Griftlands review
need to know
What is it? A deck building, roguelike RPG, with a seal designed to speak.
Expect to pay? 15.49 GBP
Developer Clay Entertainment
Publisher Clay Entertainment
Review date 64-bit Windows 10, Nvidia GeForce GTX 970, Intel i7 4790K, 16 GB RAM
multiplayer game? No
go out now
Associate Official website
The game is always looking for ways to make dialogue as engaging as combat. Why can’t tense negotiations be as maddening as a tit-for-tat boss battle? This is the question Griftlands wants to answer. It became a fascinating roguelike due to excellent writing and roles, but it did not fully fulfill its promise of a chatty deck building system.
Griftlands is nominally a chaotic place, with corrupt law enforcement agencies and criminal groups operating in the context of science fiction and fantasy. It may be cruel, but it is really beautiful. I like the rough, hand-painted touch of everything. There is a smart economy where decorations are made, which ensures that the game can achieve its scope without any rough edges. The character elves have cute gestures and expressions, compliment writing, and the world map is just scattered with neat icons.
The main world is purely functional, but it looks cute (Image source: Klei Entertainment)
The factions of Griftlands are written in a wide range of comics, consistent with the cartoon appearance of the game-but there are always serious doubts about the status quo. The criminal gangs proved to be moral, and the local police proved to be the most ruthless. In this way, the developer Klei painted a strong picture of the world you entered as a “liar”, which is a shorthand for the smooth-spoken mercenary in the game. There are three people to play, and each has their own story, but only one is unlocked-Thrall, a former indentured slave, is now looking for the woman who sold her.
Revenge is not a novel motive, but Griftlands shines because the fast-paced dialogue can enrich its character effortlessly. How comforting it is to play an RPG, it doesn’t require scrolling through paragraphs of gibberish that happened 1000 years ago. Whether in terms of world building or betting, Griftlands is straightforward: life is short, and only the immediate things are really important.
Even the smallest character has the opportunity to impress people, because you have collected a lot of secondary plots on your way to the overall goal. The writing is also fun, and the humor that Thrall produces is a bit smarter (but not as smart) than most other mobs she meets. These cruel people have a charm, and they usually act out of sheer despair rather than out of any malice. As you might expect, this is an opportunist world, but there are also surprising moments of loyalty and kindness. For me, the charm of Griftland’s story is far greater than its ever-expanding deck building.
The sharp text promotes almost every NPC into an unforgettable person (Image source: Klei Entertainment)
There are two game modes: battle and negotiation. Combat is a turn-based affair, you can draw cards for attacks and abilities, and you can earn or hire party members. In general, they are interesting but very traditional. Negotiations are much more interesting. There, your card is used to build an argument against your opponent. You are always looking for small points that weaken the enemy while accumulating damage to their core argument. I really feel that I am dealing with a lot of dishes in the best way-the pressure is always making the most of each round.
As an abstraction, it is very appealing-but Griftlands has never bridged the gap between actual dialogue and a card game where debate takes place. Compared to things like Sojourner’s Signs that more cleverly use its mechanics to shape and promote character interaction, Griftlands feels a bit awkward. Negotiations are disconnected in a simple binary way that turns each interaction into success or failure. I hope I can see the impact of the card I choose on my relationship or story.
To make matters worse, in the few inevitable combat encounters in the game, promises to negotiate decks will punish you. There are some auxiliary activities that can help, but in general, focusing on the battle deck is the simpler way for the entire game.
Negotiation is the best card in the game. (Image source: Clay Entertainment)
Griftlands did have a profound impact. Repeated NPCs will appear in unexpected places, so you may have to consider the difficulty of double pass to achieve your goal. These are also randomly used in subsequent runs to an impressive degree-to ensure that the new run feels quite fresh and to lighten the blow after you die.
You can also get a boost in the next run-but the excitement it can eliminate is limited, and although the way the side missions are generated is convincing, the main story remains the same. Failure near the finish line will never leave your sails at a loss. For those who just want to focus on writing, there is a story mode setting, but it feels like a band-aid on some demanding difficulty peaks. I had been sliding in the game for the first two days, and then suddenly there was a battle that was orders of magnitude more intense than anything before. This may have narrative significance, but it is not very interesting to keep restarting and hitting the wall like this.
Shortcomings aside, Griftlands is the other side of developer Klei’s low profile. Are there genres that they can’t do? The balance of narrative and deck building gave me a more engaging experience than card-based games, even though I felt I could do more to connect these systems and support storytelling. Nevertheless, I will still remember my adventures with Sal and the small moments of friendship and betrayal during each run. I like to play liar; it’s not much, but it is a kind of life.
Today’s best deal
Discover more articles in our categories Gaming & News & Anime.
Thanks for visiting we hope our article Griftlands review
, think about share the article on Facebook, twitter and e-mail with the hashtags ☑️ #Griftlands #review ☑️!
