Monster Train 2: Destiny of the Railforged DLC

I am a 45 yo father, probably one of the oldest people playing this game. I am a single father to my Son, who is 14 now. My son got this game for Christmas in 2021 from his uncle, so we installed it on his computer and he started playing. By the end of the week he had 24 hours on this game. This was horrible for me, as it was already hard for me to find ways to spend time with my son, as he is always out with his friends or just watching YouTube. So i decided to make a Steam account and get this game to see if I could maybe play alongside him. I loaded into the game, picked my character and world and started playing but I was stuck on what you where supposed to do. I asked my Son for help and he hosted a game for me to join. I loved it as it was the best time I had spent with my Son since my wife had died. This game has ever since brought me and my son closer again and now we actually spend time together outside the house together as well. This game reminded me that there's fun to be had in everything, and it has brought both me and my Son many happy memories.

tough to start with Railforged until you level them up a bit. Some absolutely busted combos in the new game mode. I'm enjoying my time playing.

so, recommend this DLC... with a few caveats. Mainly, the soul savior mode is sort of... a mixed bag. On the upside, it's really fun when you can get some really cool and funny combos going. On the downside... out of the 30-somethign souls in soul savior, only like 5 can really get you past battle 2. Once you're past battle 2, it's good don't get me wrong it's just you really can't go all-random because you sort of need something META to get past battle 2. From my observations, the main issue is that that most of the time, your units are just shredded so by the time the boss comes, you just don't have the HP to deal with it. So, you need something to alpha-strike the backline, or something that's absurdly tanky to take all the damage (preferably, a combination of both). When they revealed the DLC, I was actually a bit afraid they were going to make it deterministic that you could always win a run- but this isn't better. Making it so players have 5 choices instead of 30 just really leaves me wanting. That isn't to say it's bad- I did genuinely enjoy my first few runs with the new mode. But it's only good for the first 30-50 runs, which is good value at about an hour each run. Additionally, the railforged are interesting, and fun- I do enjoy smelting and they pose some interesting build options. I do hope Shiney Shoe makes a better DLC, learning from this one's mistakes though

Bought this while bored and tbh I kinda expected it to be worse given some of the reviews. I can see why some people might not like the new game mode -- it's very reliant on meta progression in a way that the base game isn't. Your starting loadout gets strictly stronger as you progress, and starting out with a typical loadout means you're very likely to lose the first few games. Once you unlock a few things, I find it gets pretty easy with specific loadouts even above Bloom with Pyre of Dominion and very difficult due to the early-mid game when you're not using Pyre of Dominion. I wouldn't rate the new clan as like top tier, but it's not noticeably bad and has some cool mechanics like exhausting cards for energy and giving things permanent armor. Only thing that I really don't like about it is burst (an expendable, 1 time multistrike that gets lost pretty quickly and doesn't count as a buff for some reason), which seems very weak. I'd say if you like the base game, this is worth the 10 bucks. If you don't, well, this won't change your mind.

This DLC offers two things. A new clan, and a new game mode. First, the new clan, the Railforged. They're fine. They're really no better or worse than any other clan. They've got their own unique mechanics, their own gimmicks, some cards that feel underpowered, some cards that feel incredibly broken if you can play them right, but so does every clan. They're not my favorite clan, maybe I just need to learn to play them better, but I don't hate them either. They're good, but not worth $10 on their own. But then there's soul savior. Oh my god, soul savior. I haven't played the base campaign for what's probably going on 150 runs at this point, and that's not because the base game is bad, but just because soul savior is so GOOD. It has its challenges, Witherbloom will obliterate you if you're not careful and enemies can scale to scary levels if you let them, but the levels you can scale to yourself are much, much scarier. I've done 40,000 damage to the final boss on turn 1. I've put 31,000x3 attack on a single unit. The game WILL outpace you if you're not breaking the game, but if you're breaking it right, you become unstoppable. Souls are a very fun addition, and there's a huge variety of how they can change your game, your units, and your spells. It's not unit fusion from The Last Divinity, but it's the next best thing, and in some cases it's better, because the things you can do to your spells can get pretty crazy. Slap attuned on anything and make it an instant floor wiper. Slap explosive on spell that has slay triggers and scale it CRAZY fast. Doublestack too tame? Triplestack from the Entropy event too pricy? Slap quadrastack on it and put a truly absurd amount of status effects on yourself or on your enemies. The other cool thing that soul savior mode does is make the game non-linear. You start off with the usual, an artifact draft and a champion upgrade, and a basic fight, but from there, the choice is yours. There are 4 major bosses, and one end boss, and you can tackle them in any order that you want. Each boss has three major rewards tied to it, and those rewards are shown next to the boss when selecting which one to go for next. The possibilities for major rewards are merchants of steel, magic, arms, and trinket, pyre health, gold, and artifact draft. Once you select a boss, the major reward will be in the center of the track, and you'll still be able to choose minor rewards like purging, duplication, and unit drafts by picking a side of the track. There's a regular fight for each boss, using that boss's type of units, then a fight against the boss itself. But for each boss you defeat, one major reward in all the other bosses' tracks will become upgraded. Upgraded champion upgrades let you upgrade your champion twice, allowing 3/2 champions to become possible. Upgraded Merchants of Trinkets let you buy boss artifacts (ember, space, card draw). Upgraded merchants of steel and magic give you beefed up upgrades to put on your cards. Upgraded merchants of arms let you apply ember discounts to your rooms and units. Upgraded artifacts let you draft souls instead, upgraded gold...just gives more gold, and upgraded pyre health lets you increase your pyre's max health. Of course, as you get further on, the bosses and units that you're facing also become stronger. This means that as you progress and plan your route, you have to consider not only which bosses you want to face early, and what bosses you're comfortable facing a stronger version of, but also which upgrades you can live without, and which rewards you want to save for later to get the most for your money. TLDR: Soul savior is an incredible game mode, and the DLC is well worth it just for that.