Shards of Order Review: A Deckbuilder That's Not A Roguelike | The Gamerheads Podcast

Platform reviewed: Steam (PC)

Price: $9.99

Shards of Order caught my attention because of its dark, hand-drawn artwork. Every piece is beautifully crafted. I knew the game was a deckbuilder, and I went into it expecting a roguelike. Most deckbuilders are. But Shards of Order surprised me. It's an RPG. A well-written RPG at that. The card mechanic, where I level up my characters by assigning points to unlock new cards, works incredibly well. Even though it’s a bit unforgiving, Shards of Order is one of my favorite RPGs I've recently played.

The world is dark. Order has been thrown into chaos. But the more I played, the more I questioned whether there was ever any order at all.

I play three characters, including the main protagonist, the Soldier. I'm thrust into this underworld, where sinners are sent to pay for their transgressions. But there's disorder within the Laws. Am I here to set things right? Or to overthrow them?

As I play, my character hears a voice that questions everything, including my decisions. Shards of Order is an RPG, but there are a lot of dialogue options that really push the story forward. I love that I can decide how much my character shares with their teammates about their past. These dialogue decisions may not change the outcome, but they certainly add an element of immersion to this dark world the developers created.

The artwork plays into this grim aesthetic. There are influences of graphic novels here, along with a medieval gothic style. It's intended for mature audiences, as some of the artwork is graphic. But as someone who loves graphic novels, the art is one of the things that drew me to the game.

At the heart of Shards of Order is a deckbuilder. Unlike most deckbuilders, there is no mana cost to play a card. Well, except for the Scholar, the game's magic user. They do have mana to cast certain cards. Instead, the game uses a timer mechanic. There is a counter on each enemy, and every card I play moves that counter down based on the number listed on the card. When it reaches zero, the enemy attacks.

The deck is shared among all three characters, so sometimes I'm lucky and have the right characters' cards stacked in my hand. Other times, I need to rethink my strategy based on the cards I've drawn. It's an interesting mechanic that makes every battle feel different. I have six cards in my hand. Redrawing cards costs time, unless I've played three cards. Then the redraw is free. That means I want to make sure I'm playing cards that deal a lot of damage without costing too much time. I didn't really understand the strategy at first, but once I figured out how the redraw mechanic worked, it became incredibly powerful, and an important feature in success.

The game is pretty punishing. Each character who goes down becomes crippled and requires a revive card to bring them back. The more times they die, the more revive cards I need to play.

But playing revive cards also adds a tax to my characters every time I need to redraw my hand. The first time I revive a character, the cost is six health points from every character each time I redraw. That number increases by six with every revive, up to a maximum of eighteen. If I'm not careful, my party can be wiped out without ever taking additional damage from an enemy.

There's a lot of lore scattered throughout the game, and one thing I discovered was that it reveals the tells of the bosses. I learned this the hard way, going into the first boss battle thinking I could simply overpower them. Then I realized the journals I had been finding contained clues that described the bosses' attacks. Once I started paying attention to those details, the battle became much easier. It certainly made me pay closer attention to the narrative. I'm not sure I've played another game where the lore mattered as much to my success as it does in Shards of Order.

I will say, the game is pretty difficult. Enemies return from the dead, so timing when to take one out while hopefully wiping out the rest of the enemy party is part of the strategy. To say I had to fight the same battle a few times is an understatement. A few swear words may have been uttered. Respeccing my stats was something I experimented with often.

Final Grade: A

I haven't played a game like Shards of Order before. The deckbuilding mechanic is different from most games in the genre. There is no mana to play cards. Instead, each card costs points on an enemy's timer. A party member going down is pretty unforgiving, and the whole cripple and revive system, with its health tax on redrawing cards, can get out of hand pretty quickly.

But I like this game a lot. It's a dark RPG, and the card mechanics reinforce the brutal nature of the world the game creates. If you're looking for a challenging RPG, Shards of Order should be in your library.

Review code provided by Awaken Realms