Roguelike deck building is getting thrown into everything at the moment, but sometimes, it feels inspired. Shuffle Tactics takes the whole drawing, deckbuilding, cards, and randomization thing and puts it into the tactical RPG framework of your classics like Final Fantasy Tactics, so you have an idea what’s coming up, but you never quite know.
It makes for a solid example of the Tactical RPG formula: Terrain matters; units have complementary abilities that can build into sick combos if you do some planning; there are environmental hazards and things to find (ranging from “my wizard lights that square on fire” to enemy teleporters to treasure) and, of course, abilities that only work in certain directions and ranges and status effects ranging from Poison to Stun to Bleed to, ah…Sticky.
The cards come in for combat abilities: Instead of a set list or a bunch of menus, each character on your team has a deck of cards made of spells, actions, and abilities. Some of them are there by default and some require progressing, unlocking, or purchase to be accessible. For example, your Doberknight–a disgraced knight of the realm that is also a Doberman–is a standard warrior that hits things with a sword. However, over time, progression, and unlocking cowards, ol’ Dobie can throw his sword for damage, then recall it for more damage or teleport to the spot it landed to. You can learn to jump in the air and do a superhero landing for more damage. You can shoulder charge enemies, knocking them backwards into other enemies. All this assumes you have the action points, of course, and as usual, there are never enough to do everything you want to do.
The class design is recognizable, but a lot of fun, and the card draws and powers make them playable in interesting ways, and then card draws and progressions allow some flavor of customization. We covered Doberknight. I also ran into Emberwhiskers, your fire-wielding mage type; the Professor, a spellcasting sorcerer type; Moonwhipser, a priest/healer type; and a shaman that could throw down totems that the enemy then instantly targeted and destroyed.
Emberwhiskers, for example, can hurl fireballs as you’d expect, but can also ignite terrain (including when the enemy is standing on it), and then specialize into things like throwing down Oil to make terrain tricky (or flammable). The healer has tradeoffs between low-healing instant heals and regeneration abilities that can wind up doing more over time, but, of course, take that time to heal and your wounded fighters may not have time. Buffs and debuffs also turn out to be pretty important, since a simple strength boost or damage amplification can cut through an enemy, while armoring up before a big strike can save you from taking too much damage.
Shuffle Tactics is a Promising Fusion of Strategy and Randomization
The roguelike part of the equation comes in the world and scenario path: There’s a branching series of pathways with nodes that can be enemies, elite enemies, shops, and other points of interest, boss fights, and other points of interest. Usually these are randomized and the choices are limited, so some run planning is important. And, of course, you’re probably going to lose many runs, but that’s also sort of the point: It’s less about powering through than about hurling yourself at the game over and over again, unlocking new abilities and power, figuring out the mechanics, and letting the game unfurl itself.
Combine these mechanics with the retro graphics and synthwave soundtrack and you have a game that’s pretty deep and interesting but also simple to grasp. The basics of combat and positioning are easy to figure out, but a few runs in will have you calculating how to pull off multi-hit attacks or bounce your party members all over the board or where to set up your defense to bait the other guys into attacking your perfect defense, which will obviously go horribly awry.
