Monster Train

Monster train is a turn based card strategy where you fight your opponent inside the train, protecting the Spyre. It's very much like Slay the Spire with extra layers to the combat system. It's also less RNG as you know where you're heading to. Each run starts by selecting one of two (three in total) superpower options for the champion and an artifact of our choice. There is also a temple (from DLC) which allows us to gain artifacts and various rare upgrades for an additional difficulty. Our goal is to get through 9 rings of frozen hell in a monster train; that is 8 battles if we get to the final boss. Each combat starts off with deploying your champion unit against waves of enemies. Most of the time, the enemy boss will be flying between the floors deploying some distractions and joining the forces at the last wave into the combat phase or simply spawn last. Until that time you're supposed to fill up all floors with units and buffs to survive. The boss destroys the floor once it clears it from our units and it means we have less space to put units and less turns to beat the level. If the pyre falls, it's game over. Luckily, pyre still shoots back so it can serve as a 4th floor well if you've got dazed cards and increase its strength. We can also upgrade our Pyre with additional damage, armor, health and apply dazed to enemies entering it. The cards have various effects and can be upgraded, having 2 upgrade slots by default. The best part is 5x duplicating double, triple or even quadruple upgraded cards but having so many upgrades on one unit is uncommon. Each unit takes up space in the floor so when they're full we can use magic on top of it, and it's wise not to have too many units without enough buffs because they will be easily wiped out in the late game so there should be a nice balance. Another great feature is the alliance. We get to receive cards from two races depending on which railroad we choose or when we receive after battle rewards. We can make useful synergies, but sometimes allied cards just do not fit with our main one and only take up valuable space in our deck, but we can still get rid of them. Between battles, there are events like merchants for units, spells and artifacts, special caverns, duplicate hellvents, remove vortexes and health wells. We can even gain an extra gold. And the best part is, we can preview our run from start to finish, however we do not know the outcome of special events. So it is always wise to first...

My first roguelite deckbuilder and I'm addicted. Easy and fast to play.

Monster Train is 100% great. I loved Slay the Spire, and have played a LOT of Slay the Spire knockoffs. Like, probably 8-10. Some are almost direct clones, some are more different, but not a one of them is nearly as good as StS. Except for Monster Train. I'd say Monster Train is its equal. It helps that it's very different from StS, which means it's very much worth owning both, which I'm glad I now do. Compared to StS, Monster Train is fewer, longer fights, and more rewards for them. I love that after every fight, you get an option of two different reward paths, each of which offer their own set of options. It's incredibly addictive and compelling, where as soon as you finish you want to play one more run. I blinked and hours had gone by. I love that it's a "stop anywhere" sort of game, where you can go away mid-game if something pops up to interrupt. For a while this was my lunchtime game -- I can't play any action-based game while eating, so this is perfect. I can see that there's a lot of levels of strategy I just haven't understood yet, because there are over a dozen difficulty levels above what I'm having trouble with. And there's a nice variety of cards and that "Oooh, I hope I get X, it would combo perfectly!" feeling. Two thumbs up.

Monster Train is a fun deckbuilder that takes what Slay the Spire established in years prior and puts quite a bit of spin on it. Highly recommended if you enjoyed Slay the Spire or similar deckbuilders.

A highly replayable roguelike deckbuilding game where you will have to build overpowered combos in order to complete the increasingly difficult challenges. Each run lets you increase the game difficulty, from a starting point of 0 for the tutorial to a maximum of 25. Additional daily challenges and user created runs give an extremely high level of replayability. You choose two hellish tribes out of a total unlockable of of five, and the cards of these tribes will be added to your draftable pool. The card assignment is semi random, so you will have to adapt your strategy to the cards that are presented to you and based on the upcoming challenges. I really enjoy the game, more than I expected. Highly recommended!

Very fun game. You can mix and build lots of different strategies, playing in random is not even boring since you find out different possibilities. I really enjoy playing it