Rungore [Review]
Rungore is a monster gauntlet of chaotic card battles.
Rungore. Credit: YOUR_MOM’S_HP / RavenJm / GrabTheGames / Gamera Games / UpgradePoint
I didn’t enjoy Slay the Spire. When I saw the pitch for Rungore, I thought it might be different enough for me to have a good time, and I was right. It melds together idle game mechanics with card battles and includes a ton of variety.
In Rungore, each level is a gauntlet of monsters; your hero runs along, fighting everything in his path, until he either beats the final boss or is killed. Some levels have multiple floors with a miniboss that’ll reward you an artifact that gives you bonuses until the end of the level.
Rungore. Credit: YOUR_MOM’S_HP / RavenJm / GrabTheGames / Gamera Games / UpgradePoint
When you encounter monsters, your hero automatically attacks. The twist is, you’ve also got a hand of cards, and you can play as many of them as you want during battle. After the fight, you’re given the opportunity to choose from some random cards to add to your hand. You don’t build or manage a deck in the traditional sense. The only deck management is making sure you don’t exhaust your cards and leave yourself vulnerable in future encounters. Fights are extra chaotic because the clock keeps ticking and both your character and opponent are always attacking, so there isn’t much time to mull over what cards you’re going to play.
The game’s got a great sense of humor. As you run along, you’ll be faced with events, where you’ve got to say how you react from a set of answers. The situations and results are pretty funny. You’ll also be able to spot a bunch of memes referenced, impressively without cringe.
Cards do damage, give you defense, heal, add other buffs or debuffs, draw other cards, and more. As you play, you can use your gold in the shop to add cards to the pool, such as other kinds of gear that offer a permanent buff during a run. Some cards are also class specific, which brings me to one of the coolest things about the game.
Rungore. Credit: YOUR_MOM’S_HP / RavenJm / GrabTheGames / Gamera Games / UpgradePoint
Rungore features 15 different heroes. You’ve got to learn the right strategies for each to survive. The class specific cards are unique to each hero, so there’s a lot of gameplay variety in learning every playstyle.
Rungore has a unique pixel art style. Its use of a limited color palette for each element gives the game a very bold look that fits the game’s personality. I’m a big fan of the character and monster designs and how they’re rendered in hard-edged pixel graphics.
The devs bill the game as being heavily inspired by Slay the Spire and Loop Hero, so if you enjoy either of those, give this one a shot. I mentioned I wasn’t a fan of the former, but I went absolutely bananas for Loop Hero. I haven’t dug into all of the heroes yet, so I see myself spending a lot more time with Rungore.
Rungore is available now on Steam for PC.
Overall Score: 7/10
Played on: Steam Deck
