Castle Morihisa

Castle Morihisa delivers a solid entry in the card-based roguelike genre. The numerous styles of deck you can construct provide a robust variety of play, and the challenges the player is faced with are just as creative and varied. While some losses felt a bit cheap, the triumph of victory always feels sweet.

Castle Morihisa is a roguelike deckbuilder from Smokingbear Studio and Thermite Games set in a fantasy feudal Japan. It's not the most original game, but it does serve as a bit of a palate cleanser if you're looking for a roguelike deckbuilder with a different set of visuals.

Like the game itself, my Castle Morihisa review begins on an ominous note. If you’re not into deckbuilding roguelikes, you probably won’t enjoy this game. If you are a fan or you’re looking to get into the genre, this is a solid title that doesn’t bring much new to the table. And if you’re interested specifically in Japanese horror or history, Castle Morihisa is right up your alley. However, it only has so much to offer.

Make no mistake, though: unlike, say, Monster Train or Rise of the Slime, Castle Morihisa is much more of a straight up retread of Slay The Spire, which is simultaneously its strongest asset and its Achilles' heel at the same time. While fans of the genre will find it hard not to love, and though its structure is built upon another game's foundations, that doesn't mean you can't have a helluva fun time scaling your way to the top of its spire.

The video game world is not a binary place of winners and losers. Whenever a title launches, critics like to dub it with ridiculous monikers like “The God of War killer” or “The Resident Evil rival.” But multiple games for similar/same genres can coexist peacefully, often without impacting the community or sales of other games. So when I found out there was an upcoming deckbuilder that contained roguelite elements and was suspiciously like Slay the Spire, I took it as a good sign. Aft...