Card Game Bundle Vol. 1 Review (Nintendo Switch)

Title: Card Game Bundle Vol. 1 (includes Frost and Monster Slayers)
Genre: Card game, Rogue lite
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam, PS4 and Xbox one)
Developer|Publisher: Les Studio des Tenebres (Frost)| Nerdook Productions (Monster Slayers)| Stay Clear Studios| Digerati
Age Rating: EU 16+| US Teen
Price: UK £21.59| EU € 23,99 | AU $ 36.00|CA $ 31.74| US $ 23.99
Release Date: 26th March 2020

Card Game Bundle Vol. 1 is not a title that necessarily makes your ears perk up with excitement. However, it is important to not judge games by their titles but by their content. Vol 1 happens to have two pretty impressive card based games in it’s collection that are well worth a look. Both are available to buy separately. When you boot the card bundle up on Switch it lets you select one of the two games. They don’t appear as separate icons on your Switch dashboard. For this review I will cover both games separately and end with an overall sum up for the package as a whole. Enjoy.

Frost

Before I begin I want to give credit to the site owner Yvonne who covered this game back in 2018 with a wonderful review. So if you want a second opinion on Frost please read through this review too.

Heading in into the Cold

For me Frost hit hard like the nail biting weather its name is based off. I loved this title. When I lived in Cambridgeshire I would attend a board game club every month to play all sorts of weird card and board games. Sadly I began moving round the country so don’t get to enjoy games like this much. Fortunately video games like Frost come along to remind me of those days. Frost is single player only. As far as I’m aware there doesn’t exist a physical version of this card game.

Your mission is simple. Get to the refuge before the frost catches up to you and ends your journey. To get to the refuge you need to play cards to fulfill the requirements of a specific area. Which will be a combination of food, resource and survivor requirements. Once you’ve achieved this you can move one step away from the frost and one step closer to refuge.

This game is not easy though. Much like if you were to take a hike up Mount Everest there are a lot of challenges in your way. For starters, you will need to collect more cards to complete the area. This may mean using survivors to scavenge for a card you need at the risk of gaining a fatigue card or them just dying.

Fatigue cards collect in your deck and hand and can only be removed if you rest which costs a whole turn and a chance of the frost taking you. Or alternatively if you have an idea card these can help remove them.

Hard Choices

Idea cards appear at the top of the screen which you can purchase with your own cards in the hope they will assist you. Then there are event cards which are specific to the area and might mean you dealing with hostiles like wolves or cannibals which can deplete your health counter. Other events include traders with who you can exchange cards to gain the cards you need to progress.

The most deadly thing by far is the Frost itself. Every turn it gets closer to you, so you need to out walk it or its game over. And you will see that game over screen a lot. For every attempt you make you may unlock new additional cards for future playthroughs which adds to the incentive of re trying. Despite seeing the horrifying game over screen again and again. I was constantly compelled to try again.

A haunting end

As you can see Frost is quite the complex game. That’s why it’s definitely recommended you play through the tutorial first maybe even multiple times to get to grips with things. As well as the classic mode you can play through ‘Scenario’ campaigns which add an extra level of challenge to the game like keeping a fixed number of survivors alive. Completing these quests will unlock new playable characters in the classic mode. Should you find the difficulty too much (or possibly even too easy) classic mode does allow you to customize the difficulty to your preference.

Connecting with the Cards

The art style of Frost is simple hand drawn art work which felt very suited to the design of the game. Through playthroughs I found myself becoming quite attached to some of the survivor cards as they displayed unique pictures that I would see through multiple playthroughs. I ended up naming some of these survivors in my head such as Bill or Wendy. Making this silly attachment to survivor characters made it all the more painful when one would die, sacrifice its life to a wolf or worse I had to sacrifice them to make two food cards so I could out walk the frost.

Frost has touch screen capabilities in handheld mode although I often kept to using the controller. But that’s just my personal preference. The game also features a ‘night mode’ in the options which switches the colour pallet from white to dark making the game look more like cave drawings. I guess this mode may help you if your planning on staying up late in bed with the game. I found the colour switch made many of the item cards look odd. The food cards looked like blueberries and the resource cards now looked like candles.

Night mode a interesting accessibility option

It’s About Hope

Frost is cruel and unfair. But in the end it is a game about hope. The world of ice is harsh but you can make it through the cold to the refuge. I guess there is a life lesson in their somewhere.

Frost is not a game for everyone. But if you like ‘just one more go’ card based games, Frost is well worth risking the cold. I personally adored this game and can see myself revisiting it multiple times in the future. I also enjoyed it so much I drew my own fan art which you can see below.

My drawing skills need work

Monster Slayers

From the serious to the humorous. Monster Slayers its a cartoon like dungeon crawler, card based game. This was also reviewed by fellow writer Jonah so check out his take here.

The quest begins, also there’s a sheep in this picture.

Cartoon Fun

From the get go you get to choose your character from a assortment of classes such as wizard, knight and even dragon which is pretty cool. You then get to customize your characters appearance. Name it, which of course I did and even choose from a generous assortment of voices for your character. My first was a Rogue female I named Sen who had a very British voice actor. Should you not want to mess around with this you can choose the randomize option and the game will create you a funny looking hero with a randomly generated name.

Welcome customization of your character

From there you are introduced to the games mechanics with a handy tutorial to help you get to grips with the games mechanics. The premise is simple to pick up but takes time to master. You’re tasked to defeat three boss characters across three dungeons. From the main hub you can choose which dungeon to explore, from deserts to magical woods. The type of environments you would expect to see in a fantasy title.

When you enter a dungeon a chapter announces ‘Lets do this!’ and lets you choose a companion to aid you on your quest. You’re then given a map of the dungeon to preview the rooms next to your characters location, basically choose a room and you will encounter an enemy or additional support character. The enemies character and level is previewed before you enter so you can devise the best route to take. When you encounter an enemy it’s time to duel! Well draw cards in this game. Your character and your opponent have a health, mana and action point meter and these will deplete (or increase) depending on the cards you draw.

The Heart of the Cards

From there you basically need to defeat the nasty looking threat in front of you by playing cards and depleting its health until it explodes into a satisfying puff. Meanwhile giving you experience and gold for the effort. Leveling up is essential to unlock more perks and cards. Of course fighting enemies is not always as easy as it sounds. You need to draw the right cards and come up with a complex scheming strategy to outwit the enemy. At least that’s how I felt when playing this game. Playing cards randomly will often lead to your opponent out smarting you, so thinking before you play tends to be the better strategy. Your overall goal per dungeon is to defeat the big boss. But it’s very much to your benefit to explore every where to gain the most experience, gold and items you can because the difficulty quickly ramps up per dungeon.

A map helps you plot your next move

It’s not all fighting enemies though some of the rooms in the dungeon you will meet characters who will aid you in your quest but you will need to make choices. For example, if you meet a captain they will let you choose between upgrading one of the cards in your deck or increasing your action points. Both carry benefits but you need to decide the strategy that will work for your current run. You will also bump into merchants who allow you to exchange any gold collected for new cards, items or upgrades.

The game is very much about making hard solid choices and living with those consequences as a result. That may lead to a easy defeat from a enemy you feel looks simple but if does encourage you to learn but more importantly accept your choices.

You can even play a dragon

The controls are simple. Pick a card, press a button, but it’s important to point out Monster Slayers doesn’t have touch controls on Switch even in handheld mode. Not a issue for me but it may be something for others to keep in mind.

Don’t Give up

Like any rogue lite game death can come thick and fast. Sometimes I even died on my first enemy encounter which was rather embarrassing for me since I play an absurd amount of rogue lite games. With each defeat you accumulate Fame points and this carries over every run. As this levels up it will allow you to unlock extra perks for future playthroughs but this also require you to make decisions. Luckily if you feel you made the wrong choice the game does allow you to re-spec these perks should fortune not be flying in your favour. Any items or weapons you picked up can also be reused for future runs and you get to keep a portion of gold but not a lot to start with. After death you instantly get thrown back to the character select screen to start all over again and give the quest another go. And that is just what I did again and again. Monster Slayers is hard but incredibly addictive and easy to jump back into.

Pick up and Play

The graphics of Monster Slayers are these cute animated paper-cut-out looking characters. The design of the characters and enemies are very soft and colourful. The voice acting adds a surprising amount of wit and humour to the game. The game clearly wants you to have a bit of a chuckle while you work your way through the dungeons. How a supporting character like the healer says ‘hello’ when you meet her in a dungeon always gave me the giggles. Accompanying you through the dungeons is an epic soundtrack. I felt like I was playing a scene out of the Lord of The Rings film rather than a cute little card video game, it was fantastic.

Getting ready to set out

Monster Slayers is a fun pick up and play card game. Good for those quick gaming sessions in handheld (or TV if you prefer) to revisit again and again. I can see this being a title to come back to multiple times in the future. Or if I just need to be cheered up a bit by the games’ clever use of humour. Something I think we could all do with now and then. Of course this is not for everyone as it’s a card game and it is hard. But if you’re new to this genre or want to test the waters you really can’t go wrong with Monster Slayers. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to see if I can defeat the 3 bosses with my dragon character.

The Overall Package

Card Game Bundle Vol. 1 was a wonderful surprise for me. If you’re new to card based video games this is a excellent bundle to get you started. Frost is very brutal and sad whereas Monster Slayers is brutal but hilarious. You get quite the nice contrast of styles.

I love how both titles are very pick up and play and are incredibly re-playable. They are also ideal to play between other games or if you just need something to return to for a quick fix. I never thought in my writing days I would give a top score to a game titled Card Game Bundle Vol.1 but here we are.

Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up

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