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Mahokenshi review: a deck builder that pisses you off


Most of the deck strategy games sees you create a single deck of cards throughout the game. With each stage completed, you have the opportunity to add new cards and discard old buffers, carefully honing those rough edges until you yourself are killed by the paper cutter. mahokenshi However, not most other deck builders. Here, you are tasked with creating a new deck of cards every time you begin a new mission, reinforcing your initial attack series and move cards with new, more powerful attacks as you progress. move around the landscape based on its hexagon. Some can be found in the wild, but most of them you’ll buy from village merchants, before upgrading them at the dojos scattered across the map. And at the end of the mission, they were all swept away.

It’s definitely a refreshing take on deck building, and it offers even more wins and spontaneous returns than the usual rush of tension you get from simply is to draw a good or bad hand. But with the main story quests rapidly increasing in difficulty, jostling for bigger and better cards up front is often an impossible feat for Mahokenshi. Sudden opportunities are felt more deeply than ever in Game Source Studio’s first deck builder, and they never feel like they’re leaning towards you.

There are four of the typical Mahokenshi to choose from when choosing a quest, each themed around a creature from Japanese mythology. For example, the winged Ayaka has a bit of Tengu running through her veins, allowing her to use less energy when moving through different types of terrain as she flies. Sota, on the other hand, is your stealthy, poison kunai-throwing ninja, controlling the giant spider monster Ogumo to weave cunning traps and attack from afar, while Kaito is your classic tank samurai with Kappa’s defenses were filled with water, supporting the idea of ​​waiting until he was surrounded before unleashing his fury. Finally there is Misaki, who uses Kitsune magic to confuse and disorient enemies from a distance.

There’s a bit of card sharing between these different characters, but for the most part they feel distinct from each other, offering noticeably different playstyles and unique card attacks as you hop across the Islands. Its floating celestial to prevent the evil demons from overthrowing the measuring place. The missions are turn-based. You can only expend a certain amount of energy per turn, split between playing cards and moving between the elaborately designed plains, hills, forests and mountains, but use this terrain to your advantage can turn the tide in your favor. Forests, for example, strengthen your base’s defenses, while mountains and hills enhance your attack, making its hexagons more than just art decorations.


A warrior fights oni monsters on hexagonal bricks in Mahokenshi

A hexagonal brick floating island covered in forest at Mahokenshi

A large Oni stands in the center of the map surrounded by mages in Mahokenshi

Navigate these open-ended maps and weigh the risks and rewards of deviating from your central objective to visit additional shops, dojos, and treasure chests to power up your deck Your will provide a solid strategic backbone for Mahokenshi. Later maps will also allow you to increase your base mana, attack, defense and draw numbers if you go to the required meditation points, but as some quests have a certain time limit on them , then speed is of the essence. Mahokenshi thrives on scaling its difficulty as you spend more time on any given quest – giant demons gain more lives for each village they destroy, for example, or an entourage of mages infusing monstrous oni monsters with increasing attack and defense – and it manages to turn even simple movement choices into tough decisions towel, is considered.

Alas, I often find that the tactical tightening isn’t stable enough to find a satisfying foothold at times, and I think part of this has to do with the slow speed with which you can level up your character. me. For example, the more experience you have, the more cards that warrior has on a permanent basis, giving you more options in the wider map and shops. To his credit, Mahokenshi is quite generous in this respect and will split exp between completed side objectives and killing enemies even if you fail the broader story mission or die in battle – a lucky concession prevents those (admittedly frequent) ‘Beat’ ‘ screens from turning into total frustration. However, leveling up can be difficult without those big quests and unexpected goals, and its relentless AI and high difficulty means repeated attempts at failed maps will definitely feel like being crushed after a few tries.


A ninja in green fights two goblins in Mahokenshi

But Mahokenshi’s biggest problem isn’t the speed of experience points. It’s building any kind of cumulative experience of actually playing as the characters it’s lacking, since you’re not just starting from scratch with them on every single mission, but the random nature The nature of what you can add to your deck also makes it difficult to get a real sense of how they work. The smaller, more linear, optional challenge missions quickly became essential training when I tried to experiment with different characters, but when there was such a spike in difficulty between quests, that mission and the quests in the main story, even that preliminary honing wasn’t enough to see me off to victory. Sometimes the odds seem too tilted in favor of the demons, and I often find myself completely confused before having a chance to really dig into the actual deck building.

In the end, Mahokenshi is just too much of a drag to be really interesting. It certainly has its moments, and those that thrive on the crushing rhythm of game like soul could get more out of this than I did. But when you learn that the sweet card synergies you’ve just discovered will be discarded again at the start of the next quest, you start to feel unlike the divine heroes you’ve been spawning. live, and like some wandering bush are lost their way. through the fickle field of opportunity. Lady Luck is a cruel mistress in the Mahokenshi world, and I can never shake the feeling that she is holding her cards a little too close to her chest.

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