Arcana of Paradise —The Tower—

Instead of a roguelike deckbuilder, it is more like a puzzle story game. The deck building part is barely there, and game difficulty is quite easy. Battles and events quickly become repetitive and boring, some settings are just counter intuitive. There are plenty of characters for different play style. However, around 20 characters, there are about only about 3 styles of playing. Overall, this game feels like a RTE battle with puzzle story.

[h1]A very pleasant surprise[/h1] I really love this game, from its presentation with wonderful visual and musical aspects, to its roguelike deck-builder mechanics with depth and variety of events that make it so entertaining and addictive. Its story may be somewhat obtuse (with some... interesting revelations) and with a (kind of) resource management that, due to the randomness, can be undemanding or convoluted. And in general I am not surprised that there are people who say that it is easy, not because it is simple, but because the base cards are usually enough to practically finish the game (although the additional ones make it more fun). Now, there are a couple of things that I don’t like: The game has three types of combat forms (weapons, seals and magic) which work great exclusively for each one. Each child is assigned either one or a combination of two, and that’s when there is a conflict, each type is designed to be used together in combos, but if cards from another type are used, they are sometimes cancelled or lose effectiveness. And, because of how the game is, you are sometimes almost forced to choose two characters with different styles, making the game slower and more complicated than necessary. The other thing is that some events can repeat several times, and some are more annoying than anything else. It really is a charming experience from the beginning, full of charisma and affection in many areas, quite satisfied with everything, highly recommended. Spa: [h1]Una muy agradable sorpresa[/h1] Realmente me encanta este juego, desde su presentación con el apartado visual y musical maravillosos, hasta sus mecánicas roguelikes de cartas con profundidad y variedad de eventos que lo hace tan entretenido y adictivo. Su historia puede que sea un tanto obtusa (con ciertas revelaciones... interesantes) y con un pseudo-manejo de recursos que, debido a la aleatoriedad de las partidas, puede resultar engorroso, o sin complicaciones. Y en general no me sorprende que haya gente que diga que es fácil, no porque sea un paseo, sino más bien porque las cartas bases suelen ser suficientes para pasarse el juego prácticamente (aunque las adicionales lo hacen más divertido). Si hay un par de cosas que no me terminan de agradar: EL juego tiene tres tipos formas de combate de cartas (armas, sellos y magia) las cuales funcionan estupendo de forma exclusiva de cada una. A cada niño se le asigna ya sea una o combinación de dos, y ahi es cuando hay un conflicto, cada tipo está pensada para ser usadas entre sí en forma de combos, pero si se usan cartas de otro tipo, a veces se cancelan o pierden efectividad. Y, por como es el juego, a veces estas casi obligado a elegir dos personajes de estilos distintos, haciendo la partida más lenta y complicada de lo necesario. La otra es que los eventos pueden repetirse varias veces, y hay algunos que son más molestos que cualquier otra cosa. Realmente es una experiencia encantadora desde el principio, lleno de carisma y cariño en muchos ámbitos, bastante satisfecho con todo, muy recomendado.

Dev needs to add more replayability. Its good for one playthrough though.

Really cool so far. The children have a lot of character, and the card combat system is inventive and fun. Love the art and music as well. I'm not sure how much it'll hold up as a long-term game after finishing the story, but it's definitely more than enjoyable enough to complete a full playthrough. E: Turned out there really wasn't much new past what I saw in the first session. The game becomes kind of routine and tedious before you finish the first round of children, and you'll have to grind a fair bit beyond what you want to if you want to max out relationships with them to get their unique ending pictures and information. I think this could have been a lot better with some additional event and enemy variety.

It's not polished. There is a lot of great things about this game, but it feels like few of the strings to connect all of those things were tied up nicely. Instead, they were just triple knotted to make sure the game was playable. There is a _lot_ of randomness in the encounters, but there should have been more tying together of what is possible to encounter. The different stages have some unique enemies, but the special chests that you encounter feels truly random, and that's extremely difficult to plan for. So instead you just have hope, or gather anything and everything you can to unlock the chests. And there are a lot of instances much like this. The game feels too loose when there should have been more cohesion. Is it worth a buy? Maybe. If you really like rogue-likes, and are will to deal with, what feels like to me, too much random, then sure. But for most people? Probably not.

I've played several card-based roguelike games lately, and often there's more to the game than just how the cards themselves work. While some other games focus on external systems for getting cards for the main usage of those cards, Arcana instead focuses on very simple cards with an interesting depth of use for individual cards inside and outside of combat. Most of time time this results in a puzzle, where certain cards solve a problem presented to you. Don't have a light? Use a Torch, or if you're using magic, Fireball. A lot of cards do this, which is honestly pretty amazing. I think this is one of the more interesting games I've seen that does more with the concept than "here is a card game you can't play in paper" and does some really interesting stuff with it. Absolutely a good game if you want to explore how the system works, not too difficult either! Highly recommend.

Really interesting spin on the deck-building rogue-light genre. Has a great soundtrack and artwork with a majora's mask esque dark theme. Plays like a more active Slay the spire with puzzle elements and story weaved throughout. Overall having a blast with this one. Got to save those weird ass kids.

The graphics and music is so charming, really lovely atmosphere. Gameplay is excellent, really enjoy how they've combined elements of different genres, I'm hooked.

Really wonderful vibes. The music especially is A+, evoking spiritual ecstasy and otherworldly danger both. It has a similar sort of uncanniness to things like Shin Megami Tensei and things like that. The mystery of the nature of the tower, the characters, and Paradise are compelling. There are some nice character moments that dovetail with the metaprogression, and you do get to care for the little children that climb down the tower. Gameplay-wise, pretty simple, and maybe too simple for dedicated fans of the card-battling genre. Most enemies have varied gimmicks that you have to learn to exploit, and on deeper floors especially you can't just brute force your way through. But I think there are too few random events and enemy types, at least as far as I've gotten, making runs feel a bit too samey. The real variety comes from your team and their loadout, but you'll always want to, for example, keep one fire card on you at all times because you'll probably get an event that needs one. I want this game to be chunkier than it is. Overall, this is a recommendation for me, with the caveat that you should go in for the whole package, not just the gameplay.

Generally enjoyable - the real-time card playing is a nice twist on the usual formula, the light puzzle elements are nice, and the kids are all adorable. That said, runs can start to feel a bit sameish after a while - although I'm not quite halfway through yet, so that may change. Disclosure: I know someone on the production team.

The music and sound design in this game are absolutely amazing and the visuals really good, a very good surprise so far! I really like how they differenciate every character through gameplay and not just story as well. Havn't played a lot yet, but darn it's already been a lot of fun!

Is forsaken children having to survive in mysterious harsh world a genre? If you're familiar with the idea you know what I mean. Either way, it's one of those, complete with stylish art and haunting choir music you'd expect from the premise. It's listed as card game, but it's more an action game. You build a simple deck, but the combat and challenges are in turn based real time, where you have to make quick decision picking cards to attack or defend, like in megaman battle network or one step from eden.

Having a good time so far, the music is great and combat is pretty interesting. The difficulty might be a bit low? I haven't tried the ranked mode yet tho

While I love the game's simple, card-driven combat, there's more to it than that. Solving puzzles throughout the tower with cards... Building your deck around upcoming events... All the surprises you find on death, failure, success, progression... It's enchanting.

The presentation is fantastic in this game and the only downsides so far is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of content and it's very easy so far (I just reached what I think is the final boss in 4 hours)

I played this game in full and got most, if not all of the achievements. I love it to death and it's a wonderful little story game. It tends to glitch out at times, and also isn't the most difficult. Mostly, it's about finding the right keys to the right puzzles. The Tower is never trying to kill you, it's trying to teach you. I would highly recommend this if you would like a relaxing, lightly grindy game with a good story. I would not recommend it if you're solely interested in deckbuilders. Much of the game relies on RNG and luck to get the correct items to meet specific situations.

So far been enjoying this game immensely. It has built a very charming and sweet world that is very easily to fall in love with. The art style is very pretty and feels magical, the soundtrack is incredible, 100% worth getting as well if you enjoy the style or genre for listening to even when not playing. The game play is familiar, but unique. I can see some people finding it a tad awkward or uncomfortable at first coming from other games with similar mechanics (slay the spire etc), however once it clicks (and it will) you will find it flows incredibly well for a slightly faster paced card battler. Learning to be knowledgeable with your deck and how to best use your hand within and being able to make that decision quickly is incredibly satisfying. If you are finding it a tad weird, just push through a little more until it clicks, I promise its worth it. Clearly a game created with some love that most certainly deserves some time.

Too easy, too little encounter diversity (both combat and noncombat), unclear endgame or newgame+

Game is bugged. Reinstalled a few times, not worth fighting with it. Decent concept, though.

Yes

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