Gordian Quest

Gordian Quest has been on my Steam Wishlist for a while now. It kept popping up here and there for me, and yet, I never took the plunge. It fits a lot of categories that I have a lot of fun playing. It is an RPG deck battler with roguelike elements like a procedurally generated world to play in. There are also multiple ways to play, difficulty modes to give yourself a challenge - not that the main campaign doesn’t go from mole hill to mountain. With so many of the right ingredients, I couldn’t believe that I struggled to get into Gordian Quest, and found I was forcing myself to play more.

I was surprised by how hard it was to get into the groove with Gordian Quest. If you don’t choose to watch the prelude story video, you will have little idea of the grand scope the story wants to tell. With a game like this, I can take or leave that element, but I was still surprised I had to search it out to view it. It was a bit of a letdown the further I progressed. I wanted to experience something in the story that didn’t feel generic, but Gordian Quest came up short in that department. The world is about to be destroyed, form a party and save it. Throughout the four acts the tension is built up, originally fighting off attacks and saving a town before moving on to bigger, tougher, more meaningful villains. Straightforward but not bad.

Besides a weak, or very average feeling story, I found the tutorial to be awful. Overall, I was eventual able to comprehend the gameplay, but I did not like how it taught me to play itself. You are given a lot of "do this to win the fight" lessons, but Gordian Quest did not explain why I was performing those moves, just that I needed to in order to defeat my opponent. I had no choice but to do what the tutorial said. There were a few occasions when I simply did not understand what it was asking, and the prompts did not help.

I was confused as to why I controlled my main character, but the first side character on my side acted on his own. He also took his turn so fast I had no idea what he was doing, no way to see what moves he made, or why, just the results of his actions. I had no idea why his attacks were successful, why he moved after attacking to a new position, or why he did anything he did for that matter. I did not understand why I sometimes needed to follow the rule of using my move counter, versus why I could sometimes have extra moves on my turn. There are attributes that some attacks will give off, like a bleed or dodge. I know the basics of what it means to bleed out or damage over time moves, but some of the other attributes have names that I was not familiar with. Reading to see what, in fact, they do was not easy to find or straightforward. 

But then I kept playing, and slowly began to understand. It helped that I was given a second character to control so quickly after the tutorial. The first character I choose was a swordsman, the second a caster, I figured one of each was appropriate. They were also both on the easier side of the learning curve. While taking a more complicated character looks cool, I knew I was better off sticking with the basics. I have learned my lesson the hard way with other titles, Gordian Quest holding true to the rule of learn the basics before going with the crazy out-there character class.

The basics of combat are simple to understand. You draw cards on each turn that have varying moves. Attack, defend, cast a spell, heal, all those familiar tropes are there. Each character has a pool of points to use each round, they get refunded on your next turn - so use them all if you can. Moves have different costs, stronger moves cost more, moves with specials cost more, doing anything cool costs more. Turns move quickly once you have the swing of combat, NPCs go very fast, I liked that I didn’t have much free time to waste in between my turn and the NPCs’ turns. Each class has its own selection of cards, you can mix and match to your needs if you want. The further in the more cards you have access to, the more moves you can make. I never felt overpowered, in fact the opposite at times, so the drip feed of new cards works for the most part. 

I was vibing with Gordian Quest for a handful of hours. The start was rough and slow, but luckily the combat is great, the game's main focus, and it shows. I find some card battlers feel uneven, either too strong or not enough, too many outside variables being brought in to make the game more challenging. I feel like Gordian Quest started off a bit slow with the exhaustion, resistance, and summons mechanics, but they pick up and become better the further into the game. After the first couple of acts I found Gordian Quest to really pick up steam.

And then it happened. I hit my second wall. I no longer won most fights without much effort, not having to think as hard as I should have. I just smacked right into a wall going 70 miles an hour. The wall came in one fight and never felt like it left. I went from having fun, occasionally losing a match to instant no-win scenarios again and again. My problem was not exploring every nook and cranny in the game. I didn’t take every combat I could; my mistake. The answer, of course, was to grind my way back.

I didn’t have much interest in dealing with buying and selling items, the mini-games, or much else that wasn’t combat. The story encounters fall short of the goal of being great. I like the idea of having one of my characters interact with something in the world and rolling to see how successful they are. I’m a big table-top RPG player and see what the developers are trying to do here. But I felt like I always had the wrong character, with the worst attributes for those rolls. 

While I had initially been looking to grab Gordian Quest on Steam, I was elated to try this title on Switch. If you can get your game to run smoothly on the Switch it amplifies my willingness to purchase your game instantly. I had no issue with the Switch performance, in either handheld or docked mode. The art looks great on the big screen, and perhaps a little squished together on my OLED Switch, but still more than playable. The only downside to handheld was that the screen-to-character ratio makes for a full screen. Small complaint, and should not be a deciding factor in picking up.

Gordian Quest is a deck-builder with some roguelike elements thrown in. It feels similar to other deck builders with roguelike elements. Not terrible, not even bad, just a game. A game where combat is the focus, and it shines. Eventually the difficulty spikes at random times force a grind I had little interest in. The story is weak, which didn’t help convince me to grind away. I can’t say enough how unfriendly the opening tutorial was, the sour taste lingered too long for me to fall in love. I had lofty thoughts, and I feel like I let myself dream to big. If you're looking for an eventually challenging deck-builder with very good combat, Gordian Quest is worth a look. But if you're looking for a deep and engaging story, you will be let down.