Labyrinth First impressions

Introduction

Labyrinth is a mix of the tactical RPG and turn-based CCG. In this game, you assemble the heroes, build decks, and delve into 3D dungeons on Player vs. Player raids. Then, customize your own dungeon decks with Boss, monster, and trap cards to guard your loot.

You can be an adventurer and launch raids against your rivals with your party of Heroes wielding potent wargear and magic. Chose your strategy carefully as this game has a strong strategy aspect. The players can build decks from a vast and growing pool of collectible cards. At the same time, you need to defend your domain and loot. For this, players can enlist powerful Bosses and summon an army of minions for their aid.

The game is in the Early Access on Steam. Having a very positive rating, Labyrinth costs 9.99$.

Gameplay

"Strategy AND Cards?? What!?!"

Yep, that’s right; this game really hits it in with these concepts coming together as one. And luckily, it for the most seems to work pretty well! 

Before even scratching the surface of the true gameplay, players are given the option to customize two decks; their attacking and Boss decks. The Boss deck, while an incredibly fresh idea in the genre (seriously, I’ve never seen any other game do this), is a little lackluster. The way players are meant to battle is actually by attacking the decks of other characters. The Boss deck acts as a defending deck, including relentless minion fighters and the main objective for the attackers; the Boss is a beefy unit with high-damaging abilities and lots of health to back him up. If you’re familiar with the MGS V: Phantom Pain ‘FOB’ system, then you’ll understand this whole player-vs-player battling concept pretty well; the whole idea of offline invasion. And though it works fairly, there’s just not enough variety to really make it special.

The attacking deck is a bit more compelling. Players can customize which different fighters they wish to bring to the field and the cards being edited around with depict different abilities that will come to the player’s hand for use. Variety with cards currently is pretty solid, given a healthy amount of cards to choose from. Players can choose to ignite their foes by casting a spell with the fire mage character, or perhaps even use the light-based cleric to heal her other three allies on the field. Maybe you just want to go in the fight head on, with a melee swing to damage all surrounding enemies. The point is there’s a lot of different ways to attack your enemies, and to me, this makes the game the most interesting.

Your first time playing this will leave you clueless, lacking direction and being unable to teach newcomers how to actually play this game. But after toying around with the game for perhaps 30 minutes, I was really in the swing of it all. I understood how the mechanics of the game worked, though no piece of perfection. Best yet, however, was how each move isn’t just another generic damaging ability that only has a different name to tailor to each character. Sure, there does exist the few basic, low-cost abilities solely used for one-on-one fighting. But other interesting moves like teleporting backstabs and rush/swinging attacks, even the moves that implement the use of energy points to engage a secondary effect. So, yeah, the combat is stellar. 

It especially roughs up when you observe the enemy stats in the game. Seeing as to how the enemy bosses have lots of health and the minions as well do tons of damage, it’s important for players to understand that they truly need to strategize and plan out their moves, carefully picking out which cards they’re going to bring and what sequence to use them in. Indeed, this game is awesome for its gameplay. The satisfaction of victory truly does pay off, and with the competitive ranking, there’s no reason that the satisfaction should just end… So sadly, the game just gets cuts short…

"Cut Short? Whatya’ Mean?"

Well, the truth is, the fun gets cut… very, very short…

Much like the boss decks, the attacking decks lack the same in substance. And sadly, most of the game can be described like so. It’s most important for players to understand what they’re getting into from buying this; this game feels like a very early ‘Work in Progress’. And while that’s no bad thing, dropping $10 for this might make players feel deceived. The ranking system is no charm, without an actual PVP system. The whole nature of the versus realm in this game can easily be disregarded for its lack of satisfaction. On top of it all, the whole package itself seems just loose and unfitting for most gamers today. The genre it pertains to just doesn’t live up to the expectations, which is a shame, because this game has the potential to really change that. But Still, this game is in the Early Access, with healthy development, so keep an eye out for this one.

"Wait, you said it wasn’t worth the price, why keep an eye out for it?"

The game’s early development shows me something. Starting from its original roots, it looks very different now. It has changed and I feel like it will continue to change, and only for the better. The card-trading mechanics will be refined and will gain value as will the competitive ranking. There will hopefully be more characters, bosses, and cards to pick from to make this game truly expandable. I’m not going to lie, but I think in a few months from now, this game is 'gonna’ be pretty swell.

SUMMARY

The combat… it’s just so damn fun and satisfying. I really like its difficult standards and how it forces players to really pause for a sec and read their abilities to align the perfect combo amongst an enemy. Also, the concepts that this game is based around are really cool and exciting!

At this state, however, this game is no shining star. There’s clearly a lot of work that can be done to truly smooth the edges on this one. Graphics isn't too amazing, the controls are a little wonky, and the overall content is lacking. There is just not enough in this game to make this product worth $10.

Despite its failure to impress me, this game still has one super important thing going for it; ambition. The game, with so far decent development, can turn into something really, really special! And I think this is just something that we all need to keep a close eye on for future updates and content additions. This game currently isn’t something to buy, but it’s something to anticipate a greater future for.

For now I would rate it 6/10.