There are very few things that bring me as much joy as playing a deckbuilder. That doesn’t mean, though, that I am good at them. One of the exceptions was “Monster Train”. Shiny Shoe’s debut title traded long winded runs for short, intense ones and very straightforward mechanics. You would think that most of this ethos would be translated to “Monster Train 2”, right? Buddy, I am here to tell you that if you play the sequel with the same mentality as the original, you better get ready for a world of hurt.
The first signs that Shiny Shoe upped their game to such an extent that not even I was prepared for was during my first foray with its new clans. The Pyreborn and the Banished. One a clan of dragons that are all about hoarding gold, the other a resistance group of angel warriors that want to reclaim heaven.
Why are angels fighting alongside dragons, you ask? Well, you see, after the events of “Monster Train”, Titans took control of Heaven. Guess who decided to help them? Seraph. The same entity that started this whole chaos in the first place.
I know that plot isn’t quite relevant to a deckbuilder, nor do I expect you to follow it, but I’m happy that Shiny Shoe at least tries to make some sense of it all. It doesn’t always stick the landing, mostly due to being limited to funny sketches between runs and interactions about what happened between “Monster Train” and “Monster Train 2”. But, hey, at least you get funny jokes about dragons hoarding gold and a character trying to get them to worship the moon.
But the meat of the game is, of course, taking the train to heaven and ending this once and for all. This is where my first playthrough with the Pyreborn and the Banished comes in.
Shiny Shoe goes for a “if ain’t broke, don’t fix it” MO. Like the previous entry, each battle consists of managing the three floors of your train. Deploy your units, buff them with cards, establish a route that will greatly damage or obliterate your enemy before they get to the pyre – which is the heart and soul of your train. If it gets destroyed, the run is over.
Between stages you get the usual choices of upgrading units with new abilities, adding passives such as more health, “quick” – which makes the unit act before the enemy – and so many others. Oh, so many others that if I spend time writing about every modifier that I found during my time with the game, I’d better sign up with a book publisher and do a guide.
Here’s where “Monster Train 2” starts to greatly distance itself from the original. The team isn’t afraid to throw you some curveballs. And by some, I mean a lot of them.
Take the Pyreborn. They are dragons that hoard gold. Simple, right? Not so much. They have a unique mechanic of golden eggs. These can be obtained after a fight or via spells. After you hoard a couple of them, you can either cash out for a payout or an artifact or keep them in hopes for even more money or two or more artifacts.
It’s a deliciously risk vs reward mechanic that tickles my brain in ways very few games can. “Oh, this fight was nasty, I should loot the eggs and duplicate some cards. But… what if I can restore the pyre and get more?”, I wondered multiple times. Each time I held out on the eggs for a better reward, my run ended in disaster.
But there’s another great reason for you to hold onto your eggs. And no, it’s not because the economy is in shambles right now. There are a couple of units that greatly benefit from having a lot of golden eggs.
One such unit is the “Greed Dragon”, that gets +10 attack and +10 hit points per golden egg. Pair it with the “Alchemy” spell that grants you 2 golden eggs, and you can get a hard-hitting enemy with a lot of health in a couple of turns. That is, if the RNG gods smile upon you and you didn’t inflate your deck with a lot of cards. You do know that removing cards from your deck is the core of a deckbuilding game… right? I hope so.
The Pyreborn are already a much more mechanically complex clan than the Hellhorned from the first “Monster Train”, which were all about raw damage. And things only get more complicated onwards.
The Banished can be played — like all the clans in “Monster Train 2” — as a primary or secondary clan. They are all about moving units between floors, both yours and the enemies. Applying valor, that adds more numbers to your damage output, and then turning the same damage into armor is a great way to make sure your units don’t get downed in the first couple of enemy waves. And, trust me, the enemy will try their best to destroy you.
My first draft of this review said that “the enemy has a new bag of tricks”, but it’s actually a truck full of tricks. Nasty ones. Do you enjoy feeling miserable and getting hit with a row of enemies that apply sap and corruption, reducing your damage output and hurting your troops each turn? And then a third enemy shows up and heals their allies? Then you’ll love “Monster Train 2”.
Bewildered doesn’t even start to describe what I felt after I had a couple of runs under my belt and unlocked new clans such as the “Luna Coven”. Heavily focused on using spells, they can obliterate rows of enemies, but it requires some very good planning. Their power comes from the moon and with each turn, a new moon phase starts. Spells like “Silver Strike” doubles their damage output during “Full Moon”.
You can only imagine the face I made once I noticed that my slowly, but beautifully planned strategy of hitting multiple enemies with “Silver Strike” on a “Full Moon” phase came crashing down on my head after an enemy buffed its allies with spell shields.
“Oh, come on, really?”. Honestly, it was my fault, I should’ve read the enemy description more in depth rather than getting all excited with putting my plan into motion. But this is a good, if not great, example of how fights in “Monster Train 2” require much more thought and strategy. If you go with only one synergy in mind, you’re better off restarting the entire run.
And that’s only scratching the surface of what “Monster Train 2” offers. One of the many new additions to the sequel is the equipment and room cards. Equipment cards are self-explanatory, they can be attached to one of your units for an increase in damage output, to add armor, to create spell shields, to avoid damage entirely.
Now, room cards, that’s where I fell in love with “Monster Train 2”. While few and far between, they can turn entire floors of your train into dungeons of pure pain and agony. My favorite one is “Fight Club”, that adds +15 damage output to every friendly unit.
Imagine, if you will, pairing that with the aforementioned “Greed Dragon”. And, if you are lucky, you can fit three of these bad boys in one single room. Now, to top it off, give the fella a “Swiftsteel Dagger” which grants quick and another +15 damage. If you manage to duplicate it, heck, give two!
I did manage to pull it off in one of my runs, and I laid back in my chair as I watched the carnage ensue. “Well, that’s what you get for ruining my last attempt, you [REDACTED]”. I laughed, I howled as I watched every enemy step into my trap and get demolished.
And that, dear reader, it’s the beauty of deckbuilding and “Monster Train 2”. Shiny Shoe took the already established gameplay of the first game – one that I can’t criticize – and elevated it to new heights. It not only offers more of everything, it offers meaningful choice and more depth.
It incentivizes you to break the game in many ways, to dish out massive damage and brace yourself for that one boss that can end your run. To stare at a shop for a couple of minutes wondering what’s the best upgrade for your current setup.
And when you get bored of doing the same runs, you can always increase the difficulty by upping covenant rank or add mutators such as “Shield Up” – that grants an energy shield to every enemy. Now that’s a fun way to play the game if you’re masochistic. And I’m not even counting extra modes like community challenges, new pyre types that have unique features and “Dimensional Challenges” – my current joy and bane. I managed to complete 5 out of the 21 available at launch. And I am more than sure that some sicko will find a way to complete all of them in one day. That sicko won’t be me, though.
“Monster Train 2”, much like the original, has its grips on me and I don’t see it going away any time soon. I decided to “check something” before I turned in this review, I ended up playing three hours without even noticing. As I like to say, we are so back, deckbuilding fans.
A Steam code was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes
