Review: Commander Quest

Developer/Publisher: Flyway Games, Inc./Flyway Games, Inc.
URL: Commander Quest on Steam

Starting out, I’m given the choice between three starting characters, each with their own respective decks. Richard 1st, Saladin, and Zhuge Liang are those three characters. They all have a few similarities when it comes to cards, with some differences. Seems they all start with a couple melee, and archers, then the rest of their ‘basic deck’ is some skill cards depending on which they are. Richard being more of a crusader/fighter, Saladin being seeming more of a rogue / assassin and Zhuge Liang seemingly being a mage of some sort.

As you play through the game you unlock more things like different relics that each champion starts with, as well as more races like dwarves and tribal people. These change how your basic deck starts as well.

Right away after picking which character I wanted to try out, I get ‘Slay the Spire’ or other card battler vibes. I get some choices whether I want more starting health, changing out some cards, a relic choice and or lose max hp and get a rare relic, all of which is very similar to choices I would get playing a similar game like Slay the Spire runs. Which isn’t a bad thing at all. If a formula isn’t broken why change it?

After making that initial choice i’m given a choice of a few different paths I can take, which fits into the deckbuilding / roguelike elements i’d expect in any similar game.

I can move side to side on the screen and decide what path I want to take. There is not a lot of wiggle room, each path seems to have it’s one lane for quite a while.

Getting into the first battle gives you the meat of the gameplay. I found this makes this game different from other deck building games. Since you have different locations and such that you can summon your units to go along with your hero.

Much like other deck building games you have a limited amount of “summoning power” or whatnot to be able to use your card, 3 is the ‘base’ answer to that for this game. After you put your units out and end your turn, they then go out into the field and fight the enemies’ units.

One unexpected thing is that your units stay out on the field for further rounds, rather than being only usable for one round. There is a limited time that the “fighting” happens, so your units may not make it to the other side to attack the enemy ‘hero unit’ in that first round, but if they do they’ll combat and try to kill the enemy hero.

You do have a “hero power” that you can use, in this case it’s the Francesca ability shown below. I used this on my first round, and it seems like it has at least 2 rounds before it “Refreshes”

After combat, you recieve some expected rewards. These include a bit of gold, a “Food item” which seems to be this game’s potions. This is something we see in other similar card battler games like this. You also get a choice of a new card to add to your deck if you want.

Playing through the various “mystery” choices that are throughout my lane, I came across a “danger” spot. I decided to investigate and was not disappointed. This gave me a larger lane than I had previously. Now I have three lanes with units seemingly coming along either lane. I get to choose tactically where I need to place each of my units to combat the enemy.

As you get to the end you come across a boss fight. This looks like a siege fight, which is actually pretty sweet looking. I have reinforcements that arrive in 10 rounds it looks like so I just have to hold out until then. If i’m strong enough I can probably kill the enemy.

When the reinforcements arrive, a whole bunch of units show up to rush the boss. I nearly had him on my own, but it was definitely quite the challenge to take on without them. But at least it gives you a chance to get through the first big boss of your run.

There’s also a few roguelike elements for meta progression between your runs. You unlock various cards and such depending on what you have done in your round. As well as  getting some “Embers” that you can spend  on upgrades. Some examples shown below from my first run.

Such a great new take on a roguelike card battler game. I’m excited to see how this game progresses. I’d easily give this an 8.2. There were a couple technical bug things while playing the demo, but nothing that kept me from playing the game. Can’t wait to play this game further.

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