Monster Train 2

This game is amazing in various ways, but I just want to highlight one non-gameplay thing: when you right-click (inspect) a card, the game tells you the name of the artist who designed the card art. The game also tells you who designed some of the random events when you encounter them. What a wonderful thing to do, that feels like it should become a standard feature in every card game. I, at least, really appreciate it.

This game is basically a straight improvement on Monster Train 1, and Monster Train 1 was already a top 3 best roguelike deck builder game out there.

Monster Train 2 is my new favourite deckbuilder but this comes to no surprise because Monster Train 1 was my favourite before this. I have over 600 hours in the first game and I can see myself putting the same amount of time in here. Monster Train 2 is set directly after the last game. After Seraph was defeated by the player he retreats back to Heaven and makes a deal with three tians, powerful beings from beyond this world. The titans corrupt the forces of heaven and turn them into horrible monsters. Now hell is fighting to free heaven from the titans grasp and put an end to the conflict once and for all. The gameplay of MT2 is very close to the first game but with some meaningful differences. During combat there is now a new deployment phase which allows you to place your banner units in your train before the actual combat starts. This makes it easier to set up your strategy without relying on draw luck. Another new addition are room and equipment cards. Equipment can be placed on a unit to give it better stats and new abilities while room cards to the same but for an entire floor. You can only equip one of those per unit or floor, so the player has to mke some strategic decisions depending on his build. Personally I love these new additions because they complement the natural abilities of your cards. Some units also now have active abilities that you can manually launch whenever you need them. There are also smaller changes that make the game much more comfortable to play. Shops now have four upgrades instead of three and you can now restart a single turn or even the entire battle if you made a mistake. Even the small change of changing the train stewards, the starting units, to be split into tanking units and damage dealers makes sense because now players can decide which unit to ditch first depending on their first banner draft. Just like MT1 you have five very unique clans to play as. The devs made sure these clans feels fresh with new mechanics that have meaningful synergies. The Banished are a clan of exiled Angels that decided to ally themselves with hell to free heaven. Their unique mechanic is Vigor which increases attack damage but also has the unique interaction to give armor if the unit is on the frontline. They complement this by having many spells and abilities that put their units on the front to benefit from both bonuses of vigor. The Pyreborn are stereotypical greedy dragons. They can generate gold from direct attacks or create a dragon hoard that the player can loot between battles. bigger hoards do not only yield more gold but also artifacts including those you can normally only get from bosses. They also have the unique mechanic of pyregel which increases all damage a unit receives, including spells, attacks, debuffs and even artifacts. The Luna Coven is a magic focused clan that has access to conduit, a mechanic that increases the power of damaging and healing spells. They also create armor on overheals. But their most unique mechanic is the moon. Depending on the moon phase, their units and spells get different bonuses with the full moon being more spell focused while the new moon is more focused on raw stats. Underlegion is my favourite clan because they have one of the best emchanics ever, propagate. Propagate increases buffs on your units and debuffs on enemies and this works with any status effect including hard to increase ones like damage shield. It also works perfectly with their own unique status effects, decay and troop. Decay is a damage debuff similiar to frostbite from the first game but much more potent. Troop on the other hand is a very unqiue unit mechanic in which you create a special "funguy" unit from spells which is stacked on top of each other, creating a powerful unit made from multiple small ones. Lazarus League is the last clan and they can be best described as "Frankenstein" faction. Their leader is a crazy scientist who conducts unethical experiments, creating horrible monstrosities which are supported by expendable assistants. Their unique mechanics are unstable and reanimate. Unstable creates a debuff that explodes if a unit falls under its stack value and deals damage to its value. This can create chain reactions in which multiple units explode at the same turn and you can even use it on your own units. Reanimate on the other hand revives a dead unit but only with a single HP. But this status effect can be stacked, which means you can tank multiple hits without actually dying. Besides new clans you also can now select your pyre heart. This gives your pyre room different starting stats but also new abilities you can use. It's anew mechanic that allows players to get even more creative with their builds. What makes MT2 so much fun is that this game embraces overpowered builds. The game will always tell you after a run what your best stats where and will encourage you to go even higher on your next run. Games like Balatro have proven that "numbers go big" is a satisfying gameplay loop and Monster Train nails this perfectly. The game also features an amazing soundtrack from Jordan Chin, this time more intense than the last game, fitting for a game in which the stakes are now higher. But there is also something that really cements why this game is so great but since this is a heavy gameplay spoiler I suggest you to only read further if you don't mind to be spoiled. [spoiler]After you have unlocked half of the pyre hearts you get a cutscene that unlocks all the clans fromt he first game. That's right, the devs are so crazy, they put the entirety of MT1 in MT2! Not only that, they also rebalanced all those clans so they fit better into the new environment of MT2, making even some of the worse cards finally playable. This gives the player 180 different clan combinations how he can play the game. Absolute madlads that deserve all my praise![/spoiler]

Monster Train 2 is Monster Train but 2. It is the most standard kind of sequel. The first game, but more. More stuff, more polish, more mechanics. If you liked the first one you'll like this. If you're wondering where to start just get this one. Good job Shiny Shoe, this rules.

If you're a fan of the genre (and especially of Monster Train 1) this is pretty much an insta-buy. TONs of new content and tweaks to the existing formula but not enough to lose the charm and gameplay of the original.

They took the game and just made more of it. I'm waiting for the crystal guys to come back but other than that this is everything I ever wanted for the sequel.

I've been playing it all day everyday since release and I don't have time to write a proper review, it's definitely worth your time and the bang for buck ratio is insane.

A worthy update to the sequel. There's a lot here that improves upon the formula of the first game and cements the genre into "Must have" roguelite deckbuilders in my opinion. The deployment phase addition was huge. Rather than limit your banner units for consistency, and have to spend your first turn getting units down, you're now able to get properly setup and begin each round proper by spellslinging right away. If you tried the first game and liked it, you'll absolutely love the second. And if you haven't played the first game, this game doesn't give much reason to start with the first either. THIS is the definitive Monster Train experience in my opinion.

When it comes to rogue-lite deckbuilders this is easily top 5 Greatest Of All Time. It's the bigger, better, badder sequel and I can only give it praise. LAZARUS LEAGUE FOR LIFE BAY BEE!

Unfortunately, I'm in the minority that find this game to be lesser than the first, which is sad because I thoroughly enjoyed Monster Train 1. I feel some of the card effects are janky and unfun, the graphics tend towards mobile territory now, and feel less soulful to me than the first game. I do not find the heroes to be as appealing either, and the runs tend to be a bit boring towards the end with an artificial jump in difficulty to drag playtime out. Having beaten it multiple times now, my opinions are cemented until a nice update. Nevertheless, these are great devs who should be supported.

Pros: - New clans - A few new mechanics - More of the same that we loved - Story snippets Cons: - It's really just most of the same - Gatekeeping I loved the original, second iteration is copy so faithful it could honestly have been DLC. It's fun, it's addictive, the news clans are sufficiently unique and have as much personality as the ones in the original. There's a few new ideas such as rooms and equipment, they are well implemented, are fun, aren't really adding anything fundamentally new. A little addition I really like are snippets of stories that show up after every few battles (or maybe unlocks?). They aren't really deep, but are often funny and add further character into the clans. My only complaint is, it's really "more of the same" in the most literal manner. Same train, same visuals, same abilities, very similar enemies, same options for upgrades in between battles. The train is now going up through heaven instead down through hell, instead of fighting angels, one fights... corrupted angels. A bit more difference would definitely be nice. Bottom line - very well balanced and fun game. If you liked the original and want new clans, go for it. If you haven't you can pretty much buy the original... and then proceed to this one, because both are great games.

Incredible. The best case of a game being "more of the first" in the best way possible. Bigger, broader, deeper. Must-buy for any of the OG Monster Train fans out there.

Straight upgrade over the first game, and they kept the googly eyes :)

If you liked Monster Train, you will love Monster Train 2. It's everything the previous game was - improved. That being said, there are *a lot* of new keywords and synergies that may be confusing or overwhelming at first, but that's what the "undo" and "restart battle" buttons are for, so you needn't fear your run coming to an untimely end because you didn't understand what was happening. (These features are unlocked after your "tutorial run") The soundtrack once again slaps *hard*, the art is still colourful but more refined than in the previous game, the clans are unique and fun, the bosses actually challenging, especially on higher difficulty. If you didn't like Monster Train, you might still like Monster Train 2, due to all the changes that have been introduced. But it pretty much depends on what it was you disliked about the first game. So to you I say: Try the demo!

I will only state the negatives with spoilers so avoid reading further if you mind them. Game is great, though. Tbh, if you are new to the series just skip the first one and play this one. Not because the first is worse, but you almost have everything from the first in this release. First impression was that the game is identical to the first one. New mechanics are few. I was waiting for some groundbreaking changes and additions. Everything feels the same. I got Covenant 10 early. Struggle was great, the fun I had for the first days (or week) was great. But, at this point, I feel the game is very hard. I haven't played MT1 for years, but I think I didn't have that feeling of frustration while grinding it. Beating the Titans with all available combinations feels unachievable and I find my self rerolling for the perfect starter more than actually playing the game. I'm not sure if the original clans from the first game are balanced for this content at this point. Maybe I should get better, but that's how I feel right now. I loved all the clans from MT1. But in MT2, I despise Pyreborne (mainly as primary clan). The mechanics feel weak and unintuitive. I will probably update the review soon. Don't get me wrong, the game loop is great.

I played the original Monster Train for 200 hours, and eventually got all the achievements in it. It was a brilliant roguelike card battler, with tons of strategy, seemingly infinite synergies (being able to mix and match armies give a ton of variety, as does each army having two different captains with wildly different strats) and it felt like a game where you could make a ton of different strategies work... unlike Slay the Spire (which I also loved) where it generally felt any given character had maybe two valid builds and your run was basically decided by the third or fourth round... here things can change wildly pretty fast. I'm only 15 hours into the sequel as of writing, but it seems like it's expanded on the original in basically every way, they've had years to refine the game and the new armies are all fantastic. I've barely even touched some of them yet and I just want to keep playing more and more. If you liked the original, or even if you never played it, try this, it's good! UPDATE: And just a few hours after I wrote my review of a game I'm already loving, at about 17 hours in I unlocked an event that blows the content wide open. There is SO MUCH MORE than I thought there was. This game is HUGE and is going to have ridiculous replay value for years and years, and will eventually certainly blow past the 200 hours I spent on the original. I originally thought this was going to be a solid companion to first game, but it has instead fully replaced the original game and is better in every way. Wow.

It's rare for a game to be the perfect sequel. So often a sequel can get plenty of things right but still end up fumbling something along the way where the previous game did it better. Monster train 2 is one of those rare games. It perfectly expands upon what was already good while also adding plenty of new things that don't feel out of place.

Game of the Year! 10/10 This Game hooked me for the last 3 Weeks. I already played it for 100h and got all Achievements... But there is so much more Endgame content and the daily Challange. Only requirements to play and have FUN: - PC - A functioning Brain

I rarely say a sequel is a "straight upgrade" to its predecessor. Often sequels to games change so much that there's too many variables to make such a sweeping statement. That being said, yeah... Monster Train 2 is an upgrade from the original. The core deckbuilder/tower defense hybrid gameplay is entirely intact and expanded on with new, weirder clans and many QOL improvements. The flow over the course of a run has been greatly improved by a wider enemy variety and more options to tweak your deck. Not to be reductive, but it's basically just more Monster Train with a surplus of improvements and new ways to play. Regardless if you're a new player or returning from the first Monster Train, the sequel is the best way to play this complex and engaging card game from this point onwards.

Monster Train 2 is a better game. However; MT1 had better art and UI. MT1 *might* have had better music, or at least it was catchier, though MT2 is growing on my as well. MT1 left the world-building and lore nuggets to the flavor text on the cards, which was GREAT. The mandatory (albeit short) dialogues in MT2 are so incredibly unnecessary and badly written. No one cares about the story here. What Monster Train 2 does better is all in the gameplay, the refinement of what worked really well in MT1. The first game had a serious problem, especially with the DLC and later covenants (ascension) where interacting in any way with the "high-risk, high-reward" options would almost always just be a death sentence unless you were playing certain clan combinations and meta deck builds. It feels like Monster Train 2 is always winnable as long as you know what you're doing, and it feels just as fun as ever to build some truly broken card combos. All-in-all, this is the better *game* but I liked the vibe of the first one much more.

kinda fucked up to take a great game and then release a sequel that vastly improves it in almost every way. the bar has never been higher

This game is less fun the more you play it. Most of the cards are unhelpful and you just unlock more bad cards the more you play. Most of the final bosses have very narrow victory windows that require precise builds which drains the creative energy of the previous game. I wanted to like this game.

Absolute top-tier roguelike. With 10 clans, and therefore 180 possible clan combos to pick (yes, the MT1 clans return, sans Wyrmkin - it just takes time to see the option to unlock them), the amount of replayability in this game is absolute miles above the genre standard. The 5 new clans added solid mechanics and are all fun to play. Pyrehearts have been added as another mechanic that can significantly increase the diversity of the play experience - and there are 12 in all (although, to be fair, several of them suck and need some balancing) In addition, both champions from each new clan now feel relatively balanced against each other. If there's a bit of a downside, however - it's that they didn't quite fix that flaw for the MT1 clans - Most of them still have 1 champ that is clearly stronger than the other. Another bit of a flaw for the old clans is that they don't have the new room or equipment cards, so they feel a little bit left behind. Still, the good overwhelmingly outweighs the bad, and Shiny Shoe has now made 2 of my fave roguelikes of all time in this and Inkbound.

Without a doubt one of the most successful sequels I've seen to a game. I highly recommend this if you enjoyed the first monster train, and if you enjoy deckbuilders in general.

As someone with 68 hours in Monster Train 1, I am excited that Monster Train 2 improves a lot on an already exciting game. In Monster Train 1, you could only go up in Covenant (difficulty) ranks (like the Slay the Spire ascension levels) and try out different deck combinations as you replayed the game. In 2, you can now follow a story line as you go up in covenant ranks as well as try out the 22 different dimensional challenges. Even though I know the game well, I have only won 2 out of my first 10 or so runs, so the game is still appropriately difficult while giving more you more choice, such as which Pyre Heart to run each game. I can tell that the numbers that both friendly and enemy units do have been pumped up, which i think is fun given the addition of equipment and room cards that can be put on units to make them even stronger. I'm already looking forward to the upcoming collabs with Balatro and Cult of the Lamb, but the base game is very good and a marked improvement on the first game!

More of the same - if you loved the first one you will like this as well. If you were ambivalent about the first like me then this changes nothing. The additions are wall of text abilities and even more mechanics on top of the existing ones. The new clans are interesting but everything plays within the same outlines defined by the first game. This does not feel like a part 2, it's what was called an 'expansion' in the olden days Oh, and the story went from idiotic to idiotic++ for the 3 people that care about it

Addictive in a good way. Similar to Slay the Spire but different enough to be a worthwhile experience. Plays great on Steam Deck.

An amazing sequel to an already great game. Easily one of the sequelest sequels that ever sequeled. It's so sequeliciously sequential that my sequelometer exsequeloded when I tried to sequantify its sequelisity. But seriously, this game is a strong contender for the best roguelike deck builder of all time. Whether you've played the first game or not, give this one a shot.

Great game and great changes/updates in game play from MT1.

It's just Monster Train 1 but better. Highly recommend if you like deck builders.

Monster Train 1 & 2 are the only games that came out in the wake of Slay The Spire that I feel actually add something both positive and meaningful to the base gameplay loop. Highly recommend.

This game has achieved something quite hard, to surpass it's predecessor. More cards, more strategy, more mechanics, more fun... If you liked the first game, this one is a sure buy

This is like, an 8.5/10 for me. It's pretty great and does most things right, but there's a collection of little things that hold it back from feeling really polished. The first thing that comes to mind is certain information being hard to find at first, or things not being explained particularly well. Some things you have to figure out on your own, but things are just a little bit clunky feeling at times. I also don't like how slow unlocking cards is -- it could be a little faster per clan, especially when I win; we could at least get more experience points when we win on higher convenants. But other than that? This is a fantastic sequel and I can see myself playing it for a while. Fantastic roguelite deck builder that'll hold you over til' slay the spire 2, and maybe even have you coming back to it.

The game came out a week ago and I've played 44 hours. My job, abandoned. My spouse, lonely. My cat, indifferent. But my glorious monster train is a choo-chooing all the way to victory. A very addicting deckbuilder roguelike, with a staggering amount of factions, subfactions, and myriad combos that come from combining new and old favourites. It's like the first one, but even better, the aspiration of all sequels.

If you loved Slay the Spire, you will jerk off playing Monster Train. Yes. The name of the game is absolutely stupid. Yes. Just like Slay The Spire, the art direction is kinda cringe Yes. Its a masterpiece of the genre.

It has taken me almost 24 hours to beat Covenant 4... I have have had this game for 2 days and enjoyed every single second of that grind

It's everything I loved about MT1 but more and even better. Except for the Wurmkin. They were my favourite deck in the original and I miss playing with them. Hopefully they make their way into the game through an update. Other than that - equipment and room cards are a great addition and the new decks offer many cool strategies to discover and a ton of depth. Challenge runs are also awesome. This game rules.

[h1] Lost My Girl, Dog Mad, Still 10/10[/h1] Shroom Guy goes bruh bruh, the train’s on fire, I’m crying, my girlfriend left, the dog’s barking at the void. GOTY 🍄

Honestly i see no downside to this game if you liked Monster Train 1, EXCEPT i think the cutscenes are a bit annoying in the frequency they appear but thats just me, if you dont care about the story at all you can VERY easily skip them or ignore them though. If you havent played the first game and and are on the fence and dunno which to get its very easy to recommend this game over the first. Without going into spoiler territory for those that care its basically just the first game but with more content, variety and replayability, its a great deal of fun and highly recommend this great deckbuilder.

Outstanding game! It's everything you loved from the first Monster Train with thoughtful improvements and additions that don't feel out of place, like equipment, abilities, and different pyres. With 10 clans and two unique champions for each clan, and each run consisting of a primary and secondary clan, there is an absurd amount of combinations and strategies to discover. Getting a maximum difficulty win with every combination in the first game is one of my favorite gaming experiences, and I'm doing it all over again in Monster Train 2! As a small critique, I find the two introductory clans, The Banished and The Pyreborne, are the least interesting, as well as the weakest, clans. If you don't find yourself immediately drawn to the starting clans, you'll have a lot more fun with other clans like The Lazarus League and The Underlegion.

A lotta people are gonna say "if you liked the first one, you'll like the second one", but I'm here to tell you if you like any deckbuilder roguelike you should really pick up Monster Train 2. As a sequel I would compare it to Left 4 Dead 2 in terms of how thoroughly it eclipses the original game and refines the gameplay from a solid entry into something that is a must-play. The new factions all feel fun to play immediately and only get better as you acquire more cards, the new additions to the rules like the deploy phase and equipment/room cards are savvy solutions to previous limitations, and the addition of an undo button is honestly super-welcome and something I hope becomes more common in the genre.

One of the best deckbuilders in existence, if not THE best. If you have any interest in this genre. You just HAVE to play this. The second game improved on the very few flaws of the original, and is even more worthy of my unbridled praise for what is probably my favorite indie game of all time. Monster train 2 has more content, better balance, and basically better everything. And thanks to a story twist I won't spoil, you can even, eventually, re-use a good chunk of the content and cards from the first game into this new one. So, unless you absolutely want to save a few bucks by getting the first game, you should get this one instead, as it kind of contains the majority of the first game as well! Some people have criticized this game for its complexity, and while I won't deny this isn't the simplest game around in terms of rules, I also want to point out that not only is everything explained within the game (just read the tooltips calmly. they are there for a reason!). Also, unlike in some other games, all of this complexity is properly leveraged into meaningful strategic decisions. It never feels like something was added to make the game "more complex" without giving interesting decision making and strategizing in return. So, while some learning and memorizing is required, it pays off beautifully by making the game interesting, and worthy of being experienced again and again throughout many runs. If you love deckbuilders, this game is a must have. Otherwise, it all depends what type of player you are. For if you play video games to kind of turn your brain off and relax (which is fair), this game is not for you indeed. But if you enjoy puzzle and/or strategy games? Then Monster train 2 might just convert you to the whole genre, and is, at the very least, worth a try! Now, excuse me, I'm going to start a new run again. :D

Even more addicting than Monster Train 1, a game I had nearly 1900 hours when I wrote this review. The strategies are fun, and it's an ideal "Pick up and play for 45 minutes and you're all set" game

They took the foundations of a all ready baller game and turned it up to 50, Great game, play if you love rogue-likes,

Great followup to the first game. More cards and variety. I like the new dimensional portals to add a bit of spice between normal runs.

Much like what you'd expect if you've played the first game. But on the high side of expectations; it's really very good.

This game is price at about THREE McDonald McDeluxe burger set's in my country. The amount of enjoyment is immeasurable compare to the money that I would spend on three of my favourite burgers. That is a lot of burgers in one review

Felt like 1 had better gameplay/variety/fun factor MT2 has some ass races and mechanics

I really like Slay the Spire. I liked the first Monster Train even better. But THIS game steams WAY past those! (Yes, steams!) If you think you might like a rogue-lite deck building game, this is a MUST HAVE! Say goodbye to your family, your job and your sleep!

I'm a big fan of the genre (thousands of hours spent playing Slay The Spire, Monster Train 1, Balatro and similar games). Monster train 2 is currently the best of the genre. Monster Train gives you the unique feeling of intimately understanding your deck's unique strengths and weaknesses, then provides tons of opportunity to mold it to perfection. I never feel like I'm chasing a specific build that needs just the right cards. 9.5/10 because I wish they didn't include dialogue. It's a masterpiece.