There has been no shortage of deck-building roguelikes in recent years. We have seen some absolute classics emerge from this genre, such as Balatro, Slay the Spire, and Monster Train. All three of these games have pushed the genre into interesting directions, while having unique themes that give each of them a defining personality. However, there is one thing that they all lack: a story. That’s where Battle Train comes in.
Battle Train, Come on Down!
The story of Battle Train takes place in a world where there is a hit TV gameshow that has been running for decades called Battle Train. In this show, contestants are randomly selected from a list of applicants to build customized trains and decks in order to square off against the show’s champions in the Valley of Destruction. If a contestant works their way through three champions, they reach “The Door of Worthiness”. If they are deemed worthy, they get to face off against the reigning President Conductor, Aalvado.
The game plays out like a mockumentary where a camera crew is following around the cast and production team of Battle Train. The Battle Train crew is interviewed about their lives on the show and how they get along with the other crew members in humorous cutscenes that you unlock throughout your runs. You’ll learn how Hank, the long-running host of Battle Train, is trying to find a way to boost viewership and merchandise. Meanwhile, Aalvado just wants more destruction and bigger explosions.
While the story is rather straightforward, I did find myself laughing along with a lot of the jokes and characters. There is some pretty great writing here that endears you to the world’s characters and makes you want to unlock the next story event just to see more of the wonderful cast. However, this can also be a detriment to the game at times.
You see, Battle Train uses a format similar to Slay the Spire, where you pick routes during your run in order to visit nodes that are either battles, events, shops, or story moments. Because they decided to have these story moments locked behind certain routes, for a large portion of your playtime, you’ll have to choose between unlocking the next story event or maybe going down a different route that would benefit you more in your train battles. This can be frustrating, as I lost a couple of runs because I would choose to view the next story event over visiting a location that would have most likely given me the edge I needed to win my next battle against the zone’s champion.
While I commend Terrible Posture Games for the story, I have to wonder if there was a better way to progress it without sacrificing the player’s sense of choice when playing through the game.
Going Off the Rails On a Battle Train
Battle Train is a turn-based, deck-building combat game where you build train tracks on a grid-based board in order to crash your exploding trains into enemy outposts. You and your enemy take turns laying down tracks, trying to gain as much ground as possible and cut each other off from mining resources while also protecting your outpost and trying to gain access to the enemy’s. Each card you collect will either give you unique track arrangements, explosives to destroy enemy tracks (or your own, we’ll get to that later), or abilities that can change the tide of battle exponentially.
One of the things you will discover very fast is that if you build your tracks to meet your opponent’s, you now gain access to their entire connected track system. This means you will gain resources from their mines and be able to start building off of their tracks… but so does your opponent. This is one of the best mechanics I’ve seen in a roguelike in a long time. It made me have to think about my track placement in so many different ways, and I felt like a genius when I would pull off a maneuver that allowed me to take over my enemy’s track system and resources while also cutting them off. This is where bombs play such a pivotal role in the game.
Let’s say my enemy has taken hold of a large portion of the mining resources around the board, but left an opening on their track that I could connect to. If I have the right cards, I can connect to the track and then bomb a section that breaks my enemy off, and then build my own track to block them from reconnecting on their turn. I’ve now commandeered all of the tracks that my opponent laid down, and I have access to those resources while cutting them off. It is such a satisfying feeling when it works in your favor, but it can also be absolutely rage-inducing when it is done to you.
You will also visit shops throughout a run where you can buy new cards or, more importantly, customize your train. You will have a selection of three train parts to choose from that give modifiers or bonuses that vary from giving you extra distance or damage on your bombs to adding more damage to your train attacks or just extra HP for your contestant. These modifiers are usually very powerful and can give you a much-needed boost when your run starts to gain momentum. However, this leads to one of the weaker parts of the game.
Running Out of Steam
While the core gameplay of Battle Train is so well done, I did find the actual deck-building portion of the game lacking. In most deck-builders, you have archetypes or themes to play around with when building your deck. There are ability cards that allow you to place traps or obstacles, and others that create unique effects on the board, but they aren’t really cards around which you can build. Rather, I would just throw them out when I didn’t have a good way to build my tracks and had no good bomb targets, or just wanted to cause some chaos.
For example, there is one card that jumbles up all tracks on your opponent’s side of the board. It’s great for messing up their track system, but if I had also built tracks into their territory to try to get to their outpost, it would also mess up my tracks, leaving me scrambling to put my tracks back together as well. Or, there is another card that pulls your enemy’s side of the board closer to you, moving their base and pushing their tracks that are connected over a spot. Useful, again, for messing up their tracks, but not something I could build around and base my deck on.
“This could be because I just didn’t have enough cards unlocked or unique train parts to really start seeing the themes come together, but after twenty hours, I wanted there to be more variety in how I could build my decks and trains that made me rethink how I was approaching each run. Instead, I would just look for the best track cards to buy and pick train parts based on what would help me in the moment, rather than plan ahead. It’s disappointing because the core gameplay and mechanics are so well done, but the build variety just left me wanting more.
On the Right Track
I still really enjoyed my time with Battle Train, and I can tell that a lot of love went into the story, characters, and core gameplay. There are so many little details throughout the story that I won’t spoil here that made my time playing through the campaign a joy. The main gameplay loop and battles are really fun, but I don’t think there is enough deck and train variety to really create many unique builds that make this a must-play in the genre.
I really hope that Terrible Posture Games continues to support Battle Train because I think there is a great foundation here that could be improved by adding more cards and train parts that could make the deck-building more interesting and engaging. Where it stands now, Battle Train is worth picking up to play through the campaign and enjoy the story, but if you are looking for the next deep deck-builder to sink your teeth into, you might want to wait and see what updates are coming down the line.
