Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles

Astrea is a great dice based roguelite with a few really innovative ideas.
One of the coolest parts of the game is a very innovative and fun damage/health system. Purify heals players and harms enemies, and corruption harms the player and heals enemies and is quick to see at a glance due to the red/blue art style. You have 7 pips of health and losing all of them loses a heart, which is hard to regain, but the pips themselves continuously are used as a resource.
As you take damage, you activate innate abilities (so taking 6 damage will put you at 1/7 life but let you use the last ability), so there's depth to managing incoming / outgoing damage.
You're forced to spend bad dice (unless you reroll them), which lets you ask, "Should I hurt my pet, myself, or heal an enemy with this corruption?" which gives lots of interesting decisions in combat.
One of my favorite parts is the ability to craft dice both in combat and at shops. You can modify individual dice sides to create excellent dice.
In terms of builds, most characters have several specialties to choose from. For example, the moth has multi-strike abilities, critical hits, and confusion dice (50/50 chance of being good or bad, but can be modified), all of which can be a foundation for a build (+1 damage per hit * 7 hits is a big boost).
Metaprogression:
- Unlock up to six VERY different characters.
- Unlock additional dice / mechanics for each character that grows complexity.
- Additional difficulties similar to ascension levels.
I strongly recommend this to turn-based roguelite fans.

Pros:
+ Gorgeous art style and aesthetic! One of the prettiest in the genre imo
+ Just about the right amount of story I want out of a roguelike - not constantly bombarded with cutscenes, but enough lore to be compelling
+ Mechanically distinct characters with good-sized unique dice and blessing (relic) pools - enough to make runs not feel repetitive, but not so large that it's impossible to get a consistent build up and running
+ You can get robot buddies (and they're really useful in battle)

Cons:
- Reward rerolls are locked behind a blessing, which I don't love; I feel like the game should natively offer a reroll and maybe have the blessing increase the number of available rerolls
- It's a dice-based game, so RNG can and will screw you over sometimes - battle restarts will happen
- A little jargon-heavy; characters have a lot of different keywords which can feel overwhelming when starting out
- Not too newbie friendly; would not recommend as someone's first roguelike, is better enjoyed with experience in the genre

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If you enjoyed Slay the Spire, the game has a number of similarities, like the path-based map layout with events, unique character-based cards, and a 3 act format with a true final boss locked behind winning with each character. One of the characters you can unlock is also extremely similar to the Defect.

With that said, it manages to be different enough to feel like a game of its own. The dual HP system is a lot of fun; it heavily rewards high-risk high-reward strategies with the virtue system. There's nothing quite like repeatedly hitting yourself down to low HP to activate virtues, healing yourself, and then hitting yourself again to activate the same virtues. It really leans into HP as a resource, more so than any other roguelike I've played. Another neat aspect is letting you have up to 2 upgradable sentinels with their own HP bars and die, which can help you to fill holes in your build. I love my robot buddies <3

Each character feels mechanically distinct, which is pretty impressive since there are 6 of them. There's a DoT/damage over time character, one that focuses on buffing your sentinels (or killing them over and over I guess), one that focuses on forging and improving your dice, etc. - and each character also individually has several different builds you can try out (though there are some I can already tell I'm never going to be able to execute/won't be viable without a lot of luck). The early game before you refine your deck can feel a little rough, but you can usually start getting the beginnings of a build together by the end of Chapter 1, which is on-pace for this kind of game.

Despite it being dice-based, there's actually less RNG than I expected. There are plenty of ways to make your dice more consistent - you can forge them at shops or in battle to get rid of undesirable sides, you can get reroll dice or a reroll sentinel, and basically everyone has a reroll virtue. Plus, while corruption is usually the 'undesirable' side, some characters can use it to such excellent effect that you actively want some corruption in your deck. The safe/balanced/risky dice division lets you more consistently target specific effects too - if I have a specific effect I'm after, I can go after those nodes to try to hit those (like going to risky nodes to chase Serenity for Austra). Certain dice and blessings only being available in certain chapters helps to increase consistency (though I think some events ignore the chapter restriction).

I've already sank 20 hours into the game, and I can easily see myself going for 20 more! Beautiful game with a lot of depth and replayability.

An Interesting Case of Duality, And Luck
Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles, at first glance, may seem like another attempt to follow the footstep of Slay The Spire, the titan of roguelike deck-builder. Mostly, yes, but it also adds interesting mechanics to the formula. The theme of the game is duality - Corruption and Purification. Many of the mechanics revolve around the balance of the two. Having too much corruption will ruin you. With no corruption you cannot use any of your abilities. This simple idea not only sets the tone of the game right but also creates some interesting dynamic in dice-building.
Things I Like About Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles:
1. Gameplay
It may be the token deck-building, turn-based combat, but the balance of Corruption and Purification keeps things fresh and tight.
The "deck" is actually made of dices. Every time you draw a dice, the game will roll that dice to determine which side of it you get.
Dices are divided into three tiers: Safe, Balanced, and Risky. Dices become more powerful the higher the tier, but more sides of the same dice will become corrupted.
Each character has a Virtue system. It serves both as your secondary health pool and the ability bar. Receiving seven corruption will automatically lose a heart. Players can choose to replenish their health by playing purification dice on themselves.
Alternatively, players can also choose to keep a certain amount of corruption. The abilities are linked to the corruption. They are only available when players reach a specific level of corruption. If the players can maintain that level, then the corresponding abilities will remain available in the next turn.
Thus, the dynamic creates an interesting interaction. It's a constant battle between risk and reward. Keeping enough corruption to have the abilities to alter the dice to your advantage, or remaining pure to survive another onslaught of corruption.
Buff and debuff work both ways. Buff that benefits you will harm the enemies if you choose to put on them, vice versa. For example, Light Shields can block corruption for you. You can also use them on the enemies to block the corruption build-up. In doing the latter, you prevent the enemies from over-corrupting and effectively from using their dangerous abilities.
Adhering to the theme, the artifact also the same risk-and-reward philosophy. Star Blessings offers minor benefits, while the Black Hole Blessings provides a significant buff for you and your enemies.
2. Characters
Every character has two main play style and some minor alternatives.
Moonie is the starting character and the most efficient one. She can convert any corruption into purification, easily turning the most harmful dice into a weapon of her own; or she can enhance some weaker dices to deal significantly more damage. Her dices focus on providing more benefits when either conversion or enhancement happen.
Cellarius is the berserker in the bunch. His kits lean more toward deliberately getting corrupted to use his abilities. Going back and forth the edge of over-corruption can help him use his virtue more often. The shark is also great at aoe purification through Wave counter. He can apply multiple Waves to a single enemies and deal a burst amount of aoe purification when the counter matches enemies' corruption values.
Hevelius is the engineer. He specializes in the Sentinels, able to have two of them at the start. While most of his dices focus on granting him shields and his sentinels more offensive attributes, this mechanical rhino can also put bombs in his sentinels and break them, deliberately triggering aoe purification.
Austra is probably the most luck-based of the crew. All of her kits is about dealing with randomness. Her offensive option majorly involves stacking as much critical chance as possible and pray to the RNGesus that the random attack will land on the enemies, while her defensive option is stacking as much dodge as possible and pray to the RNGesus that the enemies' attack will miss. Luckily, her dices can alleviate some frustration from randomness.
Sothis has a special counter named Soul Heart, which can trigger specific dice of great value. To gain Souls heart, he can focus on applying the status effect Relief which triggers purification to the host at the end of turn, or he can build his dices around re-using the same dice as much as he can.
Orion rotates his ring of orbs to gain various benefits and some minor hiccups. He can choose to rely on one or two orbs to maximize their respective buff, or he can rotate the ring multiple times and deal equal amount of purification.
3. Other Compliment
I love the strong color contrast between Purification and Corruption.
Thing I Dislike About Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles:
Strict Level Structure VS Higher Difficulty
This may not be obvious at the start, but at higher difficulty it become increasingly more problematic.
In contrast to Slay The Spire, the level is significantly shorter in Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles. Every area comprise two to three battle encounters with one or two dice/shop nodes in between.
This level structure keeps players' progression in check and the strength of the dices tight. This also means, unfortunately, less opportunity for players to tweak the dices.
At default difficulty this problem may not be obvious, but at higher Astrea and Anomaly level it becomes much difficult to control your dices.
Enemies receive higher maximum corruption and ramps up the attack faster, to the point that starter dices can hardly keep up. As a result players cannot afford to pass on the opportunity to add any dice, even though the dice in question may not be benefit your play style.
You risk dragging the battle too long if you don't take the less desirable dices; your build become less reliable if you take too much unrelated dices.
中文小簡評
→類似殺戮尖塔的骰子回合制roguelike。
→很喜歡遊戲美術鮮藍色與暗紅色的強烈對比。
→玩法大同小異，卡片改成擲骰子來決定效果，骰子會因為危險程度而有不同面向，越危險給的能力越強，但會有更多面向遭腐化。
→角色淨化值是你的血量也是技能條，技能需要透過相對應數量的腐化來觸發，
→玩家必須在淨化與腐化間取得平衡，任一邊失衡都可能會影響戰局；太多淨化角色技能無法正常發揮，太多腐化很容易一個不小心把自己玩死。
→這就讓每場戰鬥特別有趣，觀察敵人，看是要留一定的腐化值讓技能下一回合也能重新觸發，還是將其清空好承受下一波攻勢。
→由於遊戲一體兩面的主旨，增減益有雙向的效果，增益能強化自己也能阻礙敵人，反之亦然。
→每個角色都有兩種不同的玩法，能透過專屬骰子擇一增強。
→遊戲關卡比起殺戮尖塔更短更精簡，玩家升級的幅度有限。
→這在初始難度或許沒啥問題，然而高難度下玩家對骰子組的可控性越來越低。
→高難度敵人腐化值特別高，攻擊增幅速度快到初始骰子很難與之抗衡。因此玩家無法挑三揀四，運氣不好就得拿一些與角色玩法無關的骰子來應付。
→這個情況很容易演變成骰子數量過多無法有效利用角色特性、不拿骰子又很容易被敵人三兩下打回家。

I mostly liked and enjoyed this game. My time spent in it should be enough proof (although probably about 10% of that is actually AFK).
tl;dr: 8/10
Pros: the game has good mechanics that I find to be very well balanced. With plenty to be unlocked and discovered, six playable characters (each having a very distinct style), and different builds to try for each of them, the game has excellent replayability. Even after obtaining all the achievements, I still haven't touched every possible aspect of it (and I still need to find two Blessings).
Despite mechanincs heavily relying on RNG, by necessity, still I rarely felt that I lost or won because of luck. The way you build your dice pool and the Blessings you take are extremely relevant, and then how you play (which die you play first, using or not your Virtues etc.)
Enemies have a lot of variety when it comes to their abilities and some have interesting specific mechanics and gimmicks that you need to understand how to overcome based on you character's style and current build. This means that even if you know that specific opponent already, things still stay fresh (for a good while).
Hunting for achievements is interesting and often forces you to try different things, builds that perhaps would be unintuitive at first. Some of them are challenging but never frustrating.
To increase replayability, you also have two different settings for increasing difficulty, which you can mix and match: first three stages from 0 to 10 and last stage from 0 to 6. Each "degree" is cumulative to the previous ones and only some of them are "increase life of enemies". Add to that, all the custom settings (bonuses and penalties, but you'll not get XP or achievements in runs made with them) and daily challenges. Excellent.
At the end of each run, you have a full recap of your scoring and of what you did during it, your dice pool etc. and it is saved, so you can check it whenever you want.
The plot is okay. it's nothing revolutionary or incredibly deep, but it's serviceable. It gives the player just the little context needed to know what we are doing and why. The only ending provides a sufficient sense of closure (and it's skippable).
I also like the art. The design of all the characters and opponents is very good, detailed and has a distinct personality.
Neutral: there's basically no violence in this game. It's all about Corruption and Purification (which seems to be, at the same time, physical and moral). Nobody dies here, purified creatures walk away. Only mechanical entities get broken / destroyed. Some "entities" disappear but that makes sense in context.
I wish the playable characters got a bit more characterization. We can understand something about each of them from their description, their style and some other small details but, other than Orion (and I think a tinyyy bit Moonie in the tutorial?), they have no dialogue. I know that's absolutely not necessary for the game, just a personal preference. Even just some typical sentences here and there, instead of the unintelligible alien gibberish, would have been cool.
I wish there was some more opponents variety. The total amount of different enemies is good (although some are just slight variations of each other), but they come in a more limited number of pre-made combinations. With the many runs required to unlock and max everything, at some point it starts feeling a bit repetitive.
Cons: My biggest gripe is that, for a game so based on RNG, in a couple instances the RNG seems either glitchy or rigged. Especially when re-rolling dice, it happens way too often that the dice fall again on the very same faces as before. For a while, I tried to attribute this to my bias; but, as I paid more attention to it (and started expecting it), it became very blatant. I'm talking of re-rolling two or three dice at once and having each of them end on the same previous face, of which each of them only have one. This does not always happen, but way too often, especially on first time that you re-roll them. This makes re-rolling often feel like a waste. If you want some good chance of "changing fate", you better equip yourself to re-roll the same dice twice or thrice.

The game mechanics are many and complex (textual), graphics are beautiful but easy to feel monotonous, and the core gameplay of the dice is creative, but as a roguelike game its too easy...overall，its okay.

I am completely sick of games that just copy Slay the Spire -- Monster Train and Griftlands being too examples I have not enjoyed at all -- so why then is Astrea: Six Sided Oracles perhaps my favourite deckbuilding game of all time, even surpassing Slay the Spire itself?
Astrea definitely takes a lot from Slay the Spire, from broad deckbuilding mechanics and the branching map even down to individual fights and character abilities. The hidden fourth boss in particular felt a bit too derivative of Slay the Spire's. However, Astrea also innovates on the genre in quite a few interesting ways, chief among which is its take on health, here called "Purity". Damaging yourself gives you access to powerful "Virtues", which then means that the game is largely a puzzle about damaging yourself to use Virtues without killing yourself. Whereas in Slay the Spire, the actual playing of your deck often becomes tedious as your deck can completely overpower any enemy, in Astrea each combat is a tense balancing act of risk/reward. Even the first enemies can reduce you to zero health in one attack -- meaning the game is an act of managing worst case outcomes rather than simply hoping for best case outcomes. In this way, Astrea reminds me a lot of other games I've enjoyed such as Darkest Dungeon.
Astrea also rewards replayability with six characters each with diverse playstyles and a number of different strategies. Even within each broad strategy for each character, Astrea will offer multiple different synergies and builds that means you're always faced by interesting choices about how to build your deck. The game's difficult early encounters also encourage and reward experimentation with different strategies as you have to add new dice immediately to improve your deck and can't just wait around for the perfect combos. A mechanic they only recently added, where you can destroy non-starter dice for a reward is a great innovation, as it means that experimenting with your early dice picks doesn't penalise you in the late game, which I think should just become a staple of deckbuilders from now on.
However, while Astrea definitely innovates within the deckbuilding genre, I don't think it moves beyond it so while I would definitely recommend it to fans of the genre, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone else. If you're new to the genre, Slay the Spire is probably a more natural starting point, but you may as well try Astrea's demo to see if it's for you. On the other hand, if you're a veterendeckbuilder and want something that expands on the genre to create a tense and engaging experience, Astrea is precisely the game I would recommend.

It took me a couple attempts at coming back to the game until it started to flow better, and things clicked. Since then, I've been enjoying it quite a bit. There are endless ways to structure an arsenal and take on challenges, so lots of replayability.

It's one of those games that falls in the category of "deck-building roguelike with some RNG that runs about an hour per run", like Cobalt Core (highly recommend that, too).

The main issue/warning I'd give to people looking at this game is that it is DENSE. While the basic goal is to purify the corruption of foes, there are dozens of statuses/conditions to learn, six different characters with entirely different approached to combat, over 700 dice you can acquire (albeit separated between characters), and so on. A lot is slowly unlocked as you progress, but it still is a lot an any time. The entrance bar on this is higher than average roguelikes.

As you understand more and more, it gets more fun, and you will enjoy it greatly if you're a fan of strategy. But it can get overwhelming, so give yourself some patience, and take a break is you need to. It may come easier to some, but this was my experience with it.

Overall, recommended, so long as you know what you're getting into