Preview: Roguelike deckbuilder Anthem#9 feels like the merging of Persona and Slay the Spire
One thing is for sure; I’ve never played anything quite like Anthem#9 before. It’s a deckbuilding roguelike, but unlike Slay the Spire and others, you need to build your own combos out of gems. Sound weird? It really is, and it’ll take you a couple of games until you feel like you know what’s going on. And yet, somehow, you still won’t be able to put it down.
I think it’s the colourful, lively presentation that really brings Anthem#9 to life. Its stylised text and interstitials remind me of the Persona series, so if you can somehow imagine a game that looks like Persona but plays more like a deck-building roguelike, you’re partway to imagining what Anthem#9 is like.
Battles make up the bread and butter of Anthem#9, and at any one time, you can have three moves in your hand. Rather than directly play these like you would a card in Slay the Spire, you need to play a sequence of gems that match the move. For instance, if your ‘Backstab’ attack has a green gem and a red gem on it, you need to play a green gem and a red gem to initiate Backstab. If the next attack begins with a red gem, you can overlap to maximise the number of attacks you can deal on any turn.
The gems you’re given each turn will vary, so you’ll need to use them strategically, which sometimes means spending AP points in order to change the colour of a gem to something more useful. You can level up your attacks as you play, which causes them to be dealt more than once each time you play them, and providing you’ve got enough gems, you can play each attack multiple times each turn. Dealing devastating damage feels great, but it all depends on how you use your gems.
Considering you’re against the clock each time you attack, you’ll need to think swiftly about how to act. The more attacks you can get in during a turn, the more likely it is that your enemy’s attacks will be cancelled — and that means you won’t take any damage. You can also play cards that give you a shield, protecting you from losing a small number of hit points.
I feel like Anthem#9 is a hard game to get your head around until you simply play it. If you’re a fan of games like Slay the Spire and other card-based roguelikes, there’s a very good chance you’ll enjoy Anthem#9, especially if you appreciate a vibrant JRPG-inspired visual style. I’m very much looking forward to playing more, and while I’m not sure if it’ll live up to the heady heights of other games in the genre, it’s certainly unique enough to stand out.
Anthem#9 is coming to PC later this year.
