Library of Ruina

Title
Or at least read the story.

Gonna go ahead and be a bit of a cunt for a few minutes here and effectively directly reply to the other big review currently on the page (as well as people looking to rate the game after 2 or 3 hours put into it):

I feel like the game really ought to come with a disclaimer that says the above. This game is NOT a stand-alone title and having played Lobotomy Corp first will infinitely deepen your enjoyment of this game. It's a literal direct sequel, in fact. I'm not saying you couldn't get away with it but you wouldn't very well start watching a trilogy halfway through the 2nd movie, would you? Just go watch a YouTube summary or something.

If that isn't your thing, that's fine I guess, but please: whatever you do, for the love of god, please don't review the game after playing not even 2% of it - or at least don't make pompous claims that suggest you know ANYTHING about what you're talking about. Just say you hate games that are slow to pick up and move on.

Yes I'm aware that the "it gets good after 10 hours" joke has been beaten to death, and usually I do jump on that bandwagon (I'll never not make fun of Xenoblade). Maybe it's because I put 150 hours into Lobotomy Corp first that I was willing to grit my teeth and bear it - what's another 10 hours, after all? This game IS a slow burn that takes around 5-10 hours to ramp up depending on how fast you get there. That's a turn-off for some, but it is what it is. It's a 100+ hour game with infinitely complex depth in deck-building and strategizing. You have to start somewhere, and for here that start is a very basic building block start. It's extremely easy for those first 10 hours and almost mind-numbing due to lack of options, but once you break into the early-mid game it really picks up steam and becomes incredibly addicting. I went from barely being able to tolerate 8 hours over a few days to blowing through 80 hours in a week.

It then progressively becomes as hard and stressful as you'd probably expect from this game if you have firsthand experience having played Lobotomy Corp first. This game is in no way "easy" if you bother to actually reach the mid-game. Yes, there are strategies that allow you to pretty confidently tackle most fights - but you WILL have to actually strategize in usually unique ways for EACH individual encounter. There will not be an easily attainable one-deck-beats-all situation that boils the game down to a basic state. There maybe was, at one point during the beta stages, but those have all been nerfed to oblivion.

It's a grindfest, especially since you have to gacha your cards (not my favorite mechanic), but in some of the best ways.

Aside from the gameplay loop: the writing is fantastic, the world is incredibly detailed and unique, and the music BOPS.

It's not a perfect game, it's pretty unpolished honestly (scene transitions, or the lack thereof, are STILL jarring), but as someone who kind of hates card games it's an incredibly fun one - and playing both this & Lobotomy Corp is well worth your time investment if you're into this genre of story (dark fantasy, dystopian, bleak, etc.).

This game has a fatal flaw, it's not fun. The book burning system is very boring, uninteresting, and not even remotely satisfying. Getting better cards is inevitable and very quick, there is no suspense for getting “that one card” making the repetitive game loop not even remotely satisfying.
The game is way too easy, if you even have a passing familiarity with card games, you will have absolutely no problem whatsoever.
The characters are very by-the-numbers and cookie cutter (Tell me where you've heard these before, a robot who wants to feel something, a protagonist who is sucked into a place unknown, has no idea what's going on, and is trying to get a grip on everything new, an alcoholic artist who lacks motivation to keep moving forward, a sweet helpless girl, a stuck-up high and mighty suit and tie, etc.).
The story is so unimpressive it's barely even worth a mention and the world building is just awful, confusing, and extremely forgettable.
There's only a handful of tracks and they loop in very hilarious ways, tracks just seem to cut in and out at random even during battle. And no, they are not good.
There are no loading screens so when something is loading the entire game freezes for ~4 seconds every time you start a battle or send an invitation.
The only thing that really stuck out to me as good is the voice acting, it's actually really good.
This is a very unpolished, boring, tedious, bad game. There is absolutely nothing here to keep someone hooked for it's very long runtime.

this game is very good. i like netzach. i like gebura. i like roland. i am also hindu. bluestar is funny because his fight is annoying. i don't like tippereth because her floor is bad. hod is good because she has a lot of bleed. WOW!