Lucky Hunter Review

 Lucky Hunter is an auto-battle roguelite deckbuilder developed by solo indie team 159 Studio and published by indienova. I’ve never really played an auto-battler before, preferring to be active in my decision-making, but there’s a first time for everything. So, let’s see if I’m lucky enough to review this or if this is just a slog.

The story is fairly basic and doesn’t have a real focus. You play as a hunter who goes out on a quest for his village to kill the Demon Lord that’s eroding the land, while also bringing back resources to provide for your home. There is some backstory if you check the Hunter Record and give the villagers items, but you don’t have to engage with it and it’s not really important in the long run. 

As for the presentation, I consider it fine. I like the character designs, they’re very cute, and the music is pretty decent. However, my biggest gripe is with the attack sound effect, which is a little crunchy and sounds like an audio glitch at times when you have so many pieces moving at once and having it play out at max speed. I would’ve preferred a softer sound.

Now let’s get onto the gameplay. As with other roguelite deckbuilders, you’ll be travelling along a map, choosing which path to take to the end, fighting off increasingly tougher encounters and improving your deck bit by bit. There are two main gameplay modes: Normal and Endless. As you can guess, Normal Mode has a definitive end of defeating the Demon Lord, while Endless Mode keeps on going until you eventually die.

But how do you fight? Well, by throwing enough soldiers, ninjas, slimes, alchemists, and hackers, of course! Let me explain. Your deck/inventory consists of pieces, which are scattered around a grid at the start of every turn. There are many different types that range from dealing damage to your enemies, reducing damage against you, buffing your own pieces, or adding new ones. If there are three of the same pieces next to each other, they will merge into a much more powerful version. Once all your pieces have merged and activated and your opponents deal their damage, you then get to select a new piece to add to your deck. Repeat until you either win or die. Easy, right? Well, it is. All you have to do is make the right choices in making your deck better, or else your enemies will outpace you. I like that the order of pieces triggering makes sense and tries to make the most of them, and the game isn't completely random as it does like setting up merges if possible. It’s really satisfying to see everything merge and move before going all-in for that final assault.

However, you don't have to fully rely on your pieces. You can obtain relics by buying them or as rewards for tough encounters. They passively improve your deck, with some being exclusive to certain archetypes, such as adding one Soldier piece every turn. These relics can be upgraded as well at the blacksmith to make them a little more effective.

Eventually, you will have your run ended by a particularly tough enemy, but it isn’t quite the end yet. Between your runs, you can spend talent points to either make your run easier by permanently improving your stats or unlock packs to add more pieces. Be aware that not only will it make the pool of choices larger, thus making it harder to get what you want, but it also means you'll only have access to three packs from run to run, although you can set one as your favourite so that you’re guaranteed to get it. It forces you to adapt and figure out synergies on the fly, and it’s fun to do. Hey, maybe the unlikeliest of combos can become the most broken of all, like slimes and ninjas.

Lucky Hunter is very, very addicting. I had to pull myself away just so I could write this review, and I’m already itching to fire it back up again. If I didn’t, I’d probably be playing it all day. It’s seriously engaging watching it all play out, images alone won’t sell how good it feels to kill an enemy in one turn with thousands of HP. And for only a couple of bucks? It’s definitely a recommended game if you don’t have an addictive personality because it might be too dangerous for those who do.