Introduction
Today we will be reviewing a rogue like deck builder game, the game is called Tainted Grail : Conquest, for the rest of the review I will call it Tainted Grail. If you like games like Slay the Spire or Monster Train, this is a perfect game for you! However, in this game, you can also walk around and explore the map. When you touch an enemy, you will initiate combat! There are also events which are also needed for quests. There are a lot of side quests and main quests! Completing them all will earn you a secret ending which reveals the identity of the lost soul in the village.
What did I think before playing Tainted Grail?
I was once again looking for a great game to review. There are many requests and games I wanted to play. However, I was this time interested in playing a deck builder game. I was looking hard, but it was quite hard to find a new game in this genre, game pass did not have many deck building games, but a new one just popped up! Tainted Grail looked amazing, I decided to put the game in the poll of the month, and lo and behold! Everyone else was also interested as this game won first place in the October poll! Time to check the Steam page, as the most accurate information can usually be found there!
The Steam Page
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1199030/Tainted_Grail_Conquest/
The Steam page is amazing and has a lot of info and looks very attractive. There are a lot of classes, cards and passives to choose from, but a lot of the cards and classes need to be unlocked. You also need to build up your village and invite other people to your village. Are you ready for a great rogue like deck builder?
Rating
I rate Tainted Grail with an 8.5 before playing.
This rogue deck builder looked amazing before playing, I was very interested in playing this game!
Story
The story starts with your village being wiped out and then everything turning dark. You are however chosen to survive, well your spirit, your body not. You are revived and given a body. It is your goal to defeat the guardians and build up your village! Can you brave the wyrdness and save your village?
Rating
I rate the story of Tainted Grail with a 7.0.
While the story is fun, the gameplay is what is important in Tainted Grail.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Tainted Grail is very fun and offers a lot of replay value. When you die, you will start over, but there are a lot of permanent upgrades like drawing more cards each turn. You can also find rune stones to upgrade your weapon and armor! Before you can start accumulating permanent upgrades, though. You will need to invite villagers!
To find a villager, you will need to brave the wyrdness outside the village. If you enter the wyrdness without a lighted candle, things are going to go wrong fast. You will need candles which you can get from events. When you rescue the candle maker, you can upgrade your candles. If you have burning candles, you might also get bonus cards that will help you in battle.
A battle can go many ways depending on your class. In the beginning you only have the wyrdhunter unlocked, when you die in a run you will get experience for your save file to unlock new classes, cards and passives. When you win in a battle, your character levels up but when you die, you are back at level one again!
After every level up, you will not gain new stats or more health, instead you will receive a choice of three cards, you can only re-roll after you have unlocked this permanent upgrade. You will also be able to choose from a passive skill, these are very important as these will make or break your build. There is a lot more to Tainted Grail, like saving villagers or non-playable characters! These will unlock new events and good rewards!
Rating
I rate the gameplay of Tainted Grail with a 9.0
The gameplay is very intuitive and has an amazing high replay value. There are regular new updates which adds new cards or even passive skills.
Sound and Graphics
Graphics
The graphics of Tainted Grail are dark and creepy. There are also a lot of different enemies, there is also a huge array of different non-playable characters and quests between them never end, even if you die. Quest items never disappear, but healing and other items will disappear, like your rune stones.
Sound
The soundtracks are great and a lot of new soundtracks are still being added. The sound effects are also great, but the cherry on top is the voice acting in this game! All the characters are voice acted and lets you choose when being asked a question. Remember, all your actions have consequences, either good or bad!
Rating
I rate the sound and graphics of Tainted Grail with a 10.
This game excels in the sound and graphics section!
What did I think after playing Tainted Grail?
I had a lot of fun when playing, but a lot of classes did not sit well with me, I needed some more upgrades before playing with those classes! My favorite class was the pathfinder, I even reached difficulty 10, each time you complete your run, a new difficulty will unlock! Each difficulty ups the currency that you can gain!
Each run has different enemies and guardians to face in each section, this also means that you cannot memorize the run and run through the map. However, having more permanent upgrades makes the game easier with other classes that you have not mastered yet!
Rating
I rate Tainted Grail with a 9.5 after playing!
The replay value is insane with this game, when new updates drop, even more is added!
What are my personal thoughts about Tainted Grail?
I had a great time when playing Tainted Grail and completed many runs! I still have a lot of classes that I want to try out and learn how to use them properly!
Rating
My personal Rating of Tainted Grail is a 9.2.
If you are interested in deck building or rogue like games, this is perfect for you!
Last Words
Pros
- Brave the wyrdness and level up your save file to unlock new characters!
- Amazing graphics and soundtracks with a creepy atmosphere!
- Complete a lot of quests to unlock the secret identity!
- Fight many epic bosses and try to defeat them with your mighty deck!
- Level up and choose your cards wisely!
- Choose passives that will either make or break your build!
- Use rune stones to upgrade your abilities!
- Collect permanent upgrades for all classes to enjoy!
Cons
- It can be hard to deduce what you need to do for certain quests.
- Some classes might be hard to master, depending on your taste!
Exploring around in a deck building game needs to be done right, Tainted Grail does it right! I really should review Lost Kingdom of the Gamecube!
Final Rating
8.8
Let me know what you think of Tainted Grail :Conquest in the comments!
I hope you enjoyed reading this review, I hope to see you in the next review!
If you liked reading this review, maybe you would like to share this review with your friends!
I cant like card games.
Just like the person above, I’m vary of card games. They’re fine, in idea, but often invite unsavory business models from developers. This one looks pretty neat, though, and the music is my taste.
yeah, the problem is there are only a few real good card games and a lot of them have microtransaction, this one does not though and is absolutely free to play once you have bought the game! No extra purchases needed!
It looks really good.
pretty good
A roguelike RPG with exploration is very much to my liking and sounds interesting!
You should try it!
I hope you will play this game in the future!
very nice
Second part of this game is coming out soon – Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon!
Yeah, I saw but I believe it is an open world RPG!
interesting game! thanks for the review!
You are welcome!
So many deck-building games nowadays. Not my cup of tea, though this one’s graphic is great.
Card games are not for everyone, they used to be much rarer a few decades ago, Lost Kingdoms was awesome!
Looks fun!
This atmosphere is probably the most distinctive in this game.
Yeah, they did a great job making it creepy!
I like this game, but it looks too dark for me
Yeah, it can be, it needs to be your taste!
this looks interesting. thanks for the review.
It does need to be your kind of game, but the mechanics are awesome!
Too much grind and bad optimization
It is indeed a grind!
Thank you! I’ll try this game.
The best looking visual card game. Nice.
It does look nice!
Good review! Interesting card game.
Since there are various strengthening elements, so it’s good that the outcome of the game doesn’t depend only on card luck.
I like card games, the boss look pretty good. Thanks!
This game sounds neat, and it’s always a breath of fresh air to find a unique card game that doesn’t have microtransactions!
No microtransactions are always good!
Cool card game! Thanks for the review! 😀
You are welcome!
Sounds like a card game rpg lol
Thanks for the review! 🙂
I’m not that much of a Deckbuilder but I know someone who would like this.
Thanks for review as i have this game on my steam wishlist already for a long time, so i was interesting to read.
I think you will enjoy it!
it*
Seems a pretty interesting and good deck builder game, I like how it looks
I like deck building/roguelike games, so for sure Tainted Grail is something to try for me. Thanks!
sounds interesting
I so love rogue-likes… and deck builders…. I need this!! 😀
Get it already!
This game is totally my type of game!
I spent some time playing this game on board games with friends. Curious to see the video game.
Thanks for your presentation.
has got my attention
While I´m not a huge fan of card games this one looks pretty cool.
I’ve heard promising things about this game so far… Can’t wait to try it out myself
It is very fun to play!
cool game
I recently played Thronebreaker since I’m such a witcher fan and it has given me a good experience with card games. I wanna try this one out as well!
I hope you will enjoy it!
looks interesting
I like the visual style. You gave it quite a good rating. I got curious’ about this game.