Monster Train on Nintendo Switch: upgrade one of last year’s best games

Monster train is a game about an army of demons that travel in a locomotive through the seven circles of hell. It was one of the best new titles of last year, and now it’s finally coming to Switch.

The deck-building roguelite originally debuted on PC in May of last year and finally made its way to Xbox. I was obsessed with the original release for weeks, but found that I wasn’t playing it as much as I wanted to. Every time I sat at my desk to go for a run, something would interrupt me in the middle. And by the time I got back, I had forgotten all the great cards I had added to my deck, the trap of all deck builders.

But this new version of Monster train helps me avoid that particular challenge, since I’m never far from my handheld. It’s a running story with Switch, an overlooked indie favorite that stands out in the latest from Nintendo, but in a host of indie games coming to Switch, Monster Train feels tailor-made for the hybrid nature of the platform. Nintendo.

Much of Monster train will be familiar to roguelite players, especially fans of deck-building roguelites like Kill the needle. You collect a variety of cards throughout each race, building the best deck you can with the random rewards they give you. The missions get more and more difficult and many races will end in failure; You already know what to do.

But Monster train builds on that familiar foundation with several novel twists. Instead of lonely heroes Monster train It has six clans. Each clan has two champion units to choose from, as well as unique grunt units, spells, artifacts, and mechanics. At the start of each race, I select which Clan I want to control and which Clan I want additional support from.

This Clan system fundamentally changes the way I plan each race. If I’m using the default gameplay matchmaking of the damage-focused Hellhorne Clan and the defense-oriented Awoken Clan, I can see several different options before me. I could opt for cards that upgrade my limited Hellhorne units as I focus on finding an army of robust Awoken units to protect them. Or, I could divert my attention from the spells and invest in a single powerful unit of Awoken that can empower and protect my Hellhornes legion.

The various clans get much weirder and more complex later on. Clans like Umbra devour their own units to empower a champion or infantryman. The new clan Wurmik (added in the DLC included in the Switch version) has its own currency that increases the family cards. There are six clans, which means there are 15 different pairs to experiment with. And that’s not counting the multiple Champions per Clan. Finding the powerful combos that best suit your play style is a race in itself, like ignoring the instruction manual and combining two sets of LEGO into something better than the company intended.

But the Clan system is only one of Monster trainmost exclusive features. The four-tier combat arena itself feels like a living entity that I control with a variety of cards. Enemies enter my train on the first floor, and if they survive, they advance after each turn. The fourth floor contains my pyre. If the Angels reach the fourth floor and destroy my pyre, it’s game over.

To defeat the Angels before they make their ascent, I can use friendly units as barricades or deploy spells to slow, stun, and kill attackers. In most cases, my monsters act autonomously once I place them on the ground, and they simply attack whatever is in front of them unless ordered otherwise. But crafty players can use special cards to move units up and down Monster train, opening up the playing field and essentially creating Spock’s stacked 3D chessboard from Star trek.

Like the greatest roguelitas, Monster trainThe learning curve meets your progression cycle in the right place. Every time I finish a race, I am improving my arsenal of monsters for my next attempt. But when you’re connected to a single machine like a PC, it’s easy to get away from that routine. If you can only take a little time out of your day to be away from family or take a lunch break during work, it will take weeks to update your clans.

But with Switch, I can keep improving my account anywhere. Sure, it is useful when you travel. But it has also been a blessing to be sitting in the queue of a dungeon in Final Fantasy 14, running on my elliptical machine or waiting for a friend to log in Destiny 2. I can pick up my Switch to play a bit, turn it off, and pick up where I left off long before I forget about the deck I built.

Monster train It was an excellent platformer game that made it difficult for me to play as much as I wanted. But on Switch, I’ll never be far from another trip to hell.

Monster train is now in Nintendo switch