Oh yes! OH HELL YES! Outside of Slay the Spire, Monster Train is my favourite deckbuilder roguelike. It’s mainly due to it being a different take on the genre without overloading with gimmicks.
So when a sequel was announced,, you can be sure I was excited and developer Shiny Shoe have made sure all and any excitement was justified. Because they have made a follow up that takes the original and builds on it in every way.
Monster Train 2 has a familiar feeling about it, whilst still having enough difference to warrant such a sequel. It’s like seeing an old friend, who is still the same person you know and love, but they have really stepped up their aura.
The same core concept remains. Make you way through the levels, defend the floors, upgrade, improve, fight bigger and harder baddies, rinse and repeat. But with the tweaks and additions it just feels so so fresh.
The story explains why things are the way they are. Yes it can be ignored if you literally just want to play the game, but it is interesting if you followed the lore from the first game. The angels and demons forming alliances to take on a new enemy,. Hook it right into my veins!
The joy of the deckbuilder is all in the creation of synergies. How do these cards work with those cards? Does this spell boost this, to help that? Can I sacrifice this to improve that? What if I take these cards now and struggle through opening rounds? Can I then become super powerful in the later rounds?
Plenty of trial and error, but also a ton of unlocks in the actual game, plus the knowledge you unlock within yourself and you learn the best combinations of cards and factions to get the best out of each run.
What you get with Monster Train and specifically in this version over a Slay the Spire is the added mechanic of the floors in your train. Enemies will enter on the bottom floor before ascending to attack your pyre (which must be defended at all costs). When you first play you’ll likely try and do all your damage on the bottom floor, because if you defeat enemies at source that’s best right?
Well that is the genius of Monster Train 2, because it teaches you very quickly that just purely overloading damage early is a bad mid to long term strategy, as you WILL be utterly wrecked very soon. It’s the same with picking up too many cards, which is a staple of the genre. But rather than just trying to cycle your deck to get the cards you want, you are also pkanning around where and when to place units.
You have a game that can benefit from slowing down and working things out, but it has a fantastic higbh speed soundtrack that keeps you feeling pumped from the moment you start until the bitter end. Usually after glorious failure.
At the time of writing I have barely had any successful runs (unlike Monster Train 1 where I got a winning run early) and I still have tons to unlock. Yet I am not desperate to do so, as I still have so many ideas to play with on my first few available builds.
Monster Train 2 is utterly fantastic, builds on the original and still has new ideas that make it a must own game.
