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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\u201cMonster Train\u201d is another deck building rogue-like, in the same vein as \u201cSlay the Spire,\u201d and last month\u2019s review of \u201cBanners of Ruin.\u201d The catch for monster train is that it feels closer to something like a tower defense, where you have to methodically place buildings and traps against waves of enemies to stop them, than a typical combo-heavy deck game.<\/p>\n
You are a minion of hell, and hell\u2019s fire is constantly going out. In order to relight the pyre and keep things going, you need to take your train into the deepest levels of the underworld and manually give the pyre a bit a of kick. The problem: heaven isn\u2019t so keen on you rekindling the underworld, and will send wave after wave of invaders break your smaller pyre and stop you from rekindling the big one. The only thing that stands between each wave and your precious tiny blaze, is the limited number of units you can summon and a handful spells you can cast against them.<\/p>\n
The titular train of \u201cMonster Train\u201d is a 4-story tall behemoth of a passenger car, with a small pyre residing by itself on the very top floor. You, as the head conductor, can summon units to any of the 3 lower floors of the train to block the incoming angelic units that are hell-bent on stopping you from unbending hell\u2019s extreme winter.<\/p>\n
Combat moves in turns, with the angelic units attacking first, and then your summoned defenses countering. However, each wave will only spend one turn on each floor, so you have to coordinate your units to prevent enemy waves from reaching the pyre at the top. The pyre is able to defend itself, and will melt anything that enters its chamber in a few attacks, but it can only take so many hit itself before going out.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nThe \u201cdecks\u201d in monster train are divided up between different races, each having two \u201cchampion\u201d cards that tend to dictate the direction your deck wants to take. Champions share cards in their races, but what cards you pick and how you use them can be dictated in wildly different ways. For example, Hell-Horned is the first race the player has access to. Their starting champion is the \u201cHorn-Breaker Prince,\u201d a Unit that mostly builds as a frontline attacker. He wants to be in the action since almost all of his builds benefit from him dealing killing blows and absorbing damage from invaders. You\u2019ll tend to prioritize armor and damage buffing support cards for him just to maximize his output. You\u2019ll also want to position him in such a way that he gets a lot of kills on either the 2nd<\/sup> or 3rd<\/sup> floor after your initial party has weakened any invaders.<\/p>\n The Hell-Horned’s second champion is \u201cThe Shard-Tail Queen,\u201d who has effects that mostly deal with swarming units on the field, particularly \u201cimps.\u201d She can gain benefits and buffs, similar to the Prince, but a deck for her will be much more unit-heavy to make sure she\u2019s constantly reaping rewards of playing imps. One of the more fun builds I\u2019ve found with her is using imps as a projectile of sorts, and doing massive amounts of damage to entire waves of enemies per-imp. This build ends up being vastly different from a Horn-Breaker build, as you want to throw the queen on the bottom row to maximize her damage output, and then have someone else above her to clean-up the leftovers.<\/p>\n I could gush about each individual race and champion, but then this review would end up closer to a 3000-word guide. Just know, I found myself constantly enamored by the volume of options I had. There\u2019s 6 different races, 2 champions per-race, and then 3 \u201cvariants\u201d of each champion that can be mixed and matched along the way. You also get to choose any other race outside your starter as a secondary-race, adding at least 10 different variants of support cards to your deck on top of those form your main one. Very rarely did I ever find myself bored with my options, and most of my climb through \u201cMonster Train\u201d was done so by hitting the random button and just rolling with what I had.<\/p>\n The \u201cclimb,\u201d so-to-speak, is how \u201cMonster Train\u201d handles its difficulty. Each run can be paired with a covenant. Covenants add new challenges or restrictions onto the player, or empower enemy units on each battle. There are 25 covenants in total, with most of the difficulty not kicking in until around 20 or so. That\u2019s not to say any level before that is easy, just that the leeway given until then is a bit more forgiving. I mentioned before how I made most of my journey just hitting random, but I had to stop and focus down as I reached the last 5 covenants. They demand a bit better understanding of how to mix races and cards together to create combos, loops, or just generally overpowered setups that obliterate your opposition.<\/p>\n One of the weaker aspects I found in \u201cBanners of Ruin,\u201d was how the hardest parts of the game forced me to exploit it, draining most of the fun out of it for me. \u201cMonster Train\u201d does a bit of the same. You can\u2019t just luck your way through the last few covenants, you have to actively know what\u2019s broken, how to get it, and what your broken alternatives are\u2026and that\u2019s the key difference, \u201calternatives.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ennuispace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/20210926204109.ts_snapshot_00.18_2021.09.27_21.00.18.jpg\")
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