Battle Train puts a fun (and devilish) spin on the roguelike deckbuilder
Light-hearted and silly, yet also extremely devilish — that’s Battle Train. I might not have yet been able to defeat it, but I’m having a great time trying. Presented like a maniacal gameshow where contestants aim to destroy each other’s trains, this raucous roguelike deckbuilder is all about laying tracks and driving exploding carriages into your opponents’ stations.
Its cartoonish aesthetic drew me right in: it’s hard not to be enamoured, really, because it looks so wonderful — it packs in all the charm of a Saturday morning cartoon. The story scenes give it some depth, but after a while you might simply prefer to skip them to get straight into the moreish action.
It’s presented much like your typical card-based deckbuilder — think Slay the Spire, where you’ll move across a map, choosing branching events to jump into. But rather than standard turn-based combat that sees you destroy monsters, you’ll instead be presented with a battle grid. On one side of the screen is your train station (or stations, depending on the map), and at the other is your opponent’s. In the middle, you’ll both have outposts — it’s those you’ll need to attack (while also protecting your own). By building tracks leading to the outpost you can send your train, which causes a huge amount of damage.
But it’s not that easy when you also have an opponent taking a turn. They can destroy tracks you’ve already placed, block your route and, of course, destroy your outposts before you have chance to destroy theirs. While a standard match is fairly easy, facing off against one of Battle Train’s bosses is a real challenge. Bosses have special abilities and cards that you don’t yet have access to, making your work cut out for you.
This is a roguelike, though, so failing is inevitable at some point. But not all is lost: you’ll unlock new cards, new characters and various upgrades with each run, increasing your chances of success further down the line. You’ll of course unlock new pieces of track and other action cards on each run, too, strengthening your chances against the increasing challenge of each fight as you progress. And each time you play, the character you choose will have their own unique perks, so keep an eye out for the ones that are going to aid your playstyle most.
If you love deckbuilding games, Battle Train is well worth your time. There’s really nothing else like it, and the feeling of seeing your opponent’s outposts get blown up is so satisfying. It may be tough-as-nails, but it’s well worth the effort: you’ll have a literal blast.
Battle Train is available now on PC and Nintendo Switch.
