Unity - Completed - Dead-End City Blues OD Edition [v1.2.0] [AleCubicSoft]

The combat is pretty good for a card battler, though like all card battler it's pretty damn rng specially given you don't really have the ability to discard cards, though there is one available from one of the scenes.

You get cards, you can also buy/procure items that'll give random passives via the shop or scenes. Gameplay is pretty simple, you have health(perm) and block(temp which ties into agility) which act as your hp, and strength will boost your attacks. You have a chance to play all cards from your deck so keeping your cards down to certain cards is pretty key.

That said, the game is really really short. There's one map, with pretty much 1.5 bosses (the main one and the zombie) and 5 enemies. There's also 3 sex scene branches that ends in game overs. That's pretty much the entire game.

Properly fleshed out with multiple levels, items and cards it'd be fun, though as is you can beat and see everything in like 30 minutes.

So 2 parts, the card gameplay and the scenes.

1. The gameplay isnt that bad. The main enemies marked with numerals. Enemies have more hp than you and its difficult early on but not impossibly so. If you get a game over, you start over but keep your bonuses which make the game infinetly easier. My advice here is get beligerent card and focus on getting the passive buffs from the shop (the 3 items near the top not the cards) If you like these rogue type card games give it a shot. ive played way harder rogue card games than this.

2. The scenes are pretty good? 7/10. not a lot of it though but i played for like an hour at a chill pace and unlocked everything. Subsequent defeats dont really change the scene except for the text. Side story event do offer different scenes the further you go down those routes.

Well, in the end it was better than I thought it would be. Completed what feels like half of the game atm.

The combat is pretty simple once you understand the basics. Even when enemy has 4-6 times more HP than you, it's not really that hard to win unless you get really unlucky with card drops. It's probably one of the easiest card games I've played, or I was really lucky ALL THE TIME (which is possible but unlikely).

There are upgrades sold in the shop and you can buy the cards that you need (also you get them as a reward sometimes), so I really haven't felt like the game was unfair. Had to replay one or two fights for a few times, but it's not something that was hard or annoying to do, fights are pretty quick because you basically just spam attack cards and then defense cards when the enemy attacks you, or both at the same time. The important thing is that you see what enemy's gonna do in the next move, so you're basically limited only by rng.

Once I got my hands on good cards and got enough upgrades, the game became even easier, I haven't seen a single game-over CG yet somehow, looks like I've lost only to enemies that didn't have any game-over CGs or they were something like an optional mini-boss, idk.

The music in this game is great, I really enjoyed it.

The CGs (at least the few that I've seen, the ones that were shown in the events since I haven't lost a single time yet) are pretty good but nothing special, a simple live 2d. The voice acting really adds to the experience here and without it these CGs would be very boring, but it's loud AF, had to lower it to like 20% in the settings.

I think this game is a solid 3/5, would recommend to at least try. There are better card games out there and this one just feels mid compared to them, but I wouldn't say it's terrible. Maybe I'll change my mind in the future, but as of now, I think it's good enough to at least complete it once

Really not very good at all.

The fighting is tedious and hilariously tipped against you, even if you do all the side paths and whore Kanna out to make that extra dosh you're going to desperately need. It's not to say that you can't build yourself a decent deck and try and overcome the challenges... but it IS to say that the enemies don't play by the same rules you do, and are specifically made to be damage sponges that inflate their health bars beyond annoyance, verging on deliberately bad balance.
Speaking of which, the boss at the end of the route is also such a hilarious difficulty spike that I had to put the game down. Lowering your guard and damage, while increasing his own guard and his damage every time you damage him. No counterplay, just suffering. The whole game is a master class in frustrating attrition. I didn't even feel like hanging around for the CGs before uninstalling.

New cards and upgrades are drip-fed and not plentiful enough to build an actual strategy around, unless you get some very generous luck on the loot pools.

This game somehow managed to read the cliffnotes of what makes Slay the Spire good, while missing every point of good design that actually made it fun.

The CGs are alright, really not worth the time investment.

The only thing that stands out is that the VA for Kanna is good at slipping into the role and must have gotten some decent direction too. Props to her.

Someone paid 100 bucks to put this up on Steam.

A fairly mediocre card battle game with pretty good scenes (that are unlockable from the start), albeit with limited content. Ennemies have way too much hp which make the combat feel tedious and even while being pretty short, the game still manages to feel grindy.