Krzyżacy - The Knights of the Cross

Much better game than i have expected. Found it on steam once and was bewildered by the idea that China is making an anime card game about my (Polish) historical epic. Bought it around release, played it for 2 hours, forgot about it. Came back to it recently, gave it another shot. Played for 6 hours straight, then another session and beaten it. Now im not a "Slay the spire" player, all ive seen is videos. No idea how it compares to that genre of games in quality. Maybe its worse, maybe its better. Me? I had a lot of fun with this. Now the aesthetic is not my cup of coffee, but i decided to stick with it instead of the "western artstyle" pack. Its jarring, stupid, doesnt fit, but at least its something to talk about. Nuns with big [i] ballistics [/i] and pentagrams on books? Main love interest being a priestess/healer of some sort? Random magician girls with no underwear? Its all here and its hilarious. The gameplay itself is fun but hindered by bad translation on some cards. Its also very easy to break but maybe the intended roguelike mode poses more of a challenge, have yet to try it. You chain cards to make them more powerful and type combinations make your companions do their special attacks. Relics change the way you play quite a lot, though the best ones seem too easy to get. Audio is on the mid side, same few tracks play constantly, its the podcast/mp3 type of game. The UI is not on the good side, if you hover over UI elements they stay highlighted, you need to hover again to cancel it. Clearly a mobile port without much thought put into it. Nothing gamebreaking but noticable. Visually the game is allright. Ive already mentioned the artstyle, but the pixelart, effects and sprite animations are good. Nothing mindblowing, but good. Overall a 6.5/10 game, maybe 7. Has nothing to do with the source material besides an overall outline of a story but its a decent enough game on its own. Would recommend trying it out at least, the refund period lets you play more or less 1/3rd of the story mode so you can make up your own mind.