Across the Obelisk Review (Modkiq)
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
Across the Obelisk takes everything you would expect from a roguelite deckbuilder and adds more of everything. Play 4 decks at the same time, add multiple overarching story-lines, more status effects than you can possibly track, so much meta progression you'd make an rpg blush, more deckbuilding to the point where you have a full deck before you do a single combat sequence, more choices, more paths, more music, more events than maybe any deckbuilder out there.
And the game believes in none of them.
With so many systems, so many options and combinations, the game is scared that you will be able to effectively use them. You know when you play other roguelite deckbuilders, you may come across a cool combo that lets you do something incredible? That will almost never happen in this game. The game puts artificial limitations on absolutely everything. Want to build a deck around keeping your block? Nah, you can only hold block for 2 turns. Want to build a deck around slowing the enemy? Nah, you can only do it a couple of times. Want to make an ice build that skips enemy turns? Nah anything remotely strong in the game that you would want to skip over is immune. Want to focus your team on one damage type? Nah, enemies all have different resistances. Want to have a small deck for one of your characters? No, lol.
The game is scared that you might actually be able to think outside the box, especially before you do any meta progression, that they hinder you in every artificial way possible. Despite all of these artificial blockages, it is still easy to find decks online that let you deal 10k damage in one turn (where the strongest common enemies have about 300HP) using certain methods, and because your starting deck can be made up of almost any card combo, why not just do that every single run?
Speaking of meta progression, this game feels awful due to it. In a game where a run may literally take you 8 hours to complete a run with friends, you may spend a full hour in act 1. Act 1 is balanced around you being able to win with default cards. Now, as you play the game, your "deal 5 damage" card will now deal 10 damage, your "bleed 1" will suddenly bleed 4, and so on. This makes the first acts significantly easier to the point where there is almost no challenge until act 3 or 4, but it still requires a time investment of 2-3 hours to get to the point where you actually needs to play the game. If you somehow make it too far in the game with not enough meta progression, the game is also happy to hit you with a "deal 9999 damage to all heroes" card and just remove your entire run with no warning, no counter play, simply because "You are playing too well, come back after you have more unlocks". What?
This game has so much bloat, quantity over quality is the name of the game. So many features that stops you from engaging with systems, so many random run "checks" (can you deal X damage in Y turns? Can you remove all of these statuses every other turn? If not your run is over here), so much progression that ruins the balance of the game, even drafting cards or free gear/pets rarely feel rewarding because you already started your run with the perfect setup.
Furthermore, the enemy balance is extremely odd. Almost anything you'll fight in the game has around 300 HP, and it generally takes a significant amount of time to kill these enemies before you unlock the full meta progression tree. And then what? Suddenly an enemy with 6000 HP that does the same attacks in a loop, and you sit there for over an hour doing a single combat encounter looping your deck over and over and over again. Why? Just to be infuriating on purpose? It is not even remotely difficult, it is just some of the worst design I have seen in any game.
In conclusion, this game is worse than almost any other roguelite deckbuilder out there, but it has that magical combo of "it works" and has online co-op, which are the only reasons to play this game if you're desperate for a roguelite deckbuilder like me and my friend was.