The nice people over at First Day Entertainment sent me a copy of the demo for Heroes of Magic & Cards, and I have to say, it plays far better than I expected. I was a bit skeptical of a deck builder based on Poker hands. Despite the success of Balatro, what Heroes of Magic & Cards is attempting to do is a completely separate thing.
This time around, to attack, you use cards to power those attacks. For example, your basic attack is any 2 cards. This is quite simple, but more powerful attacks require more finesse. For example, you eventually can train at a camp to learn an attack to use the combined power of all the cards used to hit all enemies. This can be potent, but you need to have 3 cards in a straight. Having 2,3,4 would hit every enemy for 9 damage. This is nice, but it isn’t always easy to pull off.
Shields work in the same way; in fact, if you have played any card battler, you are familiar with how the game works. What is new is simply how you deal damage, and that alone is enough to make Heroes of Magic & Cards worth watching. I tried a couple of runs, and Elite enemies never disappointed. A spider would hit my cards with webs, disrupting my strategy of holding onto certain cards to use later, and others would hit hard and force me to use healing items I wanted to save for the boss at the end of the run. My first win was actually so close, I had one hit point left.
I obviously won’t be giving a demo a real score, but you will definitely want to keep an eye on this one. I, for one, can not wait to get my hands on the full release. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Savior Gaming 