Card Hunter | a Review
originally published on 13/12/2024;
Hello everyone, I am the card hunter G.E.M.Simov, a being so filled with spite for cards that I corral and murder them on an international level. I've come to share some of my secrets through a review of "Card Hunter".
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
Card Hunter (henceforth CH) is a tactical combat game in the vein of stuff like the Voya Nui Online Game, xCom and Dofus(Wakfu). It features a square-based grid upon which the Player’s Characters (PCs) get a turn to move and use spells or perform attacks, after which the enemies get a turn to do those things, and on and on until both the enemies and the Player pass, resulting in a new round’s beginning. Whoever ends the round goes second in the next one.
However, there’s more than just that. What the PCs and the enemies get to be able to do during their turn is decided by the cards they have drawn. Those cards can be Movement cards, Spell cards, Block cards, Armor cards, Trait cards, Attack cards or other types of cards. This is where most of this game’s intrusive monetization comes in, but more on that later.
Each of the Player’s Characters, of which there are three, has a number of cards by default. That number is determined by the number of equipment-slots the Character has, which increase with the Character’s level, as well as the Items that the Character has equipped. In addition to those factors, there is also the Character’s class, with there being three classes, each doing different things and having access to different cards.
As an example, the Warrior class has, at level 1, 14 attack cards and 4 movement cards, due to the fact that they start off with 2 Weapons slots and a slot for Boots. Priests start off with 4 movement cards, 4 attack cards, 2 block cards and 3 spell cards, due to the fact that they have access to a Weapon slot, a slot for Boots and a “Divine Item” slot. Lastly, Wizards start off with 4 movement cards, 3 attack cards and 6 spell cards, because they have a Staff slot, a slot for Boots and an “Arcane Item” slot.
Now, this does not mean much - aside from the fact that the Player is incentivized to gain levels (as with every level the Characters unlock 1 new equipment slot, increasing their card capacity by anywhere between 3 and 6, because Weapon and Staff slots provide 6 cards, while all other slots provide only 3). However, it also indicates that there is some ludicrous complexity to be experienced in regards to items - because the Items that the Player equips are those that determine the types of cards, as well as the cards themselves, that the Character gets.
These cards from the Character’s Deck, and at the start of each Round the Characters draw 2 cards from their deck and, in addition to those, they draw 1 movement card. At the start of the game, though - at the start of the first Round - Characters draw 4 cards (1 one which must be a movement card). This is actually a very good thing - making sure that the Player has at least 1 movement card per Character, so that they can move around and do stuff.
Now, I would not say that this is good design in regards to handling randomness - as there’s still the chance of drawing 3 movement cards in a turn and being completely out of other options. The best approach would have been to delegate the movement cards to a completely different deck, so that they would be impossible to draw from the main deck, as a means of preventing bad RNG… But that’s me designing the game for them.
So, 2 cards drawn per round plus 1 movement card. That does not seem like a lot, and many times it feels as though it is not, because of the way cards are spread out or assigned to items. Some items, as said, provide more cards than others. Then there are other items that provide different types of cards, which cards are only useful situationaly, and oftentimes it turns out that defensive cards are nearly useless when present in a Wizard’s deck, due to the fact that they will, if the Wizard is being played correctly, never wind up in play.
That is, of course, part of the scheme behind the game’s monetization, but more on that later still. The Player and the Enemies get to play 1 card per turn, with some exceptions (those being Trait cards). Many times, not all cards that were drawn get played in a round - either due to range limitations or other circumstances - as a result of which the Player might wind up coming to the end of a round with some of their Characters having more than 2 remaining cards.
In that case, the Player needs to discard cards from their Characters until there are only 2 left. There is an issue here - cards are discarded as soon as the Player clicks on them - there is no prompt to confirm whether the Player is certain that they want to discard the card they have clicked or not, and there is no means to enable a setting to make that so. In addition to that, whenever a card is discarded, any cards to the left of that card will be moved to the right, which can create unfortunate situations featuring the Player clicking the spot where the card they wanted to discard was, but then discarding a different card because the card was moved.
This discarding rule also applies for the enemy, but it is incredibly rare for the enemy to not get to use almost all of their cards in a round - in part because the cards the enemies have are specially selected to be as useful as possible for said enemies, and are also, almost always, the best possible versions of those cards.
The most telling example is that enemies, almost all of them, regardless of what they are, thematically, have the “Run” movement card. That movement card provides the ability to move 3 spaces, and as such provides the second largest mobility out of any movement card (the first being dash cards which are a lot more subdued in appearance in enemy decks). However, the enemies almost never have the “Walk” movement card. Conversely, the Player almost always has the “Walk” movement card - after all, they start off with at least 3 of those in their decks! The “Walk” movement card only provides 2 units of movement, and as such the Player is always at a disadvantage when it comes to mobility.
But, again - this can be remedied, somewhat, by engaging with the game’s monetization mechanics! Regardless, enemies feel a lot stronger than the Player’s Characters do, and the only reason the Player gets to actually win is due to the fact that enemies do not get to have individual turns, like the PCs. Instead, enemies are separated into groups - there could be 3 units in a group - and a group does 1 thing per card that is played. In essence, instead of having the 3 units in the group attack whenever an attack card is played, only 1 of them does attack.
This can be called a manifestation of the “action economy”, one that works in the Player’s favor by making encounters manageable. Not only that, but this is intended - feeling as though the PCs are weaker than the enemy and that the only reason the Player is winning is either due to them getting lucky or due to them outsmarting the enemy and utilizing better tactics.
As stated - this is a tactical game, and so feeling overwhelmingly powerful might subtract from the need to rely on some sort of strategy. However, feeling weak also makes it more likely that the Player will want to become stronger - and getting stronger happens by buying rarer items and getting better cards as a result of that. On top of this… Well…
This game’s math does not work as it does in reality. There are situations when an Attack is meant to do 4 damage on its own, but it is buffed up by another card to do 2 extra damage. However, whenever an enemy makes use of Armor to lower the damage, by 2, the total amount of damage done becomes 2, even though in that situation the amount of damage done should clearly be 4 - seeing as 4 + 2 - 2 is not 2.
Though that ought to be enough. We have cards that do all kinds of things, and, unfortunately, we have cards that do the same thing, but worse. As an example, there exists the card “Penetrating Cut”, which ignores armor and does 3 damage to a target adjacent to the user of the card. Then there is the card “Perforating Strike”, which ignores armor and does 5 damage to a target adjacent to the user of the card. Again, this is tied to the game’s monetization mechanics.
But how does the Player get Items? Well, by clearing “Adventures”. There are two screens in CH - one of those is the Map screen, which features all unlocked adventures, some stores and a few additional things (such as the spot where the Player can go to craft items - more on that later). The other is the Battle screen, which is where most of the game’s gameplay takes place. So, when the Player picks an Adventure, that Adventure will feature a number of battles - at least one - and when that battle is concluded with a victory for the Player, the Player is given a chest.
That chest contains Items, and through opening those chests is how the Player gets items.
Before getting in on chests, though, I should mention that the number of available Adventures constantly drops. The Player starts off with a number of Characters who are level 1, and there are 3 Adventures for level 1, then there are also 2 Adventures for level 2. In short - this allows the PCs to accumulate enough levels so as to proceed at a reasonable pace, even allowing one of those PCs to be a bit ahead of the curve, getting to be level 3 in one of the level 2 adventures.
However, as more and more Adventures are completed and more and more other Adventures are unlocked, the Player might start noticing that the amount of experience points earned for completing an Adventure is becoming more and more meager, and the number of available Adventures that will grant experience is not growing. Not only that, but the benefits for leveling up also start teetering off - there come levels when the PC does not increase its health (by the usual 1). On top of all that, if a PC dies during an Adventure, it gets less experience at the end of said Adventure, further penalizing the Player for not having the best gear possible.
That is clearly done as a means of urging the Player to buy more things - particularly new Adventures, as there are tons of those that start popping up at the exact same time the growth of the PCs starts slowing down. The catch is that those Adventures need to be purchased, and each of the costs 40 Pizza Slices. Pizza Slices are the Premium Currency in CH and they do pretty much everything… But the crux here is that the game starts teetering off, losing its luster and engagement, and offers the Player a means of solving that issue by paying for content and for an advantage. We’ll get back to this later.
SO, chests - they contain a number of items based on the Adventure in which they are found, as well as based on whether the Adventure has been completed today. That’s right, ladies, gentlemen and n-bees, this mostly single-player game (with multiplayer functionality) features time-gated content! If an Adventure has been completed once, it becomes marked as such. Completed adventures can be played again, though they grant almost nothing in return - perhaps 1 or 2 experience points if it is suitable for the PCs’ levels and 1 Item that can be sold for 2 Gold.
In short, if the Player wants to get stuff, they need to do content that they have not done - and that’s, typically, the harder stuff. Not only that, but if the Player attempts to do an Adventure that is level 4, and their PCs are level 7 or 8, their PCs will be brought down to level 5. Why?
Because the Player needs to always feel weak - except when the Player buys items that make the PCs obtusely powerful, that’s okay - and because there should be no convenient or easy means of “farming” items - it must all be a bit of a slog and the Player must invest at least 6 minutes per Chest, which means that the Player gets an average of 3 Items per 6 minutes. That might sound nice, but this should be seen through the lens of a Diablo game. Items are so interchangeable that they are to be sold and used as resources in crafting other, more desirable Items - 6 Items lost in favor of getting 1 Item.
Not only that, but there are different types of item rarity - so getting 3 Items every 6 minutes, 2 of which are definitely common and one of which could be uncommon, is not a good trade. It could be said that, fortunately, some of the Items that drop are exclusively treasure items, meant to be sold for Gold. With Gold, the Player can buy Items from shops, which allows for the collection of better Items, due to the fact that the selection in the shops often features uncommon and even rare Items, which tend to be a lot better than the common options.
However, buying Items is a lot more costly than selling items. Most treasure items only fetch 5 or 10 Gold, and an uncommon item costs 25 Gold, while rares and up are more than 50 a piece… So there’s a lot of work to be done before the good stuff starts becoming available (Legendary and Epic Items cost 2500 and 500 Gold, respectively). In addition to that, the Player cannot sell Items until they collect a certain number of items, after which they get to sell their stuff for nearly nothing - Common Items go for literally 1 Gold, Uncommon ones go for 2 Gold, and it’s not worth it at all, overall.
CH, of course, offers a solution. If the Player wants more Items from chests, they need only become a CH Club member - which is a subscription to a funky service that makes 1 extra Item drop from chests - and it’s always at least as rare as the rarest Item in the chest, so it’s clearly a great win!
To become a CH Club member, the Player must pay. How much? Well, for 7 days the Player needs to spend 80 Pizza Slices, but since the Player can’t buy only 80 Pizza Slices, and the lowest number available is 330, the Player has to pay 10$ for that, and can get a whole 30 days for 300 Pizza Slices.
Extra rare loot - check. What else? Well, the Player can just buy Gold with Pizza Slices, with each Pizza Slice being worth 10 Gold. That means that, roughly, a Legendary Item is priced at around 250 Pizza Slices, which is more than 7$. Lastly, there are also chests for sale. Straight up chests - filled with loot - and they can contain all kinds of loot, though they also feature guaranteed epic Items.
So, with the game’s integrity out of the window and long dead on the sidewalk, what is the Player left with as an achievement that can be claimed? Aside from leveling up, which winds up being one of the only things not directly affected by paying to win, there is not much to do. When the monetization system is so tightly bound with the game itself, it’s hard to find something that’s not marred by it.
What’s even more odd is the fact that the game has a cosmetic element to itself, allowing for a good monetization system’s existence - the PCs have a default look that cannot be changed, but for 80 Pizza Slices the Player can buy a different look for a certain type of PC (Dwarf Wizard, as an example). This is probably one of the better reasons to spend money, because the default appearances of the PCs are quite uninteresting.
Regardless, the game has not gone that way, and as a result it suffers. After the Player completes the campaign - all Adventures - they get access to Quests, which are essentially Adventures that don’t grant experience, and the only thing that’s really left to do is to collect every Item there is (please buy more Pizza Slices).
Now, here we have a very big issue with the way the game works - there’s Item crafting. The Player can craft an Item out of 6 or 3 other Items, dependent on the type of Item the Player wants to craft. Unfortunately, this does not mean that the Player can just craft an Item they want - even though it should be totally possible to do so.
The way the crafting works is somewhat intuitive - if the Player wants to craft Item X, which has these 6 cards associated with it, the Player needs to sacrifice an Item that has one of the cards that Item X has, 6 times, until all the cards that Item X have an Item sacrificed with them in it. However, this only allows for the creation of particular Items, not custom Items.
Why? Because we need to keep the Player weak and we need to keep the Player dependent on the monetization system, otherwise the Player might just be able to make an uber weapon that has the best attack, 6 times. Woe is the developers, for they simply cannot allow the Player to break the game after hundreds of hours of farming to obtain the appropriate Items to craft this one god item.
Though, in truth, the issue is related to the existence of other game modes - namely the cooperative gamemode and the competitive gamemode. The cooperative gamemode allows the Player to play with 2 other Players, with each Player controlling one of the PCs in a party. The competitive gamemode allows the Player to fight against another Player.
Keep in mind that the Items the Player has collected from the campaign are usable in multiplayer, so there is still incentive to buy stuff.
Following those revelations, it is easy to come to the conclusion that CH is an undeserving product of greed, but the game actually does present some merits. It does feature tactical combat that is quite well done, it does allow for the creation of a humongous collection, but… Well, it does really match the “soulless cash grab” checklist. 1/3
Presentation
Card Hunter is an incredibly pleasant game to look at, in part because of its visuals and in part because of the smoothness of every movement… Though that falls into its visuals.
In short - Card Hunter presents itself as though it was happening on a table, with every bit of User Interface being so framed so as to be identifiable as a piece of paper - whether a Character Sheet or a Map, or a Booklet, or a card. Most Characters look like they are cutouts slotted onto a plastic base and used in the stead of mini-figures.
There is very clearly a theme that is being followed, and that theme is very well stuck to. There are, however, some exceptions. One of those instances would be the presence of “talking heads”, which aren’t exactly talking heads… But they do that. There are a pair of Characters that are Characters outside of the game, but are present as a means to both present information to the Player and also to reinforce the theme.
After all, a game of Dungeons and Dragons (which is clearly being referenced here), or any tabletop game, requires at least two people to play, and so there are other “people” whose portraits show up on the upper half of the screen and feature some text that is either meant to reinforce the theme - in which case it is something that works as a Dungeon Master’s description of events - or it is meant to inform the Player of a mechanic.
This works quite well, even if there are more than a few moments that are a bit cringe-worthy (read: implausible), though at the same time it also poses a very big problem. Now, on the one hand - it creates a pseudo-diegetic means of having a tutorial in the game, which is great - and the tutorial itself is incredibly detailed and comprehensive - however the issue that appears is that whenever something is being presented to the Player, everything else is not accessible.
That would not be too problematic if the game did not feature predatory monetization, and it would also fail to be too problematic if the game forced the Player into engaging with those monetization mechanics through the tutorial. As an example, while the Player is being told that they can take their Characters to an armory, where they can buy and sell items, they can not click on anything else but the armory to go there. They can not even click on the “menu” button to access it and to change the game’s settings or quit the game. They can only click the button that the game wants them to click.
So when the button in question is the: “pay money to get bonuses” button, that becomes problematic. At the very least, this game does not give the Player a free trial of the VIP subscription mode that makes the game easier, but it gets dangerously close by giving the Player just enough of the Premium currency (paid for with real money) to buy a chest (a lootbox) and then forces the Player to buy a chest.
By doing so, CH very naughtily introduces its mechanics via the lens of the tutorial, whilst also trying to maintain some diegetic elements to it - though both fall apart, as giving pizza to the DM does not make the DM give the group a special chest full of goodies, nor does being a member of some special club outside of the game mean that the DM will give the group more goodies whenever they find a chest.
So the game has both a great, diegetic interface and tutorial, whilst simultaneously presenting its predatory monetization as a totally reasonable thing, which is an important part of the game (at least according to the tutorial), and undermining that diegetic tutorial and interface with that predatory monetization. Stupendous, I will say, and dock some points.
Now, in regards to audio, the game does not fail in many regards - its sound effects are very well linked to the things that trigger them, and they also work well to convey whatever needs to be conveyed. Music-wise, the game is… Lacking. Well, not quite. It features a varied number of jingles, but no actual musical score. There is some neat ambience, but aside from that it’s just sound effects.
Sound effects and grunts. The Characters the Player controls constantly grunt whenever doing something, such as performing attacks or casting spells, while one of the out-of-game Characters who’s taking on the role of a DM is constantly going ‘haha’ or ‘hmm’ or ‘ambush!’, which becomes a tad annoying after the fifth time it happens.
Unfortunately, there are many issues that plague this game’s Presentation - such as the placement of Character health and the fact that it gets obscured by adjacent Characters, making it nearly impossible to see and requiring that the Player squints at the tiny text situated beneath (or above) the Character’s tab;
The fact that there is no consistent means of inspecting the currently attached cards to the PCs, as the interface allowing that constantly malfunctions and simply does not do as it should;
The fact that there are no means of checking a PC’s discard pile or their deck to see which cards might show up and which cards are not showing up for a long time;
The fact that when run in windowed mode the game’s resolution does not actually decrease, and, instead, the amount of visible game is reduced, requiring that the Player move the game around with the mouse so that they can access some of the content that is, otherwise, unobscured;
The fact that half the spells in the game appear to be ones that do electrical damage, due to the fact that they are called “zap”, and zapping is associated with lightning and electricity, but then any spell that has the name “zap” is, actually, not a spell that does electrical damage, which is a theming issue that conflicts with the mechanics;
The sorting options for the inventory and the crafting system are dreadful;
As a result of all of this, the game’s Presentation is almost egregiously problematic, but it still remains barely decent. However, then comes the elephant in the room. That is an issue connected to both the Gameplay and to the game’s Presentation, however it is connected to the former in a manner not owed up to it.
This game is sluggish, it is slow and clumsy. Even when it runs at a good framerate, even when the speed of animations has been dialed up to the maximum, the feeling of clumsiness remains, for the way the game is designed is one that does not jive well with its monetization. The game is designed around how Players will pay for it, but then it is also designed around how Players will experience it after they have paid for it - the idea of how Players will experience it prior to paying, or if they have not paid, is totally lacking.
As a result of that, the game is monstrously sluggish and likes taking its time. It does not consider the fact that there is no need for every single effect that is applied to a spell to show up as a card, accompanied by a little jingle, because that takes time. Casting a spell that has 2 boosts takes almost 10 seconds. Attacking and blocking or getting the damage done reduced via armor takes at least 5 seconds.
Things that could be instant - or that could be relegated to the chat window which lists everything that happens - are instead placed at the center of the screen and take up the Player’s time, while also demanding their attention. Farming and Grinding do not happen, or rather cannot happen, because not only does a battle take many minutes to go through, not only does the game itself weaken the PCs so that they need to approach the fight tactically, but it also features a plethora of animations, bells and whistles that could be absent and the game would be more fluent as a result of it.
As it currently stands, though, the game shoots itself in the foot via its monetization mechanics, then it goes on to amputate its healthy foot by having this slow, bothersome inclination to show everything off at the expense of its own self… Yet it is still decent. 2/3
Story
CH tells the story of Gary and his big brother Melvin. Gary is just getting into Card Hunter and wants to be a Dungeon Master(DM), while Melvin is an incredibly experienced DM. Both of them are grotesque caricatures of the stereotypical nerd - with Gary being incapable of speaking with girls, being far too absorbed in the fantastical world of Card Hunter and being an outstanding dork who just wants to have fun.
Melvin, on the other hand, takes himself too seriously, is the epitome of "gamer", is fat and views Card Hunter as a competitive game between the DM and the Players. He's not made to look fun to be around.
So the gist of things is that the Player "Character", the Player themselves, is Gary's friend and the two of them are discovering Card Hunter, and throughout the entirety of the game's story Gary slowly improves as a DM and as a storyteller, and he also seems to slowly begin the process of overcoming his ineptitude in communication.
Loads of things "happen", but most of them are definitely happening in the vein of "lol, so random", and not out of some desire to present a situation for the Characters to react to and to develop in some way.
What this means, however, is that there is very little connecting tissue between the different Adventures, aside from a few words spoken by either Gary or Melvin, which might not be connected to the Adventures themselves.
There is a bit of text here and there, conveying what's going on, but it is very localized and episodic, rarely, if ever, does one Adventure somehow link with another. Even so, there is a bit of charm to be found in the vast world of CH, which is just DnD but not quite.
It's not enough, mind you, but it is not completely lacking, though the portrayal of people who like tabletop games, albeit ironic, is still far too unpleasant. 1/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the Legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? Does this pay-to-win mess of wasted time get the recognition I've reserved for only the most astounding of games out there? No, it does not.
If the game was just its theme, and its adherence to the theme, then I might have been swayed. However, there is too much wrong with it for me to budge. 0/1
Conclusion
4/10. A neat concept that gets shot in the back of the head by horrendous monetization. Perhaps I can recommend it to the most affluent or the most resistant to grinding fans of tactical games, but I'd refrain from urging anyone to try it.
I chuck it in the bag of mediocrity, hoping that the dust will fill out the gaps. It could have been really special, but instead…