Inscryption

For a game I've been hearing nonstop support about for years, I expected this game to be really good. Overwhelmingly positive with over 100,000 reviews is something you don't just get out of nowhere. But this game has such a terrible difficulty curve, and the first act of it is just replaying the same map over and over and over again, for hours. The same exact thing, maybe one of the cards you created will get thrown in your deck, but it's still insanely difficult. You can get good enough to beat the first boss easily, and even the second. But when you get to the final boss of act one, you're pretty much always screwed no matter if you have the best deck possible and both of the powerups he gives you. Difficulty goes from a 6 to a 100 immediately, and when you die you're all the way back to the start of the game again, over and over again. The second act of the game is ugly (in my opinion), and very boring. It has decent puzzles though. And the third act is similar to the first, but more forgiving with checkpoints and such. I really expected a lot out of this game, and I got an unbalanced mess that's boring to follow both in gameplay and story.

The best part of this game is definitely the card game - but the threading narrative is really interesting too.

You think you understand what it's about - cabin in the woods, odd character with a macabre idea of fun, win the game or die - but you're in for a surprise. Or three.

The card game keeps getting more interesting, the rules changing on you, and individual games throwing you curve balls. Whoever designed this game understands card gaming through and through.

I also like the care that was put in the sound design and creation of atmosphere. It shows that you don't know triple A level of graphics engine to make a game that will enchant and chill you at the same time.

I haven't finished the game yet, but it definitely rates as one of the best games I've played in a long time. The last game I spent so much time and attention on was XCom 2.

I already know I'll treasure the memory of Inscryption in years to come.

Inscryption is a card game. So before anything else, if you dont like strategy or card games in general, move on.

The card game itself is not remarkable. For the most part, we have seen these kind of games before. Its just cards with some RPG elements thrown in. Cool. Its fun and does get deep while easy to pick up. But like all card games, skill is secondary to the gods of chance. No matter how smart you are, nor how skilled at mouse clicking, sometimes, you just get a bad draw and you lose. I am one of those who prefers skill based strategy rather than games of chance but oddly enough, I found myself liking this one namely because you can tilt the odds in your favor a lot once you know how to build your deck of cards.

The best part of this game however is the atmosphere in Act 1. I puts you in cramped cabin with a mysterious master giving you orders that you have to follow. Its very much designed to be creepy with dark humor thrown in at places. Overall the visuals and sound did a great job at making feel a little uncomfortable while also making me want to see what happens next.

Ok so why not a higher score? Well, the devs couldnt keep you in that cabin forever. It would get boring after all. So you get out and the next two acts arent as interesting in terms of design. Not that they are bad but we go from a dark horror environment to something that can only be described as a NES style 2d environment with none of the atmosphere and a bunch of new characters that are totally different from the 1st guy you met. The card game also changes to add new types of play which is actually nice. They do that again to a lesser extent in act 3 as well.

But back to the point, I found that acts 2 and 3 were not nearly as immersive as act 1. They are still ok, but I didnt get drawn into the new characters as much.

I did find that the story was ok as well. Its a quasi breaking the 3rd wall, murder mystery with some elements from various genres. Pretty fun actually and very different from what you get in mainstream games.

Definitely a good game overall. If you love card games give this an extra point. If you find yourself liking acts 2 and 3, this could easily be a 9/10 overall. Give it a shot and dont be turned off by the graphics. This is not the type of games where graphics matter all that much.

For younger audiences, this game might also help you understand why older gamers might say that some old games are better than newer counterparts despite worse graphics. Its all about gameplay and setting the atmosphere.