Gordian Quest, like many video games of its ilk, is slowed down by dense, cumbersome menus and volumes of small textual content. However not like loads of different video games within the technique and deckbuilding style, it is a lot simpler to wrap your thoughts round and is not mired in frustratingly lengthy tutorials and steep studying curves. Weaving tabletop inspirations into deckbuilding gameplay creates a enjoyable, replayable recreation that lacks tooth, however supplied sufficient satisfaction to maintain us engaged, even when its myriad of meddlesome menus made it a wrestle.
The sport is presumably named after the Gordian Knot, a legendary knot so tough to untie it grew to become a proto-Arthurian, sword-in-the-stone-type legend used to anoint Alexander the Nice because the Chosen One / God-King / Emperor over the Macedonian Empire after he, because the legend has it, sliced it atwain. If that is the case, it is ironic that this recreation’s menus are so tough to navigate that they too require some divine sense of inspiration to have the ability to lower via. This will likely sound like hyperbole, however doing one thing so simple as equipping a weapon felt like a Sisyphean activity, even when its menus had been clearly legible.
Earlier than we get to that, the positives. Within the bulk of the sport, fight completely sings. It runs properly, it has some good depth to it, and loads of the characters’ decks have actually nice synergy that provides a satisfying degree of metagaming as you strive your finest to arrange a potent combo of playing cards in Gordian Quest’s grid-based fight.
It boasts a strong roguelite mode. It isn’t fairly as strong as the primary marketing campaign mode, but it surely’s a good way to wrap your thoughts round Gordian Quest’s fight loop earlier than hopping into its marketing campaign.
There’s additionally some cool tabletop-style roleplaying, with moments the place your character or social gathering might must roll for a verify to loot a room or dodge a entice like in Dungeons and Dragons. And, so as to add a bit extra aptitude to those D-20-based checks, you possibly can quickly sacrifice one among your characters’ playing cards so as to add a lift to your roll. It provides some good threat/reward parts that really feel roguelike-adjacent as you discover a dungeon. These moments additionally showcase a few of Gordian Quest’s artwork type.
Sadly, loads of these moments are bookended by situations that, whereas well-written, are splayed out in textual content that isn’t legible when taking part in on a TV. The textual content is not as onerous to learn in handheld, but it surely was simply sufficiently small to offer this reviewer some eye pressure.
That is not the one situation that appears to be a results of a poorly thought-out PC-to-Change transition. For example, let’s stroll via what, in our opinion, would really feel proper for equipping a weapon: You go into the character menu; utilizing the D-pad or management stick, you cycle over to the weapon part on the character’s menu; after urgent the ‘A’ button, your cursor strikes over to the tab within the menu with the weapons in it and, in case your character can wield the weapon you had been hoping to equip, it slots into the weapon spot in your character’s web page.
Now let’s stroll via what occurs when making an attempt to equip a weapon in Gordian Quest: You go into the character menu; utilizing the D-pad or management stick, you cycle over the weapon slot in your character sheet; after deciding on it, it pulls up the weapon tab to the correct of your character menu. However, as an alternative of merely urgent the ‘A’ button to equip one thing, urgent ‘A’ over a particular piece of drugs seemingly does nothing. And, if you happen to attempt to navigate out of the menu part containing the specified gear, you will end up caught! Now how does one escape this infernal consumer interface oversight? Absolutely making an attempt to navigate via the menu utilizing the button prompts supplied on the high of the menu would possibly unlock one thing.
Urgent ‘R’, you tab over to the following part of your stock, hoping to seek out an escape. Unsuitable once more! This time, making an attempt to cycle again to the gear part of the menu by urgent ‘L’, you discover that the UI is caught. As an alternative of registering the ‘L’ button as a immediate to tab left, it is studying it (mysteriously) as a immediate to slip to the left on the correct management stick, which is used to cycle via the submenus beneath those you navigate utilizing ‘L’ and ‘R’. Now, you are caught in a good smaller part of a menu with no discernible approach out.
So then how, how on the earth do you equip the rattling sword?! First, after deciding on it and receiving no suggestions from the sport or its UI, you need to press the ‘-‘ button, which takes you to yet one more menu part on the high of the display screen. Then, you must scroll all the best way over to the left on the high of the display screen, all the best way down and again to the weapon slot in your character menu, and press ‘A’. Confused? What’s most irritating is that this bug seems at random, including to its complicated nature.
So as to add insult to damage, it is as simple as may be to unequip: all you must do is press ‘X’ over an merchandise and it goes away! On high of that, it is fairly simple to navigate these similar points utilizing the touchscreen in handheld mode.
Gordian Quest is not at all unplayable, but it surely’s full of those sorts of irritating points. That is one instance of a handful of deeply annoying oversights that make small stuff a complete chore, however you will discover such UI-related bugs in quite a lot of locations. Like navigating its Mario 3-style overworld map, the place pop-ups from earlier fight encounters linger, stopping you from progressing except you mash the pause button. Many of those points are patchable, which is simply as properly — at launch, at the very least, there’s lots to patch.
Conclusion
It is deeply disappointing to play Gordian Quest and encounter the quantity of UI-driven points that permeate its menus, as a result of it has some actually cool stuff occurring beneath its bristly, irritating outer shell. It is decidedly simpler to choose up than most different deckbuilders, and fight has a great move to it, with numerous mixtures and deck variations to discover. Sadly, it is a horrendous Change port that makes even easy issues tough. It is value your time, simply perhaps not on the Change.
