Guardians of Graxia

Introduction (3/5):
"Guardians of Graxia," developed by Petroglyph Games and released in 2010, combines turn-based strategy with card-based gameplay in a fantasy setting. As a digital board game, it offers a unique blend of strategic depth and deck-building mechanics, providing a distinct experience within the realm of strategy games.

Graphics and Presentation (3/5):
The visual presentation of "Guardians of Graxia" is serviceable but may not be a standout feature. The game adopts a colorful and fantasy-themed aesthetic, with detailed card artwork and a game board that captures the magical world of Graxia. While not groundbreaking, the visuals effectively convey the game's setting.

Gameplay Mechanics (3.5/5):
The core gameplay revolves around turn-based strategy, where players deploy units, cast spells, and engage in battles on a hexagonal game board. The inclusion of deck-building mechanics adds depth, allowing players to customize their decks with various cards representing units, spells, and upgrades. The strategic element lies in effectively utilizing cards and adapting to the ever-changing battlefield.

Deck-Building and Strategy (3.5/5):
The deck-building aspect of "Guardians of Graxia" is a highlight. Players collect cards during matches, gradually expanding their decks and unlocking new strategic possibilities. The variety of cards introduces a layer of complexity, requiring thoughtful decision-making in deck construction and strategic planning during battles.

Single-Player Campaign (3/5):
The game features a single-player campaign that serves as an introduction to the mechanics and lore of Graxia. While the campaign provides a structured experience, the narrative may not be as engaging or memorable as in some other strategy games. The focus is primarily on the strategic and card-based gameplay.

Multiplayer (3/5):
"Guardians of Graxia" includes a multiplayer mode that allows players to compete against each other online. The asynchronous multiplayer format lets players take turns at their own pace. While this adds replayability, the player base may be limited, affecting the availability of opponents.

Learning Curve (3/5):
The learning curve of "Guardians of Graxia" can be steep for newcomers to both card games and turn-based strategy. Understanding the interactions between cards, mastering the nuances of the game board, and developing effective strategies may take time. However, dedicated players will find depth in the mechanics.

Sound Design (2.5/5):
The sound design in the game is basic, with standard fantasy-themed music and sound effects. While it fulfills its purpose, it may lack the immersive quality found in more recent strategy games.

Technical Aspects (3/5):
"Guardians of Graxia" doesn't stand out in terms of technical aspects. The game's interface is functional but might feel a bit dated. Occasional bugs or glitches may affect the overall experience.

Overall (3.1/5):
"Guardians of Graxia" offers a distinctive fusion of turn-based strategy and deck-building mechanics, creating a strategic and engaging experience. While it may not excel in graphics or sound design, its strength lies in the depth of its gameplay, providing a satisfying challenge for those who appreciate strategic card battles in a fantasy setting. Players looking for a digital board game experience with a fantasy twist may find "Guardians of Graxia" to be a worthy addition to their gaming library.

Guardians, prepare to slowly battle!

PROS: This is a card battle board game that has some depth to it. The campaign is brief, & the skirmishes, what amount to side campaign chapters, have plenty of options. The visuals are nice, bringing the design of the cards to life, & the sound effects for the monsters & spells hit very nicely.

CONS: Unfortunately, this game drags. Battles, gameplay, even movement are painfully slow. Some elements of the game don't feel very well explained. Some challenges for the advanced guardian wins are very tight, requiring very precise play & luck on your side to clear. There are only six guardians once the DLC is installed, leaving little variety after testing them all. The soundtrack is fairly forgettable, leaving little memory of any aspect of the game once closed. Finally, the game still has a tendency to freeze up or crash every now & then, but that might be due to playing it on newer hardware.

ACHIEVEMENTS: This list is relatively simple, but tedious to clear. None of the achievements are hard, per se, just requiring luck on some plays, such as Quick Strike. The most tedious is Epic Creature, which requires a large creature to kill 15 units by itself. This is a chore due to map limits on turns, & will take some planning on guardian & map to clear.

FINAL: Guardians of Graxia is not that fun of a game, taking a board that's already fairly slow, & making it even slower. So many aspects of this game fall into the normal pitfalls of the early adaptation of board to video games. Without a doubt, this is a hard pass.

this game is honestly kinda interesting, units do some variety of spells and stuff, its fun to play, but honestly it has way too many flaws, in a card game u cant build ur own deck, the game like many other ppl said is way too hard, the AI always has tons of op cards spreaded around the map etc, ive passed 4 of the 5 campaign missions, the last one ive tried 3 times and gave up after the game bugged for 2 times on a random turn. Tried on a normal skirmish map to see if it was any different, 1st map i play game bugs again when i attacked 1 guy...
Also the lack in cards is bad and it gets too repetitive after a while especially cuz the learning curve of this game is not soft and always gets way more complicated than normal form mission to mission, i honestly cant recommend this game, sorry.

I don't know why all the hate and downvote for this game. Its one of the first game I bought on Steam and its really great! I love TCGs and Guardian of Graxia is no exception. I even bought the "real life" board game version. Its a hell lot of fun. People seem to complain the AI is OP but honestly, you just gotta learn the game. Its not difficult, learn to position your units by making them walk over as many tiles as possible so you gain a maximum amount of mana each turn. As for card discard, this is tactic. Send weak units first to make AI discard cards (your unit will die but who cares), then send the unit you want to become strong and discard lot of card. I used to play this game all the time and now im starting to play it again

Based on my brief experience with this game, it is truly terrible. The controls were clunky, the whole idea was needlessly complicated. I couldn't keep playing it.

Purchase the game 3-4 years ago and came back to see if anything had changed. Unfortunately nothing had. The campaign is short and very easy and there is no chance to customize anything. You play preconstructed decks by map and have no choice what goes in your deck.

I like the whole idea of the game, but just the fact that it is such a slow turn-based game is what got me. And to add on to that, most the the AI units are OP and you have to have alot of mind power to overcome them.

ENG:

This is pretty good strategy+card game, but just meaby little hard sometimes. Testimonial, anyway! :3

FIN:

Tämä on ihan hyvä stategia+korttipelin yhdistelmä, mutta joka voi olla joskus vähän vaikea, suositteluni, joka tapauksessa! :3

Pros: Good concept, decent presentation for what it is, short campaign means I'm done quicker.
Cons: Gameplay is slow, AI takes forever to do anything, campaign missions have arbritrary events that will ruin your battle plan without any warning that only get worse as the campaign progresses, CCG elements are shallow with no customization or even a card viewer, tactics elements are shallow with low variety and boring grindy levels, the in game UI is almost good but gets frustrating at times as you fight with popups that get in the way of what you're trying to do, the story is forgettable and told via pop up text boxes with no other in game elements.

If you like the concepts of this game (CCG meets tactics with hero unit/avatar) then I'd recommend Mage Wars (Board game from Arcane Wonders) instead. There's a link on the Subreddit to the official forums with a way to play it online even if that's more what you're looking for.

Guardians of Graxia is an innovative strategy card game that offers a detailed tactical challenge on a battle map, combined with the random element of card draws. The strategy is quite deep and not immediately obvious. You can't expect to jump in and play it well without first learning how the game works. Once you understand the mechanics though, it's easy enough to play, but not so easy to win! This is a hard game, which might put some people off, but for those that love a hard challenge, it can be very rewarding.

I must admit, when I read the other reviews, I was shocked to see so many negative comments, which is why I felt compelled to add this review of my own. Looking at those reviews, I noticed that many of them were by people who haven't put many hours into the game. Since it takes quite a while to master, I suspect that a lot of the negativity came from not playing it long enough to figure out the best strategies.

I'd like to address some of the points made in other reviews:

Overly complicated - Yes, it seems that way at first, there is a bit of a learning curve involved, but it's not that hard once you get used to it. The in-game help tells you all you need to know, you just need to take the trouble to read it. As for "ridiculously complicated" units with many different abilities, that's a good thing. It creates a lot of variety in the game, making the strategy more complex and interesting.

Trouble Man said that the game doesn't explain the number crunching, but it does. When in battle, there's a small arrow underneath Projected Health. Click this and it shows you the Damage Calculations. All the modifiers are listed to help you understand exactly what's going on in the battle.

Luck not Strategy - Not true! Sure, there's a lot of luck in which cards you draw, but hey, it's a card game, that's kind of the whole point! But once you've drawn your cards, what you do with them is pure strategy. There's nothing random in the combat calculations, it depends entirely on which cards are played. Of course, you don't know what cards the computer will play during the battles, but that's not luck, it's making strategic choices based on the cards it has available.

Just as the computer can ruin your attack by playing a powerful card, you can do exactly the same if you have one. Choosing which cards to play and which to save until later is a big part of the strategy. Tip: make feint attacks with unimportant units to force the computer to waste valuable cards, then make your important attacks with your best cards later, once the computer is out of good cards to defend with.

Another important aspect of the strategy are terrain effects and unit special abilities. Place units on tiles they gain an advantage on, not on ones that give them a disadvantage. Surround enemy units to gain support advantages. Capture many tiles quickly to increase your mana generation. There's loads of strategic possibilities on the battlefield.

Hard AI, scenarios stacked against you - This is true. It's not an easy game, but if it were then it wouldn't be much of a challenge. It's a pity there aren't more easy scenarios or different difficulty levels to make it easier for new players, but that's just the way it is. It may seem daunting at first, but it gets easier once you figure out the best strategies. People often criticise the AI for being too easy in many games, so it makes a nice change that this AI offers a hard challenge. If that scares you, then don't buy it, but if you love a hard strategical challenge, this may be for you.

Turn limits - Some people don't like this, but again, it's all part of the challenge. If you had unlimited turns it would make the game too easy. You'd just grab most of the tiles, get most of the mana and simply out-produce the AI. Besides, many people complain about the slow turns, so do you really want the game to go on for even longer?

Slow Turns - True, this can be annoying. I wish there were a way of speeding them up. But it's not the end of the world. You can always watch TV or do something else while the AI is taking its turn, or check your Facebook page, or whatever...

Story? What story? This is a strategy game! Who cares about story! :-)

Some reviewers compared the game to Magic the Gathering. Why? Because it's a fantasy game and it has cards? As I see it, this game is nothing like MtG, the game mechanics are completely different. IMO, this is more of a turn based strategy game than a card game. If MtG is what you are expecting, think again.

Saint Killjoy said "don't ignore the bad reviews, they were given for a reason" - That sounds fair enough, but I suspect that the two main reasons for the bad reviews are:

1. Having the wrong expectations about the game - perhaps thinking it will be like MtG, or thinking it will be easy because it's a card game. Don't buy it based on what you think or hope it will be like, buy it based on what it is. Check out some YouTube videos first.

2. Not playing it for long enough to figure out the best strategies. Yes it's hard, but you shouldn't give up too easily or pass judgement too soon. Good strategy games often take a long time to master.

My advice would be this: Make up your own mind about this game based on the kind of games that YOU like to play, not on the opinions of others who often have different tastes in games.

I'm not saying that everyone should like and buy this game. I'm sure that there are many people who would hate it. But for those that enjoy challenging turn based strategy against a hard AI, with some card based randomness thrown in, I highly recommend it. Just be sure that you know what you're letting yourself in for.

For the current sale price, it's a no brainer IMO. And even if you don't like it, you won't have lost much. But if you do buy it, make sure to buy both DLCs as well. There are only 9 maps in the base game. The DLCs add another 16 maps (some of which generate random terrain) and two more guardians, providing a lot more replayability.

To sum up:

PROS:
Challenging and deep turn based strategy.
Huge variety of special abilities.
Card based randomness ensures that every game is different.
Battles are quite hard.

CONS:
Gameplay seems a bit complex at first.
It takes a while to figure out the best strategies.
Slow AI turns.
Battles are quite hard.

Genre - Strategy Fantasy turn based card game.
This game looks exactly like a game I would like. Unfortunately it dissapoints for two major reasons:
1) The game plays too slow Zzzzzzzzzz
2) The AI seems over powered on most levels HELP!
With a bit more play testing and balance this game could have been fun as there are some interesting concepts included that were fairly original at the time. Instead it just feels like an un-rewarding chore.

Game is ok, lack of customizing, hurt the game. The developers didn't really support the game taking over a year to fix a simple bug and never adding in the features they said they would.

Some interesting concepts here but it doesn't come together for a fun experience. The campaign is very short, the card mechanics are too reliant on sacrificing cards to boost your creatures, no deck building and the scenarios are always stacked against you. That second item (saccing cards) really ruined the game for me. I have no problem with playing cards to give you bonuses but what you are doing here is not casting a spell. You just discard it and your creature gets a bonus. Many, many battles are won by who can sacrifice the most. Not fun at all. With some tweaking this could have been a good game but it falls short. You are better off spending your time and money elsewhere in my opinion.

This looked fun on paper, so I rolled the dice on this game... and started regretting it about an hour after. Each stage in this game drags out for what it seems like a goddamn eternity, models and animations are plain ugly, the outcome of battles is overly dependant on the luck of the draw and thus AI tends to gain unfair advantage here and there, all resulting in a really frustrating and daunting gameplay. Zero strategy, no deck builder, not fun. No multiplayer, no replay value, no involvement with the story either (was there even one? I cannot remember).

I suppose you could buy it when it's on sale if you're crazy about card games like me. I really like the concept but this game simply fails at too many aspects to be worth its current price.

Play this game if you want to go up against hard to impossible odds in single player and prefer luck over strategy to get wins in multiplayer. Nothing quite like setting up a big attack only to find out that your opponent god-drawed a card to disable all support effects, or crippling the opposing hero and getting to watch as he gets healed four times in a single turn.

This game feels overly complicated. While that alone isn't bad, the player is often left in the dark or cannot comprehend how certain actions and numbers are calculated. Everything feels like pure chance way too often. And I haven't found any ingame help or manual that explains the underlying structure of the number crunching. You just cannot play a strategy "card" game, if you do not have the means to successfully develop a strategy with the things you are given.

What could of been a fun and rewarding strategic card game is wasted on bad game mechanics.
First few levels were fun untill I realized that I had to wait and WATCH the computers every single move.
And in some of the later stages there are A LOT of npc's !
Think I sat there for 20 minutes waiting to play my turn. There's no option to speed up or skip the computers turn either.
Which is dissapointing because this could of been a great game if they would just tweak a few things with the gameplay to speed it up.
Skip this turd unless you like to watch paint dry.
uninstalled.

If you like good old fashioned board game strategy (and don't mind sussing out how to play without in-depth tutorials to help you) you'll enjoy it, if you want a quick action-fix game you can jump straight into and win you probably won't. Maybe more appealing to the older gamers from the generation that played this type of game out of a box rather than the young 'uns.

Some bad reviews have been posted about this game criticising it's lack of deck building and difficulty. This is a bit unfair as it's not a deck building game it's a board game. It may not be perfect and, to be honest, it is quite difficult to get the hang of it and win but that's not to say it's a bad game though especially for the £1.50 sale price. Gameplay does feel agonisingly slow if you haven't got a good deal of patience and maps can take a while to get through. The odds always seem to favour the other side with their seemingly huge mana pools but once you figure out how to play it I found there was fun to be had there and actualy enjoy it.

A lack of tutorials is one cause for complaint but if you take the time to look at the unit cards, terrain bonus stats/penalty modifiers and battle stats it soon makes more sense. Almost (if not) all the icons can be moused over to get a description of what they mean. Adjacent units give you a support bonus, mana is generated by the squares you control (some generate more than others) and this pays for your spells and units. Difficulty arises because mana is generated at the end of your turn and if you blow it all countering battles in your opponents turn you have none left for your own fights or to activate some unit's special abilities. Sometimes it's worth taking a bit of pain so you've got the resources to dish it out on your turn.
The biggest missed opportunity is the lack of multiplayer. This game is crying out for a head to head mode which would've made it a more balanced and fun experience as well as adding to it's replay value.

All in all it may be an aquired taste appealing to a certain type of gamer but it's not as bad as a lot of the negative reviews would have you believe.

Similar to magic the gathering, but with some cons.

Pros:
-Similar to MtG as I said, but mixed with a strategy board game
-Several missions
-Price

Cons:
-Many missions have turn limits. I hate being forced to do some objective at a certain speed. Sometimes is almost impossible to make the mission in time.
-Slooooooow gameplay. Terribly slow, i hate the game being so damn slow.
-Some bugs. I remember a mission when the AI get stuck because I blocked the teleports (to avoid being chased by enemies). No matter what I did, the game got hang up. A mission what takes about 3 hours to get to that point!!!!

This is a unnecessarilly confusing game. The player takes cards from their deck, plays them onto a 3-D map and uses other cards in hand to cast spells etc. Combat is resolved using melee, ranged and spell attacks, where unwanted cards can be sacrificed for power. The two phases of play that constitute one turn is hard for a n00b to get their head around since the tutorial is rubbish. At the end of the day, the game is just not that much fun to play (for me at least). There is only 5 campaign missions and a few skirmish maps to play. No multiplayer support at all.

5/10