Mahokenshi

Mild to moderate recommendation. Enjoyable but not especially deep. Low difficulty, which could be a plus or a minus for you. Mahokenshi levels are shorter than competing games' roguelike runs, again a possible plus or minus for you. Game length is 8-10 hours, apparently 13 for me to 100% it, plus the mission maker and user-generated content.

"Mahokenshi" could be translated to "Mage Knight," and there are similarities to that game.

Deckbuilding is combined with movement across a hex board. This was uncomfortable at first when I was expecting the standard map movement from a Slay the Spire clone, but this is doing something somewhat different. The deckbuilding aspect is there, but so is positioning and movement.

If you are expecting something Slay the Spire-like, you are thinking of 30-fight runs across three maps in a roguelike structure. This is not that. Each mission is usually 20-30 *turns* not *fights*, much shorter. The roguelike aspect is smaller, mostly just that you pick your cards/talismans from a small pool each time. Shops play a bigger part, letting you turn gold into new cards, upgrades, or removed cards more than you may be used to.

I found Mahokenshi pretty easy. Some of the challenges took a bit of setup, sometimes more of arranging for rolls of the dice to come together. The game may not be as easy if you skip the side quests and challenges, which are what give you your upgrade points. You get a lot of upgrade points over the course of the game, so you can pick almost everything on all the talent trees by the end.

I had a good time. It is not action-packed or as absorbing as competing deckbuilders, but it was worthwhile to play. I don't know that I can recommend it at $25, again considering its competitors, but I got the game in a bundle and played through it quickly. The game is not padded and respects your time. Its handmade content will not provide the replayability of procedurally generated content, but nor will it have the poor balance that so many "roguelike" games have. The game is a humble success.

Mahokenshi is an interesting spin on the deckbuilder genre. Its a deckbuilder strategy game with roguelite elements. The game does two fairly unique twists to innovate in the fairly saturated market of deckbuilders.

First, the game is played on a hex based, overlay map. That means movement is done alongside card plays, with movement costing energy along with cards. Enemies and objectives are littered throughout the map, which means that you can run away from an enemy by, well, literally running away from them.

This combined design of hex movement and engaging with objectives creates more dynamic encounters than a standard deckbuilder. In most deckbuilders, you go from instanced combat to instanced combat. In mahokenshi, you can find yourself dodging combats to get to objectives and going for upgrades.

This leads into the second unique aspect of the game. Rather than having a standard overworld map where you go along a track and pick which encounters you want to face, growing in power as you progress and culminating in boss fights, Mahokenshi has you go on missions. In each mission you start out with the same weak starting deck of cards, and minimal base stats, and you can improve yourself throughout the mission. At the end of the mission, your progression is removed, since it was for the mission itself.

The result is that each mission is a distinct play experience from the previous. This is why Mahokenshi does not fit into the standard mold of a roguelite deckbuilder, and rather feels more like a strategy game with a series of missions with roguelite elements.

There does exist a form of metaprogression outside of the missions, and you have your standard deckbuilder features like classes with different cards and relics and treasures and whathaveyou. You unlock new cards avalable to be drafted in a mission, new treasures to find, new equipment, through the metaprogression.

But ultimately the enjoyment in the game comes from the missions. You'll be thrown into a mission and told, for example, that you need to make sure no enemy crosses a specific threshold before a turn timer. You could do that by killing them, or just by aggroing them and tanking, or by slowing them down and throwing summons in their way - there exist multiple avenues to success.

For the most part, this results in pretty enjoyable gameplay loop. But this game may not be for you for two primary reasons.

Reason 1: The game is short. There aren't a whole lot of missions in the game, and the missions themselves only take 20-30 minutes. For a game which currently has a base price of 25 dollars USD, this is a shockingly short game. For the fiscally minded gamer, wait for this to go on sale. The game has next to no replay value; once you've done a mission, you've usually solved the puzzle of the objectives and replaying it has little to offer.

Reason 2: It plays far more like a strategy game than a deckbuilder. You aren't going to be getting crazy cool combos of your cards doing a million things in a turn, feeling like an absolute god, in 95% of missions. You're usually going to be trying to figure out the puzzle of how to achieve the mission objectives. That shift in the gameplay is what I find engaging about the game, but for someone looking for a more traditional deckbuilder this game will not fit the bill.

But if you're a fan of strategy games and want to try taking on an interesting and engaging twist on using a deckbuilder in a strategy game, I would suggest Mahokenshi.

Get it on a discount. There are a lot of good ideas in this game. It is a little short. Almost every mission is time based to create artificial difficulty. The tile movement system is unique but ultimately slows the game down to being a chore. Thumbs up? It's fun, just needs to be made better in the sequel.

Oh, and it has furry characters OwO So +100

This game is what happens if Slay the Spire and Heroes of Might & Magic have a baby. You are running across scenario map and combat is deck-builder very similar to Slay the Spire. Making completely broken deck is much easier than in Slay the Spire.
The game contains several main missions and side missions which are preset and always the same (you can play them how many times you want, but they don't change) - once you complete every mission and every challenge there is nothing to do - maybe level all toons (there are 4 total) to max level if you care as I ended up using basically only 2 characters because I liked them much more and felt better suited for the task which needs to be done and my play-style.
There is some roguelite progression as new items and cards unlock from hero leveling, also completing missions and challenges grants shards which you can use to unlock permanent perks (spent shards can be reset for free).
Completing all missions and challenges takes approximately 20 hours.
Worth money or wait for sale? Your pick.

Believe it or not, deckbuilding is not the most important aspect of this game, as you don't keep the deck you built from one level to the next. And this is not a bad thing. It allows you to focus on being adaptive and to try different combinations quickly.
In some ways, it's more of a turn-based tactics game rather than a deckbuilding game.
The story isn't particularly rich, even though the theme is very interesting and eye-catching.
It's a great pick for completionists. I was able to beat it 100% in around 30 hours without too much difficulty. Best if you get it on sale, of course.
I'll be on the lookout for a sequel.

Solid. deckbuilding is fun, it doesnt make you grind. It encourages you to play all the styles with varied challenges.

The mission designs are just unique enough, (rush <--> slaughter spectrum) but the draw here is the gameplay loop of getting cards and stats while achieving the various sub-objectives.

Each turn is tense and thoughtful in a way that feels very very good. "Too many options" is such a good thing for the genre and this has it for both the card building and tactical sides. Very thoughtfully designed.

Great intro cut-scene, and passable story moves at a crisp pace. Not trying to be shakespear but sets a cool context.

UI isn't snappy and no speed settings can speed that up. Not horrific or anything but a black eye on such a carefully made game. At least the AI turns are FAST and that's a big edge over others in the genre. Didnt play or make custom maps cause I feel like you can play almost all the cards and synergies, even pretty much master them.

Some card imbalance but thats part of the fun. Some bonkers stuff you can pull off and thats really really cool.

This not just another Slay the Spire clone.
And that is good.

If anything, it's a super "lite" version of Mage Knight, with an L5R skin.
And that is great.