Elemental Exiles Review

Recently, I have started playing a lot of deck-building games, like the popular Slay the Spire. This style of game requires a lot more strategy than I originally expected, but at the same time, it is a very addictive title to play! Elemental Exiles is an RPG deck-building roguelike title that looks very similar to Slay the Spire, with the main difference being that it is set outdoors and allows the player to have a lot more freedom in where they go. In other card battle games, your path is pretty much set, with stops at predetermined locations on the way to the boss. Here, you can walk anywhere that you would like; an arrow points you to your goal, but how you get there and the pit stops you make are up to you.

Elemental Exiles lets you start as one of four characters, each with their own personal quest, unique blessing, starting location on the map, and initial cards. Besides these initial four, there are eight additional characters to unlock. Brook is an apprentice water mage whose unique blessing is Cautiously Trained. She has a handy Focus card that, if played before an attack card, will double the amount of damage that the next attack deals. Her deck also features water block cards. Alex is a solo bounty hunter with the unique blessing: Born Mercenary, which awards her twice the amount of gold you would normally get in battle. In her deck, she has a Brutal Resolve card that gives you six block points and gets you three Hidden Thrust cards that let you inflict three damage for each and cost no energy to use. Next, we have Meira, a Young Elven Warrior; her Unique Blessing is Natural Warrior, which makes the nature cards she plays stronger; finally, we have Thalrin, a Dwarven Researcher. His unique blessing is that he’s an Elemental Academic, which gives him a deck of cards from each of the elements. As for the other eight? You’ll just have to play the game and find out!

After selecting your character, we are guided through a basic tutorial that teaches the player how to battle. Each card that you play costs energy to use, and you only have five points per turn. If you want to deal damage to your enemies, play your attack cards. To block their incoming attacks, use your Defence cards. These defence cards will reduce incoming damage but will be lost when you start your next turn. Therefore, every turn you have to replace any shields you wish to use to keep your barrier up. The blocks and attacks you use will be elemental. Fire deals more damage to nature blocks; nature deals more damage to water blocks; and water is strong against fire blocks. So this is like a paper-rock-scissors style of gameplay, or Pokémon without the adorable monsters.

You can play Elemental Exiles with either a mouse or a controller. To use the mouse, click on the card you want to use, then drag it to the character you want to use it on (attack card on an enemy, block cards on your hero to create a shield that reduces damage, for example). I opted to use an Xbox controller while playing.

Your character's blessing will influence how they play. The person you select may get extra blessings or curses that are temporary during your journey like the cost to use attack cards goes down by one point, or if you are cursed you can only choose one reward card from two instead of three. But our heroes aren’t the only ones who are blessed; foes you meet may also have their own blessings to contend with. This can add a lot of difficulty to the battle that you are in!

On the map, there are four different types of locations that you can visit, each with a different icon. A sword graphic where you will battle against weaker enemies to earn gold and the choice of a new card; a book that designates a narrative encounter — this is a random event that can have a good or a bad outcome; a gold coin is the trading outpost. Here, you can spend your gold on new cards, blessings, and items. Here you can also rest to heal up to 40% of your HP, or pay to get rid of cards from your deck that you don't want. Then finally, the purple monsters are boss fights; these are ranked between one and three stars based on how strong the foe is. These bosses usually have two minions with them, which makes them more difficult to defeat. If you are victorious in battle, you will receive not only gold but also an item, and a new card for your deck.

If you are defeated in any battles that you participate in, you start back at the beginning once again but you can try out a different character for this run. All the cards that you have collected along the way are gone, and you are once again starting with your standard deck. The only thing that seems to carry over is your milestone progress; it is still intact and ready for you to continue. If you reach a milestone, your character is rewarded with gold that you can spend during a random narrative encounter or at the trading outpost.

On the flip side, when you are victorious in a battle, you earn gold and get to select a card from three options. If you don’t want any of the cards presented, you can instead take 10 gold pieces. I always chose a new card because I wanted to build and strengthen my deck. You always needed block and attack cards, so there was usually an option that would work for you. When you begin, you may not realise how important block cards are. You will learn quickly that to be successful, you need a good balance of offence and defence. If you solely concentrate on attacks, the opponent will likely be able to eliminate you if you don't use elemental blocks to mitigate their attacks, especially if you are fighting against a boss and their minions.

Using an item doesn’t use up any of your energy points, and they can be used in the same turn as when you are in the battle playing cards. If you need to leave the game and decide to quit, as long as you don’t die, the game allows you to continue where you left off. This was especially handy if you had to stop playing and resume later. I tried all four characters and found that I was most successful using Alex the Bounty Hunter, especially since she had the Brutal Resolve card. Any time you inflict damage on the enemy at zero cost was great; this let me spend more energy building up my defence against the incoming enemy attacks.

Elemental Exiles has a really cool-looking map that you will be exploring as you play. You can see mountains and trees that look like someone drew and painted them by hand. The visuals in the battles are vibrant and, like the map, have a hand-drawn look. The characters and enemies are all animated, so they are never static. Even when no action is taking place, they feel alive while they wait for you to make your choice of which card you want to play. The cards you select from are vibrant, and their colour distinguishes what type of element they are: blue is water, green is nature, and red is fire. Working alongside this is a soundtrack that is tense and feels like something dangerous could happen at any moment; it really adds a layer of suspense!

Despite similarities to Slay the Spire, particularly during battles, Elemental Exiles offers a unique experience. The fact that your route allows a lot more freedom to visit various locations in whatever order you wish is very unique for this type of game. However, I did find that I had an issue where I challenged a boss way too early and got destroyed quickly as I didn’t have a good hand of cards yet. So if you aren’t careful, challenging different enemies in the wrong order can have disastrous results.

Playing Elemental Exiles has been a fun experience, though I didn’t find it to be as addictive as some other deck-building games. The fact that it is more roguelike, where it feels like all the progress you make is totally wiped out when you die, makes it more frustrating to jump back in. I just want to keep the new cards I found in my deck so that I can do better on my next run! If you are a fan of titles like this, Elemental Exiles will be worth checking out, especially when the roster of 12 characters is all available to play. It will be fun discovering all their unique abilities and play styles.