Monster Train review (PS5) – One of the best roguelike card battlers around

I had a sense of FOMO when Monster Train launched on PC. For some reason, I just never found the time to play it when it arrived on Steam back in 2020. Turns out, I really did miss out: this roguelike card battler is a real treat. But now it’s on PS5, I’ve finally made the time for some demon-collecting fun — and I really should’ve jumped in sooner.

In Monster Train, you’re playing as the creatures from hell. The ones you’re fighting against? They’re creatures from heaven, on a mission to stop you. Hell has frozen oven, you see, and your train carries the last burning pyre — its last salvation, in other words. As your train approaches ever-closer to hell, you’ll need to fight heavenly forces of increasing difficulty, including a number of ferocious bosses.

If you’ve played the likes of Slay the Spire, you’ll likely be able to hit the ground running with Monster Train. A card-based battler that lets you see your opponents’ intentions before each move, it shares a lot in common with the magnum opus of the roguelike card genre. But there’s plenty here to make Monster Train very much its own beast.

For one, you don’t have a fixed party: you’ll need to play cards in order to lay down fighters. You’ll want to be strategic, then, playing a mixture of spell cards — which deal immediate damage to your opponents — and ensuring you’ve got a party capable of withstanding your opponents’ incoming barrage.

The main difference, though, is the titular train setup. The carriage you find yourself in is four storeys tall, and at the very top is the burning pyre that must be protected at all costs. Only when the pyre is extinguished is the game over. After each turn, enemies will ascend to the next floor of the train, and so you’ll need to try your best to ensure they’re destroyed long before they reach the pyre.

Related: The best games like Slay the Spire

When you get into the groove of Monster Train, learning where to place your fighters and how best to use your cards, it’s seriously satisfying to play. But there’s certainly a sharper learning curve here compared to other games in the genre. You’ll pretty much be thrown in to figure things out for yourself, so be prepared to be a little lost for your first game or two. Once it all clicks in place, though? You aren’t going to be able to put it down.

There’s a huge amount of cards on offer in Monster Train, with six different clans of monsters to fight with. Each clan feels very different to play with than the next, and no two games will ever feel the same simply due to the sheer number of cards to draw from. You won’t have them all unlocked at the start, of course: as you play and successfully complete runs, you’ll unlock more, ensuring future games can be even more exciting.

As you make your way down the train tracks to hell, you’ll come across various stops. There are shops, allowing you to buy upgrades and trinkets, offering you various passive abilities. You can also pay to upgrade your cards in a number of ways — which is worth doing, as good upgrades can mean the difference between life and death. There’ll also be opportunities to grab extra coins, and you can also encounter random events which could net you new cards and more.

Death can come easily in Monster Train, just as it can in most roguelike games if you aren’t careful. But because every game feels different, thanks to the dynamism of the cards in your deck and the opportunities you’ll face each time, you’ll undoubtedly want to jump straight back in. Along with working your way through 25 difficulty levels in the game’s standard mode, there’s also a daily challenge to face (complete with leaderboards) and a multiplayer Hell Rush mode, which pits you directly against other online players.

The PS5 version of Monster Train doesn’t differ substantially from other platforms: the main difference here is that it’s bundled with The Last Divinity DLC by default, which provides more cards and an extra monster clan. If you’ve already played the game and its DLC to death on another platform, then, there’s nothing new for you here. But if you’re a PS5 gamer who has a penchant for roguelike card games, you’re in for a serious treat.

This review of Monster Train is based on the PS5 version of the game, via a code provided by the publisher. It’s available on PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch and PC.