Anode Heart: Layer Null

I really wanted to like this game. I love the idea of a 3d world focused on card battles. A long form deck builder. There are SO few of those and we need more. Because the only one out right now - this game, ♥♥♥♥♥♥' sucks. This game is only positively rated because this is the only way to experience a modern long form deck builder. The graphics are nice. The controls are awful on gamepad. Especially the steam deck - the on-screen cursor is basically useless But the real problem is the balance. Not just in the game - which is also bad. Bosses just flat out cheat. Like, the game calls it cheating. Bosses get special effects that benefit them. That's kind of whatever, normal game ♥♥♥♥. But the card balance is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ atrocious. There are mandatory cards that you HAVE to use. All the bosses use them because they're flat out overpowered - like Card Drive. It throws a card from your discard back into your deck and you draw 2 cards. Pot of Greed on crack cocaine. If you don't waste 4 slots on that card, you're at a disadvantage. Homogenization is always boring. And you HAVE to use those cards, because this is a game of snowball. The winner just keeps winning. If your field gets wiped even once and you don't have some card draw, you're done. Like, on the spot, because you only need 3 hits to win or lose. Speaking of the winner continuing to win, the whole game is built around that. If you get unlucky and can't generate more energy than your opponent, and they go into the firewall phase with more energy than you, THEY get a card. Why not just let both players draw a card at that phase? It's insane. If you're down in any way, it's basically gg. Very little way to come back at that point. But then, cards get to be so overpowered it becomes more like YuGiOh with whoever can set up the winning field first, just continues to win. What are you gonna do when your starter piece is killed on entrance? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nothing but pass, and then watch the opponent fills their field, that's what. And the firewall phase makes no sense, either. If you have enough card draw, you can just fill your field and the opponent (read, YOU) can't do anything about it because creatures are protected at that point. But you can't take advantage of that, because as soon as one player passes, the game moves immediately to combat. So you can't hold up creatures to fill your board if you fall behind, because the winner only has to pass once to enter combat. It's just a poorly designed card game all around. Drawing cards and gaining energy is an insane nearly rng balancing act, and the firewall phase is designed incorrectly from the ground up. I may give this another shot because there are so few options in this genre, but I'm probably not gonna be happy about it. Someone, please, give me an open world 3d MtG(or ripoff) game with long form deck building.

ゲームシステムは基本的に面白いですが以下の点で面白さが遥かに凌駕します ・マップの作りが広すぎて迷子になる。地図等の親切心は一切無し。 ・道中も無駄に長い分かれ道を地図一切無しで走り回る。なんなら振り出しにワープさせられる時すらある。小学生が作った迷路？ ・ルールに関する解説は０に等しい。基本的な仕様すらsteamコミュニティに長文で解説があるレベル。 ・敵の使用するカードが極めて不愉快。初手で最強カード並べてこちらの除去を全て無効化。大体1ターンでサレンダー。 ・の所為で勝てても運が良かっただけとしか思えない。プレイングの介在する余地はほぼ無い。 ・クエストがあるが目的地表示は無い。気合で探せ。 ・どころか目的地表示も何の当てもも無くその辺を走り回らなければいけない時間がある。ランニングゲームだっけこれ？ ・会話ムービーがスキップ出来ない。 ・し、ゲームオーバーになる度に戻されてムービー見せられる。もう令和だぞ･･･ 総じて、最高級の日本の素材をイギリス人が料理したって感じのゲーム。なまじ序盤は楽しいので返金出来ないのが嫌らしい･･･15時間ぐらいは楽しめたのでまぁ･･･いいか･･･

Surprisingly full of love. Very much recommended, pick it up alongside a friend and have them fight you online 1v1 to see whose's deck cheeses hardest. And for a bit of criticism, which doesn't detract from my opinion that this game is absolutely worth it: This game is not too hard, and that's only kind of a complaint, the game stands well tall and proud even with how forgiving it may be by nature (Infinite retry on enemies by default makes it so you can cheese wins with most decks) I wish it had challenged me more as I only really had to build one deck and iterate over it to beat the game. I think the part where you are told to outright use a certain card to win is something the dev(s?) should have explored more in-depth, that's where the game shone the brightest for me. Give me arbitrary roadblocks, make me engage with mechanics, make it optional for all I care, put me in a situation where I have... all cards stacked against me? and let my knowledge of the game be my only advantage over the cheating AI. I thought the game was going on this direction when the enemies started "cheating" by adding modifiers that benefit their decks, but that ended up falling short of (my) expectation, since even if some fights randomly spike up in difficulty (And I assume which fights spike in difficulty is different for every deck, which is awesome!) But to me... they didn't cheat enough? It invited the thought of the very last fights in the Pokemon Stadium (Rentals only) games, or even other old-school card games, where the enemy outright had things you didn't and couldn't have access to. In any case, if this is what the team can make with the ever growing asset library they're building, I want to keep an eye on what they release next. Oh right, I found controller support to be pretty god darn horrible. Guess I can also put that in.

reminds me of digimon world 3

[b]Pros:[/b] * Strong and addictive core gameplay mechanics. * Hundreds of cards with a wide variety of synergies and combo possibilities. * A huge bonus for players of Anode Heart — the crossover characters and Tama references are a really nice touch. * The story maintains a consistent theme throughout, with a decent overall plot. * Adjustable NPC AI difficulty is a great feature. It seems to affect their draw quality, and Level 3 felt like the perfect balance for me. * Plenty of worthwhile post-game content. * Like Anode Heart, the game experiments with some creative mechanics, such as tag-team battles, best-of-3 / best-of-5 matches, and card fusion systems that reminded me of Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories on the PS1. * You can copy decks from defeated NPCs, which is a great quality-of-life feature for experimenting with new strategies and builds. [b]Cons:[/b] * I was able to beat the final boss and collect stars using mostly the same deck from start to finish. * The game rarely pushes players to experiment with different deck archetypes. * The card crafting and collection interface could be improved. As a collector, I wish there were a complete card catalog showing which cards I’m missing and how to obtain them. * The pixel art style is charming overall, but some card artwork is difficult to understand and feels overly abstract. * Grinding is barely necessary. Personally, I would have liked a bit more progression grinding. [b]Additional Notes:[/b] * A lot of players say the NPCs ‘cheat,’ but I honestly disagree. This isn’t a PvP game — I just see it as part of the boss mechanics and challenge.

The most interesting single player card game in years. An engaging story, that went well beyond my expectations. Tons of cards with a ton of mechanical depth for lots of fun deck building options. It feels like anything card related has turned into multiplayer f2p or rogue like deck builders. This is the kind of game there should be more of. I cannot recommend the game enough and I'm excited to see more from this developer.

Amazing game, really reminds me of playing Digimon World 3 back in the day just for the card part. Solid mechanics and can't wait to see if more is added. 11/10 will play again.

If you enjoy rapidly prototyping and testing decks, this is the game for you.