Across the Obelisk

This game was great a few years ago. It's a light deckbuilder with a campaign that can be played co-op. The flexibility with managing your deck and leveling your heroes makes it possible to find powerful card combinations in almost every run. There's a lot of different pathways to take in the campaign with meta quests along the way allowing for lots of replay value. At least, there was a few years ago. Emphasis on the word WAS great; when I played, there were just a couple of DLCs that would demand your attention and draw you in on the map. You'd follow a path leading to a flashing exclamation point only to be met with a credit card prompt. It was rather disruptive to normal gameplay already, but in the last couple of years, they have continued to release DLC after DLC, which bloats the maps with a freemium level of pay wall obnoxiousness. The quests and pathways are constantly lighting up to tell you that you're missing out and need to buy something more. It's unfortunate because if they had literally just left it alone, it would've been a great entry in a rather slim roguelike deckbuilding genre. Now, it's borderline bloatware akin to a mobile game asking for money at every turn inside the game. Avoid it.

I purchased this game when it came out and sunk over 50 hours into it; enjoying the entire time I played very much so however the updates that have been made over the last 4 years make me unable to recommend this game for people to purchase. The gameplay itself is good, it is a great mixture of elements from Slay the Spire and Darkest Dungeon however it is ruined by the obtrusive nature DLC you do not own is shoved in your face has killed a large part of my enjoyment in the choices I make during the game. From the moment you start to create your party DLC is already pushed at you, at launch it showed you 4 classes available and showed that characters in those classes were hidden providing you had not unlocked them; each character having unique starting decks and perks that allow you to delve deep into a specific type of deck and you needed to unlock the characters through your travels over the course of the game. At some point, a DLC character was evidently created that has the ability to have cards from 2 different classes, however there is not a single character in the base game which is capable of this. Regardless, there are now 5 classes available showing you a multiclass tab solely dedicated to DLC characters you can buy. The worst part for me personally, is that DLC world map events are shown to you despite not owning the DLC required causing you to make decisions on your options where you might not even know what you are working towards is even content available to you without a paywall. The DLC characters you do not own's map unlock events are still present in a game even if you do not own the DLC required to interact with the event. This can make you plan a route that takes you to an event which you simply just cannot interact with and unless you research every event does not clearly represent itself as something you are not able to do. When accessing the obelisk, rather than use their already existing system of hiding away options for event choices, you do not have and adding a small tag at the bottom of the screen mentioning that some options are missing. The DLC options are prominantly shown in the list featuring a lock symbol saying "You can't go here because you don't own X". If this game didn't shove DLC I don't own down my throat when trying to get back into it after a few years I might have bought some as they seem like they add a decent variety of content however playing without it I just feel like I am playing a half finished game and that the only way to actually have a page of fully unlocked characters or to declare an act truly 'complete' requires me to pay more than twice what the the game is currently selling for just leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I am reminded of this every single act change. EDIT : 24/04/26 A recent update claims that DLC prompts will no longer appear unless they can be selected. I have yet to test this new update and the information in this review could be considered out of date as of this time.

Paradox is exactly like Electronic Arts. They're selling out the passion in games with DLC's after DLC. It's sad seeing a $30 CAD game become $160, that's a 5x price mark up on a game. disgusting and exploitative. Wait till I tell you about Stellaris, another game of theirs. The base game Costs like $54 CAD, but in DLC's alone has a total value of $520.. talk about a 10x price mark up. If this is the future of gaming, we’re all in trouble. I Don’t support companies that treat players as wallets, sacrificing creativity and integrity for profit. (Learnt my Lesson with Stellaris) UPDATE; They released a DLC that's ALMOST THE SAME PRICE AS THE GAME! offering only 1 ACT difference from the entire game itself. Can you make scamming your playerbase anymore obvious?

Looks like Paradox took over and added a billion DLCs with DLC cards appearing in the base version of the game with you not being able to pick them if you don't own the DLC. Great stuff.

Once upon a time, this was a very solid game, and I was excited to see what the future held for the game and its developers. Their first DLC was a bit rough, but it felt like they were taking that criticism and using it to improve themselves and their game. Then they sold to Paradox, and now it's a machine for pumping out mid-to-low quality DLC. $5 for a new character. $10 for a new map. $20 for a bit of both. It's great to see a game you love do well, be profitable, and continue to get new content, but it really feels like they sold their soul on this one. Which is a shame, because the base game really was something special. I wouldn't recommend supporting this developer or publisher any more, there are better places to put your money.

Good Game... Garbage way to treat your customers with all the DLC's. I used to play this game with my kids, but since I don't want to spend money on this every month we've had to go with other games. the DLC's would be fine if they didn't try to remind you throughout the game ALL THE TIME that you're missing stuff. Good job Dreamsite Gameson for turning your game into a commercial, EA would be proud... Just one step up from having to pay for a subscription service to play.

I love this game, but I cannot recommend it. Paradox took over refused to add mod support, gave us continuous overpriced DLC, then proceeded to not release any meaningful content for the last 4 years. I think we should have a small dev make their OWN VERSION of this because the game was peak before paradox got their filthy greedy disgusting wart having goblin *ss fingers on the game. Paradox has once again stunted a great concept with greed and greed and greed. I hate them. Thank you paradox for making one of the best deckbuilders not only stagnate but have no sight of a sequel or anything of similar playstyle/qaulity. In the future stay away from my indie games please and thank you.

Was a great game at launch, now it got paradoxxed with tons of invasive dlc