[h1]First impressions[/h1]
Normally i would give game in such rough state negative review, but it is free and under a pile of bad quality of life problems there is a fun ccg. My first launch ended up with several bugs, like tutorial prompt did not showed up and rewards for wins weren't given. It is not particularly hard to figure out how everything works since game similar to "You-Gi-Oh: Power Of Chaos", but i still suggest checking tutorial first. UI sometimes fails at snatching cards to the board, so you have to try few times in different places to actually put something up.
[h1]Gameplay[/h1]
Very short battles - this is definitely mini-CCG and not something serious like Gwent. Deck consists of 40 cards, making hard to get proper synergies as things you want to combo might never appear together. Each turn you get +1 to max energy and refresh all energy to make moves, so it starts slow and kind-a same each fight, while again, something like You-Gi-Oh allows for placing almost any unit right away, giving more freedom and variety.
Units split into 'land' and 'air', there are also spells and towers - pretty much whole content. Abilities are basic: tank, anti-air, aggressive who attacks right away, deadly one-shotter etc. Nothing special about them. There are about 40 campaign stages where you can play basic or hand-made decks vs AI to get bunch of currency for opening packs. As i understand further currency can be gained only from PvP...
I personally don't like PvP due to existence of ropers and long turns (60 seconds) - heck this is why playing only offline ccg. You also rely on other people being there to matchmake with, which might be quite hard with such mini-game. In fact, SteamDB claims daily peak players are 2-4.
[h1]Uniqueness[/h1]
None. I have seen such gameplay many hundred of times, but here we lack proper quality of life in UI, tutorial, animation, sounds, music, pretty much every step requires adjustments or improvements. While PC does not provides many free ccg with decent quality, Android definitely has a lot to offer for free and they can be emulated on PC easely. There is no proper story or explanation of world, no cutscenes, no 'heroes', just the battles themself that are quick to go through. Visual style is not really unique, i have hard time understanding which unit where by simply looking at cards, they just blend together. There no indication if you can attack with specific unit or already done it.
[h1]Conclusion[/h1]
Xeno Strike CCG is 'not bad', but should you really spend time on not bad games while there are many good ones, unique ones and overall all bunch of alternatives in same genre? I see it is not stated as Early Access, but definitely feels like it. Normally if it comes to dice, cards, spins etc i ask myself: "is this project more fun than Circadian Dice"? And it determines if there is a point to continue playing (they are quite similar).
[i]Unfortunately, for me personally Xeno Strike is way too much generic and it will take months to play through all other better titles this year till i get to it. Just in 4 days we have releases of Water Park Simulator, Zuminoes, Mistfall and Corsair Cove, followed by Beast of Reincarnation and Emberward next month. And by the time one goes through them all, another bunch comes - Bioden, HOPE 01, Valheim with coop, and amazing Withering Realms.[/i]
