Fate Hunters , Dark Fantasy Deck Building Roguelite
2Disclosure: This game copy was provided by the developer via Curator Connect.
Select one of three available characters and build up a deck in order to combat the monsters awaiting you inside the tower. Each character shares a basic pool of cards with class specific cards mixed in. All cards acquired in a turn can be played and new cards are earned by leveling up, turning in treasure or defeating rooms. As for the path, it is randomized with you following on rails. You can select between two doors when they are present, but the overall paths are preset. Should you kill the boss on the floor, you can either escape with all the treasure you have acquired (gold used to unlock starter cards/the Arcanist) or risk it all by venturing further. You either leave with something or die with nothing, making it hard to unlock the starter cards at first and pointless later when they are all unlocked. Gold is the only means of improvement outside general knowledge of the cards.
This game is more about the randomness of the experience than long term strategy with some monster attacking as you enter a room. If you are not at full health, you have the potential of being eliminated before you can even act. There are no passive buffs, no health increases or ways to effect battles outside direct healing, damage and card draws from your deck. This makes the balancing of certain enemy abilities and monster stats an issue, especially when you start hitting Level 3. Given that you are not limited in how many cards you get, it is crucial to be as small as possible to ensure regular rotation of health cards. Usually health increase or shielding would help make this aspect easier to manage, but the only shields are in the form of cards (that can thankfully be applied before going into another room). It would also help if each class had more specific cards to provide a means of deeper customization. This is by no means a terrible game, it just needs a steady look at the monsters used in each floor to balance the combat.
Performance has been fluid throughout the time I was playing. Card art is serviceable with the backgrounds looking great (could use some more variety though). Music is limited to a couple of tracks that can get repetitive after awhile. For those looking for a story, you won't find much outside the character motivations on the character screen. I should also mention at the time of this video, achievements are not working. This was disheartening given the rarity of some encounters and difficulty in killing them in one turn. Fate Hunters was enjoyable and has the makings of a decent roguelike. My only major issue with it revolve around the balancing issues that stem from deck customization to encounter strength. For the price, it might be a bit over what I would pay. It is a soft recommendation, with a sale providing incentive to try it out.