4.5/5 ★ – lukehoop's review of Griftlands.

Griftlands takes the successful formula of Slay the Spire and adds some excellent story elements to the mix. Your relationships matter and there are a variety of missions to reach the end in a unique way each time.  It plays like a 5 hour RPG because of it's quick and engaging world. Plus, with three different characters, roguelite features, and permanent upgrades there is a lot of replayability. All three characters and their campaigns are shockingly unique -- each with their own battling mechanics, factions to interact with and story to explore. In fact, I feel that the starter campaign is the weakest of the bunch and that Rook and Smith’s campaigns are both must-plays.  The main quirk of this game is the two-deck system. Throughout the campaign you are constantly building out two separate decks for different purposes. One is for traditional combat when you need to fight in the game. Often times, however, you will need to, or at least have the option to, talk your way through missions. This is where your negotiation deck comes in. It uses a different interface and the battling mechanics are tweaked to focus on building your arguments and destroying theirs. I found the negotiations quite fun and a welcome change of pace. It's so satisfying to methodically break down an opponent in a negotiation and as soon as it's over you want to do it again.  This game oozes with strategic choices. Two decks that upgrade as you use them means that choosing to fight too often may leave your negotiation deck weak, and vice versa. Aside from all of the deck-building strategy, the relationships you build matter to your character's skills. Killing a character that hates you will remove that debuff but it may also spark a new hatred from someone else. There are times when I’d spend almost a full minute thinking about whether I should finish an enemy off, or let them surrender.  I've played each character's campaign at least two times and I'm blown away by the depth and variety of each campaign. Each character has unique mechanics and locations to visit.  [2/2 continued] There are a number of different bosses that can appear and the story can go in different directions depending on how you engage with characters. Outside of the campaign there are some other modes to keep things fresh. One great addition is the Brawl mode, which strips away most of the story and dialogue and makes it a pure card battler, but still uses both decks. The experience is much quicker and it’s a great way to try out new strategies and styles. I’ve found myself playing Brawl mode more often as I’ve seen a lot of what the campaigns have to offer at this point.  With the two decks, and RPG mechanics, there are a lot of systems at work. Griftlands, therefore, has a bit of a learning curve. The onboarding process is pretty smooth but it’s still not as much of an instant love-affair as some other games in the deck-building genre. I think the payoff is well worth it though as this has easily become one of my favorite strategy games ever, and it’s an easy recommendation to anyone that likes shorter RPGs or deck-building roguelites.