Final Stardust: Cosmic Nexus Reviews

The fact that this gem of a game is sitting at "mostly positive" while absolute trash is promoted on steam is quite depressing. This is hands down on of the most fun TCGs I've played and boy, have I played all of them, at a competitive level. If you want a lighthearted TCG with focus on gameplay, making broken decks and getting that Duel masters and early Yu-gi-oh nostalgia, this is it. My only complaint is that there isn't more of it. If the developer does decide to make a sequel, I hope a fleshed out single player and perhaps some PVP is available. No scummy micro-transactions, no rougelite bullshit, just a honest to god single player TCG.

I recommend this game primarily out of respect for what it represents. It's rare to find a single-player trading card game on Steam that isn't a roguelike, making it a standout in its genre. It brings back nostalgic memories of playing Yu-Gi-Oh! Day of the Duelist and GX Duel Academy on the GBA. While the core gameplay is unique and intriguing, the game suffers from significant progression and balancing issues that detract from the overall experience. [b]Story (3/10)[/b] Almost no plot, just a little twist in the end game. [b]Lore and World Building (2/10)[/b] It's there but not interesting enough. [b]Dialogue (2/10)[/b] Too flat, no emotion or characters. [b]Progression system (4/10)[/b] Feels like playing angry bird where you unlock new stage (NPC) linearly, but with a 5 level difficulty for each of them. Collecting badges from the guardian doesn't feel rewarding. No end game content. [b]Economy Design (6/10)[/b] You can buy booster pack using gold and crafting cards using stardust. And pick a random dark card after battling NPC. The price seems fair enough, but you can easily craft overpowered celestial card or get a random legendary dark card too easily. [b]Combat System (7/10)[/b] It's decent. I like the concept of 5 minute card battle. It's interesting that every lane has certain effect that impacting the card placement strategy. And evolving the plano in the field feels satisfying. What I found lacking is the status effect, one card can only has one status at a time, so inflicting status ailment won't override the other based on its stack count, which make it rather confusing. [b]Visual Style (7/10)[/b] It's good enough. Cool monster and character design. Just lacking in animation and character expression. [b]Interface Design (6/10)[/b] Basic, feels cheap, but works. [b]Control and Interaction (6/10)[/b] No Gamepad support, so it cannot be played on Steam Deck. Cannot skip the after battle result which is time consuming. But, it's a good thing that it has options to turn off some animation and display on the battle scene. [b]Replayability (5/10)[/b] Very low Replayability. Grinding achievements feels like a chore, it should add other achievement or battle restrictions that will encourage player to use different deck and strategies to play which is the main appeal of the game. [b]Balance & Difficulty (4/10)[/b] Despite the advantage of having more than 3 same cards, playing against the CPU impose no challange at all, the game needs most improvement in that area. And the CPU opponent is too dumb, often result in missplay when playing a complex card's effect.