As far as deckbuilders go, Monster Train is fantastic. The general strategy and the quirks of fighting on a multi-leveled train make it stand out as its own sort of unique puzzle that rewards players for cleverness. The runs are fast, it’s easy to learn, and the challenge modes give it plenty of depth and replay. Get on board before it leaves the station!
If there was any concept that the card battler genre had completely tapped out with Slay The Spire, Monster Train proves that assumption wrong. Combining scaling difficulty, combo troops and cards, and an amazing amount of replayability under the hood, this is a game that can easily devour hours of your time pursuing "just one more run."
While Monster Train provides a premiere deck building experience, it isn’t perfect by any means. Some cards and encounters aren’t explained particularly well. I found at times I had to experiment with how some things worked, simply because you may find that certain enemies aren’t what you thought they were, and some cards or encounters don’t fulfill the expectations you had for them. The streak system, banking on how many concurrent wins you had is a nice addition, but it becomes frustrating as, sometimes, you just don’t have the cards in your deck to win. It would have been nice to have a reward system, to bring over at least one card from the previous run so that you can build on your past success. Still, even with these perceptual issues or missed opportunities, Monster Train still has me returning for more. Monster Train is definitely an unexpected hidden gem.
For those who are into card games, Monster Train is a must-play title. It's better and more complex than Slay the Spire, although I would have liked to see more bosses throughout my several playthroughs, the RNG dictates who you fight and when. Monster Train is a fresh, new take on the deck-building card game genre that will be hard to be outmatched.
I’ve found it hard to recommend deck builders recently because I’ve either thought they were clones of other games, not all that exciting or they have too much going on, however, in Monster Train they have managed to balance replayability and creativity. If you’re a fan of deck builders or are new to the genre, I feel comfortable saying you will love Shiny Shoe’s unique take. It brought back my love for deck builders, has a soundtrack that you will be humming daily, and a creative art style. It’s definitely, in my opinion, well deserving of the overwhelmingly positive review scores it has received on Steam.
SummaryMonster Train is a strategic roguelike deck building game with a twist. Set on a train to hell, you’ll use tactical decision making to defend multiple vertical battlegrounds. With real time competitive multiplayer and endless replayability, Monster Train is always on time.