Gordian Quest review

For the sake of simplicity, I am filing this post about Gordian Quest as a review. In full disclosure, I haven't "finished" the game or followed whatever other unwritten rules that tend to surround the idea of what constitutes a proper review, but in a way that makes this particular method for covering this particular game all the more fitting. Gordian Quest borrows a ton of rules from well-worn and popular genres and mashes them together in a way that is both very exciting but also kind of broken.

Gordian Quest is a game that reimagines the card-based dungeon crawler into something more akin to a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. While you may start with a single character and class archetype, you gather other party members by your side and go to and from town to pick up quests, venture into dungeons, securing loot, and leveling up your adventurers.

I don't know about you, but I have been waiting for something like this to come along for a long time, and Gordian Quest is the closest realization of this concept that I've personally come across. It makes for a game that feels more dynamic and playful than something like Slay the Spire while also giving the feel of an epic rpg.

On top of its fresh approach to combining genres, Gordian Quest also brings some of its own creative flourishes to the table. Certain character classes may appear to be somewhat boiler plate, there are combat mechanics that allow for coordinated attacks and a leveling system that coordinates stat progression with deck customization. All of these combine with a loot system that feels straight out of Diablo to allow for an incredible amount of customization even before you start honing your parties' bespoke decks.

If this sounds like a lot to take in, then you'd be right. Gordian Quest has a light tutorial that introduces you to the basics of some of these systems, but the game seems to have a lot of faith that you're a player who will recognize its component parts from other games and figure out your way around them that way. As someone who excitedly recognized all of these systems immediately, I had no trouble pieces these things together, though they do all feel so disparate that I occasionally forgot to engage with them.

As great as all of this sounds, the problem with Gordian Quest is it struggles to hold all of its ambition together. With so much to account for, Gordian Quest has trouble fitting all the information you need to know on screen, making it nearly impossible to play on a phone. If you opt for a tablet, things are easier to read, but there are still some display issues.

Solving the display problem is only the beginning of the fight to enjoy Gordian Quest, though. Certain menu items don't respond to taps the right way, the game frequently forgets if you've paid to unlock the full version, quests are inconsistent about giving direction, and tons of little mechanics are underexplained (that is, if they are acknowledged at all). The saving grace of all this (if you can call it that), is Gordian Quest is almost too forgiving in its difficulty. For my time with it, I played on whatever the default setting was and through the portion of the game I've played so far it's a small miracle if an enemy manages to do any real damage to my party. One might think that such a low degree of challenge would hamper the experience, but it actually helps make experimenting and making full use of all the various things you can do in Gordian Quest possible.

I think it's safe to say that Gordian Quest has some things to fix and address before I would call it something worth recommending. That said, there is something commendable and enjoyable about its sheer ambition that truly feels--at least as of this writing--like it can barely be contained. Until some patches come out, I recommend maybe trying the free version of the game to see if it's something you might want to add to your wishlist down the road.