Gordian Quest Review (Brand new mindset)
I really love this game, this is probably my favorite deck building game in the genre. I've played Slay the Spire, Monster Train, One step from Eden, Hand of Fate... and this game is the most enjoyable out of these games. I really like the idea of slowly building up my characters in a longer campaign. The skill grid and the equipment system are great, the interaction of different position/status ailments are cool, and the status scaling system is the best. It reminds me of Dota2 and gives a lot of potential to build my characters.
However, there are quite some impactful flaws in the game right now:
1.Difficulty seems to be a problem.... I've googled difficulty settings before I started the game and I believe Torment/Hard should be the default Hard/Normal. A lot of people is complaining about repetitive game play and I believe the game is way too easy for them. If the game is easy, combat becomes bland and meaningless.... There are a lot of frustration come from this game but for me, repetitive was never the reason. Because the game is challenging for me and I'm currently playing on Torment.
2.A lot of different elements from different game style are merged into this game, sadly the RPG aspect is the weakest one. The main reason of that is the characters seldom speak. They never involve in the story, they only give robotic 3 words comments that sounds like textbook dialogue, they never interact with other npcs, they don't even talk to each other. They are all acting like bots.... Normally I wouldn't care that much if the playable characters are expendable like mercenaries in Darkest Dungeon or soldiers in XCOM, but if the game wants to build around 10 heroes saving the world they need to be alive. I'm not asking for epic storyline like Witcher or FinalFantasy, but atleast make them sounds like real humans.. right now they act like bots in the game.
3.So many important mechanics in the game are unexplained, like the attack range of melee attack cards, the interaction of shock, I didn't even know you can put your own cards into empty slots of weapons until like 15 hours into the game. I had to respec my mage because I didn't know chill and burn cancels out each other. I'm not against learning by playing the game but this is too much. Also there are inconsistency in the game, why can't we see the full damage that is going to be done by shock or burn but we can see the full damage from poison for the full duration? And what does that card from Naran that "makes the enemy draw the same hand next turn" really do? Is that card only for PVP? What does that card plan to achieve when most enemies only have 1 card in their deck? Btw I'm actually stuck in act 2 atm... I just don't know where to go after I opened the water gate underground and beat 2 bosses that get unleashed. I've googled and I found people that were stuck at the exact same place.
4.The gameover mechanics is unpolished. You get a free full party revive at the Inn if you got your party wiped in Normal mode, there is no point not to intentionally kill all your party members rather than trying to survive with 1-2 members and spending 200 gold to revive each of them. I tried Roguelite mode and that seems impossible because of those unexplained mechanics. You need to learn this game by dying and losing. In the end I just had to save scum. Roguelike/Roguelite game mode just doesn't seem to be fitting in a long campaign game unlike short runs games like Slay the spire.
*Instead of reviving your full party in inn, what about something like a strong debuff? Maybe lower the max HP by 50% or lower your stats? What about putting obstacle cards in your deck like exhaust but you can only remove it by paying the revival cost (200g)?
5.Map node system is lackluster. The fact that I can always easily go back to town means the Supplies and Camping system is pretty meaningless. Yes in dungeons you can't go back but you can always get wiped and get back to Inn. I've played 90+ hrs in this game but I've camped less than 15 times. The buffs from camping are handy it just doesn't worth the effort to play the camping system while you can spend the time leveling up or earning money for better equipments. The Camping itself doesn't seem balanced either. There are characters that can level up your cards or gain fate for you but others cannot...? Btw It would be nice if we can check the camping skills of our characters in the menu.
*Is it possible to lessen the branch points of the Map and costing supplies on every step to make supplies more useful? If you don't have enough supplies you get a debuff or something. Or adding exhausts in your deck.
6.The halloween event wasn't really fun. It was quite painful for me to replay the same event 10 times to get all the cosmetics... I appreciate the fact that the devs are doing free event to celebrate but 10 times is way too much. Games are meant to play for fun not work like chores. I would pay for a real DLC with real content rather than free events like this. It is sad to see this game get so many negative reviews because of bad decisions outside of the game itself.
I really love this game and I really appreciate the devs are actually responding to this session. I hope they can listen, fix some of those major flaws and keep polishing this game.