In light of the upcoming release of Monster Train 2, I decided to revisit one of the all-time classics of the train-based deckbuilding auto-battler genre.
For the few of you yet unfamiliar with this genre, basically imagine Slay the Spire three times. And on a train.
What is Monster Train?
Those who have played Slay the Spire, WildFrost, and (sort of) Balatro somewhat know what they’re in for here: choose cards and items that work together to defend against attacks and dish out devastating reprisals.
Monster Train’s mechanics are an interesting twist on the genre; you essentially have three battles happening at once. Enemies enter on the bottom level and after each round move up to the next.
Eventually, they reach the top, where they do damage to your “Pyre”. If your Pyre’s HP reaches 0, it is game over. So you have three “rounds” to knock out each set of enemies.
Luckily, your deck is outfitted with a variety of creatures and spells to make their climb difficult. At the start, you pick from two factions, which govern which types of cards and items you’ll see in your run. Each faction focuses on particular mechanics. For example, the Hellborne race focuses on high damage and high armor.
There’s the usual plethora of status effects, buffs, and triggers that pile up to make everything a bit of a chaotic puzzle. The game simplifies things by showing you the outcomes of each round of battle, saving you from having to do… shudder… math. But that’s about all you get in terms of simplification. Enemies tend to have multiple special abilities and effects. Navigating bosses seems like it should require some kind of advanced degree.
The trade-off there, then, is that there’s not a lot of variety in enemies and even fewer unique bosses. The game has enough interesting mechanics and variety that this doesn’t really get old…until it does. You know?
Off the rails
One major gripe I have is that, like many games with this much complexity, this one suffers from a serious case of the “why, though?”s.
Some cards/factions/builds are just clearly better than others. Since attack damage hits front-line units first and back-line enemy units tend to do stuff like teleport themselves to the top, some builds get hard-countered at various points in the game.
Next Stop: Monster Train 2
What I’d love to see in the sequel is more synergies between different factions. From my playthroughs, I tended to lean on one faction or another depending on which tended to be stronger. For example, the Umbra are all about boosting big units with smaller units and, with the right items, can steamroll most challenges. So playing Umbra with whatever faction turned into basically the same deck.
Still, I’m looking forward to the sequel. Monster Train is unique, it’s engaging, it’s a bit janky – but it still holds up as a top-tier deckbuilder game.
Monster Train is out now on iOS, PC (Win), PS5, Switch, and Xbox.
