Monastery Reviews

If you like deck building games i think you'll love Monastery. Even in early access state there are a lot of different builds as you level up and get new cards. And many more to come. They just added medium armor with a lot of new cards and it gave some new mechanics to the game so i'm really looking forward for the new items. The music is great it creates a cool atmosphere for the unique drawings. You have to really think in harder levels how you play your cards, and it was a big YES for me!

it's not a bad game, it's like knock on the coffin lid but it's missing a lot of quality of life features and animations/sound effects. I completed the tutorial a full run(no boss) in about 40 minutes on normal difficulty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q299ltKB5_0 The game is fully playable but it has too many problems to be worth investing this much time into it. There is not a lot of equipment or tactical options so the runs will feel very similar. Besides all the problems of early access, one thing i really dislike is the fact that global progression is tied to character progression wich is tied to difficulty. In other words, the difficulty of the game is dependand on character and so are unlocks. So if you unlock everything on normal on a character and start a new character on hard difficulty, you have to start from 0, This is a massive problem since it makes the player grind massivly every character and it's very repetitive. The developers should allow progression to be global and allow a single character to play on all 3 difficulties, not limit them to a single one. I am going to give it a negative review based on the fact that the game will be released in 2026 and a lot of strange decissions to make the game less fun. Early access is a method of finishing a game, not to start development on it

I have not played many rougelike deck building games, but I really like this one. It's easy to get into, but sufficiently challenging and each win means progress. Also the game clearly has deep playstyle customization options with all the character backgrounds, cards and equipment you can unlock. Can't wait to dig deeper. I also like dark, comic book artstyle and the design of the different enemies and card illustrations. I hope we can see more games from this team.

I'm usually too lazy to leave reviews, however feel this game warrants more attention than it's currently getting. Solid game, battles play much like Slay the Spire whereas the game play loop is currently a bit more like Darkest Dungeon - Repeat short runs to eventually unlock bosses for each area. The meta-progression is just unlocking items although this looks like it could end up being quite time-consuming/tedious. I'd like to see a game play mode for a longer, all-area run however I do quite like the short single area runs, so I'm hoping on full release that both types of run are an option. There's no road map although the developers have listed what they're looking at to further flesh out the game. It's in need of some quality of life polish however on the whole this is a cracking game and fans of the genre should check it out.

A fun game in the Slay the Spire genre with the big unique twist being that of dealing with attackers on both sides of you. While you can add armor on either side, you can only block (a percentage chance you have of stopping all damage from an attack) the side you are currently facing. Another tweak in this game is how at the end of each round you'll have 2 different reward packages to choose from. One might give you a few cards and heal you while the other might let you remove some cards and give you this game's equivalent of an artifact (an item that grants you passive bonuses in future encounters).

This is a fun little game but is greatly suffers of rouguelite card issue where progressing the game forces making new cards available that in turn bricks builds Unlike slay the spire all classes are within the one character meaning once you unlock more card types you will be playing roulette with almost every level up offering you cards with less synergy to the point of making a new profile. hopefully this gets fixed is at the moment the game now pushes me away from it. Giving this game a thumbs up as i did enjoy the game up to this point but until i see a patch that splits out the various progression unlocked card pools or offers a way form blocking certain arch types from coming up its just not fun at all. Slay the spire get away with this as its acts alone are the same length as an entire, forced reset, runs in this game. since you have so very little time to build a deck per run you cant afford to have 3 - 4 card offers and 7+ builds that they can draw from while only 2 or 3 builds have even the slightest of synergy with each other. 2 builds literally make each others cards do nothing - block and berserker.

Card games are not usually my jam, but I like this one. I waited to see if the devs follow up with their proposed "Mines" update, just to make sure it's not abandoned, and am happy to see they did release it as promised. Daily updates and fixes are coming, the game is very actively in development. Devs are also pretty responsive if you've got any feedbacks.

When Slay the Spire first came out, I hesitated to buy it because of the terrible graphics. That stupid large whale that is shown on the main Steam page turned me off completely. Finally I broke down and bought it, and I enjoyed it, but I still hated the graphics. I remember thinking, "If only this game looked like, say, Darkest Dungeon. That would be so much better". Well, my prayers have been answered because this game plays like Slay the Spire, but looks like Darkest Dungeon. I will leave a longer review as I play it some more, but so far....so good. ***** Updated Feb. 28/2024. It is a good sign the the dev has been very active since launch in releasing updates and patches.

[h1]🔸Overall[/h1] This card battler is unique in its kind, enjoyable and very well designed! [h2]🔸Gameplay[/h2] The ambiance, music and vibe created are very cohesive and solid. It gives the creepy feeling that is needed within this game. It is obvious that the developer took a lot of care creating this game. The tutorial is limited but provides sufficient help to get you started. Enemies are indeed coming from both sides so you have to be aware of where to drop you armour. Also, the amount of Block is effective towards the direction your character is facing. On the upper right hand side you can simply increase the animation speed if you prefer a faster gameplay pace. I'm running this on 4k and it looks very solid. [h2]🔸TLC[/h2] The game could use some hotkeys and key-bindings like TAB for switching your direction and SPACE to end your turn.

Oh boy, this game is really a mixed bag. Note that this review is coming after 2 failed attempts at hard mode and ~4 attempts at easy mode (2 wins). Average playtime is around 21 - 30 mins, with 7x speed up. Pros: +Cards have good synergies within its own archetype. I've used a bleed and block deck and they both have interesting synergies and combos. +Multiple equipment to modify your starting deck. Mostly applies to the 3 main equipment categories (Sword, Shield and Heavy Armor). Each category have 3 equips and each equip has 3 variants that give mildly different cards. There are also rings and trinkets (which you can equip one of each category) that gives minor buffs. +Boons (Run bonuses) have a tangible impact. Boons are major buffs that only last for the current run. +The bi-directional playing field makes for some interesting and rewarding combat experience when combined with the armor and block mechanics. +Tooltips on all status. Cons: -Mastery system and exp are just whacked. It cost around 200+ exp to level each category and you get exp by using the starter card tied that category. A run will net you around 60+ exp if you spammed their starter card and only 20+ if you used it sparingly . -Shard rewards and shop prices are not balanced. A failed runs will give you 10+ (easy and hard mode) and successful ones award 60-70+ (easy mode), while the prices of new equips can range from 100 to 175 shards each. -Trinkets have a cooldown(?). I failed a run while using a new trinket I just purchased, and found that you cannot use the same one again for your next run. This really hampers build experimentation and with combined with the steep shard price, really sapped my motivation to continue with the game. -Default game speed is too slow. If you can have runs last 20+ mins at 7x speed, I think it's safe to say the default speed could be doubled -Font size on tooltips needs to be a little bit bigger. Overall, it's the rate of unlocks that kills the game. Have to do 3 to 10 runs just to get a few unlocks is just too much for me.