Monster Train 2 Review - To Hell and Back

Standing out as a roguelike deckbuilder is hard. New games in the genre seem to constantly be releasing on Steam. For every breakout hit like Balatro, some games just get left behind. If you're going to release a deckbuilder in the current landscape, you better be sure you have a way to stand out. Monster Train 2 uses the autobattler foundation of its predecessor to iterate by doubling down on player freedom.

From the selection screen to the last track on the map, there are so many ways for you to build your perfect army to storm the gates of Heaven with. Though the forces you face and friends you find can become a little repetitive, the toolbox Shiny Shoe gives to you feels near infinite in the ways you can customize each run.

Monster Train 2 - Charming Challenges

The structure of Monster Train 2 stands on the shoulders, like most roguelike deckbuilders, stands on the shoulders of Slay the Spire. However, beyond the deckbuilding and energy aspects, this deckbuilder is very much its own thing. 

Fights take place on your train, which has three floors. You place units on each floor, trying to prevent monsters from climbing the floors of your train. If you can’t defeat them, they reach your train’s most valuable resource: the Pyre Heart. Your units can die without consequence, but when your Pyre Heart reaches zero health, you lose.

This gameplay is divided into different runs, each of which can take up to around an hour. These are eight battles, each with a track to choose from between battles. Tracks have different stops, including places to spend your gold, fireplaces to heal your Pyre Heart, and banners to recruit new units to your forces. 

The main increasing challenge that each run presents is the difficulty system of Covenants. As the Covenant level increases from 1-10, you gain new challenges, like reduced control over your deck and increased strength for your enemies.

If you want some more interesting challenges, though, you can head over to the Dimensional Challenge portal. These challenges will provide interesting and compelling modifiers and restrictions to change how you see the game. For instance, in one early challenge, everything you receive is doubled. 

It sounds great at first: double gold will make upgrades so much easier! Then, you realize it means that you also need to take two copies of every card. It really makes you rethink which cards to take in a creative way. If you find mutators you enjoy more than others, you can choose to add them to your standard runs before starting them from the menu.

Monster Train 2 - Expression Excellence

Deckbuilders are at their best when they give you the tools to break them in creative ways. Monster Train 2 delivers in spades, and a major reason why is the clan system. In addition to choosing a primary clan that grants a primary champion to follow, you choose a secondary clan, which can impact your starting deck cards and cards you find along the way. 

For instance, combining the Lazarus League’s Reanimate abilities with the Banished’s Valor spells can help your units revive near death with 1 health point, but high armor to withstand continued attacks.

As you collect cards, your runs can become even more personalized with upgrades you collect. Instead of a linear upgrade system, Monster Train 2 takes a more open approach to upgrades, letting you choose which aspects of a card you want to upgrade in each shop. 

Do you want to make a card that’s usually only single-use, able to be used multiple times in one combat? Reduce a card’s energy cost? Make a spell’s power more potent? The choice is yours, and you can go anywhere. 

The best part is that there isn’t a single “correct” answer. There may be ones you become more comfortable with, but the best answer will change depending on how your run is developing, and what you’re focusing on to do heavy damage or build up your defenses in your run.

Monster Train 2 - The Repetition Rut

While you have loads of variety to express yourself, I wish the enemy forces you were fighting did the same. There are a couple of different possible permutations for each of the 8 encounters, but after a few runs, you'll see most of what there is to see as far as encounters. 

The bosses are the same during each train ride through Heaven, with 3 in each run. There are a few different modifiers they have to freshen them up, but it definitely leaves runs feeling a little samey if you are playing as the same clans. 

The Celestial Alcove events, which are small events that let you make choices to affect your deck, also seem to pull from a pretty small variety. I started mostly ignoring these because while some were neat, it felt like I'd seen them all pretty early. When I did see them, more often than not, I ignored them due to the harsh penalties that some imposed.

This will also become the case with given clans. With so many different card types like Spells, Equipment, and Units, and specialized shops for each, you'll almost certainly start seeing the same cards in your runs. However, this was a small snag that was easy to circumvent. When I started seeing a lot of the same cards, changing up the clan made it feel fresh again. Even when I started seeing the same cards, I could make different upgrade choices to make things feel fresh.

More unlocks for content started to unlock throughout the process of the main story. As you progress the story, which will happen naturally as you unlock the various clans and Pyre Hearts, other mechanics, both for your foes and you, will reveal themselves. It's a neat way to gate content and drip-feed new stuff as you progress. 

However, the story itself is a little one-note and feels like it relies quite a bit on knowledge of the first Monster Train. It's easy to enjoy the game itself without the knowledge of the predecessor, but you might be scratching your head a bit during the dialogue exchanges without it.

Monster Train 2 - Final Thoughts

Monster Train 2 is a great deckbuilder that fans of the genre should add to their collection. The resistance you face can start to feel a little repetitive as you start getting deeper into the game, and the story is more of a vehicle for unlocks than something that stands on its own. But the toolbox of deckbuilding creativity on the player side, from the synergies you can build in your deck to mutators you can add into your run, makes it feel like a game that anyone who takes the time can break in the best way.

Monster Train 2 was reviewed on PC with a copy provided by the developer over the course of 15 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.