Monster Train

[Jasede]

Ah just keep at it, I am lucky in that I played a ton of Slay the Spire so I kind of have a general idea on what a deck should have, though you can't translate the skill 1 to 1.

 

[rado907]

This game is awesome, been playing it the last couple of weeks. Straight up StS clone. Delivers.

I like Umbra. One of the morsel spamming guys plus the one that doubles morsels plus a good toon to feed and you're golden, can play hands off.

The train bonuses after Daedalus & Fel seem uneven. Ascend/descend skills make floor room weak. And I often have more energy than cards to spend it on. Usually I default to +1 draw.

The x5 event is cute but broken. The duplication over world event is strong as it is.

Overall spectacular game. A few rounds of balancing and it'll be ready for a DLC.

Can't believe how fun these deck builders are.

 

[Reality]

Board games had been hoarding the fun stuff for years tbh, we are lucky to finally get some videogames in the genre.

 

[Silentstorm]

I remember hearing about this game as it was coming out, didn't even look deeply into it as it just looked like a Slay The Spire clone, but kept seeing it being recommended by Steam, saw the reviews and decided to buy it, and it's amazing, much much better than i was expecting, i now want to go back in time and slap myself in the face for not buying this game day 1.

So far, the Umbras are my favorite clan, just love their champion so much and they have an interesting gimmick, gotta love a clan that specializes in tasty morsels.

 

[Thac0]

For me this is just better than Slay the Spire already, and I liked STS quite a bit. Launching with 5 classes instead of 2, and allowing multiclassing lets the game have much more depth. I am completely in love with the awoken Legion, 70 thorns and 70 regen on a character locked into a boss battle is so satisfying.

 

[tripedal]

Any tips on the Umbra/Remnant combo? I feel like every aspect of those two is a hard anti-synergy, can't even get remotely close to winning with them...

 

[Jasede]

Try harvest minions. The morsels trigger harvest when they are eaten.

 

[Silentstorm]

After a few days, found time to play it again, beat Covenant 1(really only started recently) with Remnant/Umbra, and with the Burnout champion at that, having those maids that give extra burnout after being hit really helps.

Also, it was just Seraph The Chosen and beat it with Memento Mori, spells like that really are useful when it comes to clans that have monsters that die a lot, poor Seraph didn't know the fuck hit him at the end, and yep, the game continues to be great.

 

[Jasede]

I am free! I am free!!

Legion of Wax MVP

 

[Silentstorm]

Wonder if this game could get mods like Slay The Spire, after a while, it was fun playing with custom cards and characters, also getting new artifacts and enemies, sure, you could get some overpowered or badly done mods, but they were fun.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Picked this up because a shady key seller opened his grubby coat in front of me and made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Impressions thus far are really good. Does seem kind of easy, but I'm on no ascension (Seems to be a running theme, with Griftlands being mighty easy too) so that could change. One really nice thing is almost everything feels really impactful and "Swingy" in it. Cards feel big, upgrades feel big, relics feel big, you tear through fights quickly, very punchy feeling game. Which is almost the exact opposite of one of my complaints about Griftlands, where the cards and upgrades felt unexciting and slight. Strangely enough this doesn't feel as compelling as Griftlands though, and I wonder if that might be because of the story. I haven't gone on a replay bender on Griftlands since I want to wait until release (Or closer to it) in case they wipe progress and because they're still adding chunks of content into the main game, but after playing my few full Griftlands runs I felt (And still feel) a decent pull to load it up again. Had fun with my first Monster Train run but it's not eating at me in the same way. May take more play for me to zero in on why that is, if I had to guess right now I'd theorize it's the pseudo tower-defense angle. Monster Train feels a tiny bit more passive (At least with creature decks, which is what I've played so far) since you're mostly setting stuff and forgetting it other than supporting with spells, so maybe that scratches a mental itch less than playing CARD to target THING.

Rambling aside though, lookin' good. Happy to get games like STS/Griftlands/Monster Train.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

ew disgusting mobile aesthetic

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I've been playing this (Steam says 12 hours). Haven't gotten too far into Covenant ranks yet (4 is highest), but it definitely feels overall too easy at the beginning with some clan combos. Just finished my first stab at Melting Remnant after unlocking them and I straight-up steamrolled it (Umbra as ally). Seraph went down in 5 turns flat, and the only time mobs got above the middle level was when I wanted them to. Didn't even get crazy lucky with events/relics. I like how unique each faction plays and the different playstyles with each faction is even better, plus the synergy on offer from allied clans is awesome, BUT... the game just doesn't feel well balanced right now. Maybe this is just my own playstyle misinforming me, but Umbra and Melting both seem overpowered as fuck compared to the other 3. Umbra is also just... kind of boring. Winning strategies seem to delve heavily into automation and it's just not very interesting. Melting at least seems fun to play, even if it is overpowered, but thus far my favorite primary is definitely Stygian. Only clan I haven't won with as a primary is Awoken, and I haven't really spent too much time on them.

And maybe I'm having trouble with some 4D thinking (or maybe I just haven't gotten high enough into the covenant system), but it seems like there's also a general problem with parity among some of the cards and relics; some of them seem absolutely fucking useless, and some can outright win you the game. Getting that relic that lets you add an extra upgrade slot to units or spells can outright demolish any challenge level depending on your deck. By contrast, the relic that deals 2 damage to enemies when they change floors is just bafflingly bad as far as I can see. I also think most of the "X" cards are shit, with a a few that are outright broken no-brainers.

I'm going to keep playing. I like the game, but it doesn't seem like it will have the longevity of STS.

 

[tripedal]

Expansion is out with a new clan. Nothing mindblowing mechanically but they're pretty fun.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Expansion is out with a new clan. Nothing mindblowing mechanically but they're pretty fun.

How's the other content they added. On paper it looks a little expensive for just 1 new clan and few new cards/events.

 

[anvi]

I love it. The original was good but a bit shallow and I was worried it would be like most games today, and not developed much after the initial hype. But the expansion adds lots and makes me think the game could have a real future too.

 

[T45 Paladin]

I picked this up during the "roguelike" sale on Steam a couple of days ago. It's still on sale (50% off) for the next 14 hours.

It's refreshingly good. I've played Slay the Spire so much that I needed something new but similar. This is exactly that, but it also adds plenty of original content and enough new ideas to make it feel relatively different.

The expansion is also worth it, for anyone wondering. Lots of new content and you can switch it on and off, if you wish to explore the base mechanics of the game first.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Jasede liked it so it sucks.

 

[anvi]

It's really good. I was done with it in a few weeks though, including expansion.

 

[Dickie]

I hope most of the fans are Chinese people with cell phones.

We are happy to share with you some news for our Chinese players!

We are happy to share with you some news for our Chinese players.
Together with Conscience Studio we are creating a special adaptation of Monster Train for the Chinese mobile market. Check out more here: https://www.3839.com/a/141233.htm
More info soon!

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1102190/view/4405086554137064474

 

[Dickie]

The devs are now working on a "co-op roguelike RPG" called "Inkbound." I guess Monster Train is over.



https://shinyshoe.com/games/inkbound/

 

[NorwegianWolf]

I'm playing Monster Train right now, and I'll admit it got me hooked more than Slay The Spire.
I enjoy finding synergies in different team builds. Sometimes you think you're doing well only to find out your strategy was perfect for eliminating grunts, but terrible for high HP bosses. Another time you eliminate a boss in a massive 1300 damage hit. There is also a random element, so you can pick the same exact units the steamrolled the enemies in last run, only to roll different artifacts and a little different set of spells. Good stuff.

 

[anvi]

I love this game. The graphics are much better than it sometimes looks in screenshots. It's animated really well and it's very smooth and slick to play, the appearance of it. It feels nice to play. The music is very good too, better than you usually get in games.

There's some depth and stuff to learn and get good at. You build creatures to defend your train against enemies, so having tanks and damage is good. At first I love having damage guys with Multistrike which lets them attack multiple times. So if their damage is 5 and they attack three times it's 15 damage. But there's a lot of things to pump the stats of creatures so if you pump him up to say 50 damage, then he does 150 damage in one go and kicks ass. It's fun.

Spoiler

But there are creatures with 'thorns' that do damage when they are hit. So multistrike really backfires in those fights. Your guys get torn up on the thorns from all the multi attacks.

There are healing spells but you don't always have them and they start weak too and have to be pumped up to become good.

Spoiler

There's also an ability/buff 'Sweep' which lets your creature attack all the enemies at once. And excess damage can go to the next creature. And an ability called Slay which boosts your creature's damage if it kills something. So once it starts doing Sweep on the whole group of enemies, it kills some stuff and gets +10 damage for each kill. Pretty soon you have a badass with 200 damage from one hit and it hits the entire group. You can also get a thing called Quick which makes it attack before the enemies get their round. So sometimes your creature ends up slaughtering enemies before they even attack.

There is some good magic as well as creatures, but

Spoiler

some enemies have Encant which gives them some boost whenever you cast a spell.

So you have to be careful with it.

Even with the same 2 races I can play through it 20 times and enjoy trying different things out. There are about 6 races total so playing with all of them has many hours of fun. Although if you play it for hours on end like me you can be done with it in a few weeks or so. But I enjoyed it all, and am revisiting now a couple of years later to play again.

I would have liked to see this gameplay in other games. In some good MMOs and RPGs you can have pets that you can buff up really strong and then you fight by hiding behind your buffed pet and letting it tear stuff up. I'd love to see those things come together more.

 

[NorwegianWolf]

It's awesome how depending on cards that you choose, even with the same two clans, you can have a completely different playthrough. If you get a good artifact, you can spend the rest of the playthrough strategizing around it, or you can just focus on something else. You can have a run where you spam morsel eating. You can have a wildly successful run with no healing spells whatsoever. You can have a run where you focus on freezing spells, where you spam Spell Weakness, where you build massive armor on your front unit. The posibilities are endless and they are fun. Honestly, I have more fun with this game, than with Slay The Spire. Right now I have some 30 hours of playtime.

 

[anvi]

Covenant 10! Getting past 9 took me many attempts.