually like deckbuilders - but I couldn't find much to like here. This is not like Slay the Spire. This is more like the mobile game Meteorfall, but without that game's charming art, serviceable design, interesting character variance, or streamlined mechanics. The card design is terrible: random costs and bland effects. The different enemies have no personality. My character and deck had no personality. The art and setting are so lame I couldn't describe any part of them to you, even though I just finished playing. My first playthrough was trivially, tediously easy until the final boss. Then, the final boss is a trainwreck of anti-fun mechanics: counters, deck-clogging, and action point draining. I didn't get to do anything after the first turn. So yeah, the first enemy with any personality is the last boss, and his personality is "if you deleted all your cheap cards, you lose". Fun. This game will take some heroic redesigning to be playable.

Very interesting game in a good way. I knew nothing going into the game, no reviews yet so didn't know what to expect. This will be a long review since I think it will be the first one and want people to know what they are getting into. You pick from one of 9 classes (Warrior, Rogue, Priest, Mage, Ranger, Ninja, Druid, Bard, Necromancer, a tenth (Monk) that said it will be released soon. Each class has a description of how it plays, Ranger for example says: Bow at the ready with trained familiars in tow. These individuals prefer the wilderness to the cities. You then pick from one of six races. Human, Elf, Dwarf, Half-Orc, Dragonborn, Demonspawn. Each race just has some flavor text, I didn't really know what the benefit of each was. The last thing you pick is a Path, Darkness, Ice, Nature, Fire, Light (the symbols look extremely similar to the five Magic the Gathering colors). These also have some descriptions, Nature for example says: Nature provides nurture and protection to those who would seek its path. Further playing I believe these affect the spells you'll be able to pick throughout. So I didn't really know what most of the options did, other than assuming Ranger used bows (been looking for a card game with an archery class). I picked Ranger, Dragonborn, and Nature as my first character. You then pick an area to explore, seems randomly chosen, I had Forest or Mountain to pick from. You then come to an overview screen. You have three choices, my first three are to either fight an Old Vulture, a Random Event, or to fight another Old Vulture. The creature cards all have a Level and xp reward displayed. Once you defeat a creature a new choice will appear. If you get a shop card though it will not go away after you use it. For example I bought one card, then I could revisit the shop to buy more, but the price increased each time. You have the option to discard the shop and draw a new event/creature whenever you want as well. The bottom part of the screen shows I have two abilities, one to heal myself, it refreshes in 4 battles and one to add 3 arrow cards to my hand, with a cooldown of 6 battles, this is a cool feature in my opinion and I am guessing each class has different skills to use outside of combat. I can also view my starting deck, it has 6 cards, One of them is called Dragon Breath, applies a fire dot, so it appears your race choice also gives you a useful starting card. In addition to your deck you have an Effects tab, these look like Passive effects that either came from my class or something else, for example one says "Keen Vision: Every 3rd turn, draw a card, Avoid ambush encounters" Will have to explore the different races/paths/classes to see what changes. The UI also shows that I have an HP bar, Exp Bar, 2 Mana, 2 Actions, and I draw 2 cards per turn. Looking at my starting deck, all of my abilities take Actions and not Mana. I do like the dual resource pools to draw from for more options later on assuming I get spells. The combat is fun, I have two defensive cards to start, Block and Dodge, both add 2 Block and Dodge lets me draw another card. An interesting mechanic is that if you discard a card you gain another action point, so that opens up a lot of options. The ranger class is pretty cool, I have two abilities that add arrow charges to my quiver. Each turn when you start I put up to 4 arrows into my hand from my quiver which I can use with 1 action point or discard for extra action points. After a few more battles I found a spell to enchant my arrows to do poison or fire damage as well as spells to heal or summon a minion. One other thing about the combat, in addition to those two skills I mentioned that I had available out of combat (Heal and Add Arrows to start of next combat) it seems I have another two abilities that I can use in combat with cooldowns as well. I like that a lot, adds a lot more options and makes it feel more class specific. One for example will add magic arrows to my hand every time I use a spell with a cooldown of five battles. As you gain xp you also level up which increase your HP and also randomly your Action Point pool, Mana Points, and even your draw size. You can also pick a card or bonus when you level. You randomly find shops to buy new cards, treasure chests to claim loot, smiths to upgrade your cards, looks like most can upgrade three times and finally the fusion event. Basically you can combine two cards into one. For example I took my two enchant arrow spells, one cost 1 mana to add 1 poison damage to each arrow that turn and the other also cost 2 actions to add 1 fire damage to each arrow that turn. Once fused I now have one card that costs both 1 mana and 2 actions, that will add 1 poison damage and 1 fire damage to each arrow I use. This is an interesting mechanic since it does not make the cards do more than their individual parts, but does allow you to reduce the amount of cards in your deck but still have access to all of their effects. I like it a lot, seems you can fuse anything into anything as well. Just fused my block into my heal spell, so now I can heal hp and add block with one card. Overall I think its a very good game, I like the art style, the gameplay has many new and refreshing mechanics. Tons of replayability with all the class, race, path options. I did get through the first forest area and killed the boss. Difficulty ramped up after decently.