Mahokenshi - The Samurai Deckbuilder Reviews

Very unique take on the roguelike deckbuilder formula!

TLDR version: 7/10 Cardgamer/deckbuilder/roguelike enthusiast: 9/10 Solid game with a fun theme, good storytelling and fun and engaging mechanics. biggest problem i have is i want more. I play a lot of deck-builders, especially the rogue-like kind. I really like this one. It really brings a bit fresh to the genre the samurai aesthetic is a more or less unexplored theme for this. Completing most levels i have encountered is not too difficult, but if you want to complete the extra side objectives it can get pretty tricky, the game doesn't require you to do so right away, you also don't have to successfully get every side objective on any given map in one run, so you can retry them to get meta-progression points. This game has a really interesting way of incorporating movement and positional awareness into the game completely allowing you to say shoot in and land a hit and then use movement cards to scoot back out reducing the incoming retaliation. There are definitely cards that give a payoff for you maneuvering into an ideal position before using them. All in all i think its a fantastic game and a great building point for new games in the genre the few things i would like to see are: a DLC/Sequal/Update that adds some multiplayer to the game a lot of game sin the genre are starting to embrace that playing card/board games with friends on the internet is a like-able thing and this game really puts off that vibe of being a "Board game" and a "Card game" at the same time as still also firmly being a video game. Games like Hellcard and across the Obelisk prove that the multiplayer formula for these games when implemented well can really make the game play super fun. A little-bit stronger of a theme for each character, they are all neat and fun to play but they don't really leverage enough uniqueness in thier play strategies since any character can kinda grab any other colored card. I'de like to see thier starting deck and desired cards have a little more nuance and impact on how that run will go. If you look at The new Ninja turtles splintered time roguelike, sure you want all the upgrades you can have but there are certain ones that match up perfectly with certain turtles strategies (on hit for Michealangelo, Master strike for Leonardo, tool activation for Donatello etc.) It would also be fun to have some longer maps where you really get to build your deck for a while ... the current maps especially the ones that require turn limit clears can feel short and like you don't really get a chance to engage in the deck-building as much as you'de like .... it kinda feels like you just have to take every movement card you can to run around the map quickly ... maybe some bosses that guard teleporters so there is more than one intelligent way to solve the crossing the map problem. Within the setting you have created, maybe a phased map or two where you have multiple objective to complete the map but some of them are choices and you don't have time to do both then once complete providing you with a new set of multiple objectives you cannot complete all of. Making each play through on a map a little more fresh, so that you aren't only replaying the maps for the harder side objectives but also to see how different the map plays out if you make a different story decision.