Runespell: Overture (RO) is an interesting blend of RPG, collectible card game, and poker. The core part to the gameplay is largely the poker aspect which can become frustrating. On the other hand, I’m becoming better at recognizing the different hands.

You play as the Changeling. Following in the general amnesia trope, you don’t know who you are or how you got to where you are. You don’t have to wonder for very long, but the answer you are given makes you wonder more broadly about the world of RO and your place in it. I found story aspect of this game quite interesting. Unfortunately, I did run into a wall not too far into the game and that has let me put off playing the game in favor of doing other things (like coding).

I would play the game longer than a week, but the initial drive to want to finish sputtered out fairly quickly. I reached a point where you have to defeat four wardstones in order to continue with the story. This is still early in the game, I feel. Each point up to the wardstones was fairly straightforward. You are given hints on the different enemies you encounter. Except with the wardstones. There, you are left to fend for yourself. And there is no switch to easy mode, much as I hate to admit, but for a game I don’t particularly care too much about at this point, if it were a game I wanted to finish just to file away as finished, that feature would be it.

RO is largely about its solitaire-poker aspect. Each encounter requires you to make a hand of 5 (according to poker rules so players familiar with poker will easily recognize a flush, a straight, and so on) in order to damage your opponent, build up rage, and use this rage on other skills to help you win. You and your opponent have HP pools. Rage is like the mana bar (Warriors in MMOs will be familiar with this mechanic) for special skills. Skills include calling on allies or using consumables either for defense or offense. As you can imagine, it’s also much like a collectible card game. Allies and consumables appear as cards which you can add to your deck (of about 10 – I didn’t actually count) to augment your battles.

What I found particularly interesting was the model for the Changeling is strongly reminiscent of Raziel from Soul Reaver. Even his animations reminded me of that fallen vampire, which is pretty cool, if it doesn’t downright make me a little wary of other things they might have copied from other games. As you battle, 3D models shows off the attacks you and your opponent make on a 2D background. It’s an interesting art choice with its mesh of 2D and 3D, but it works well because the art assets come together quite well.

The sound is nothing to rave about. I found the soundtrack was a little boring with its stock-sounding RPG melodies and almost taunting themes when you repeatedly fail against an opponent. It didn’t get annoying which is a good thing, but I don’t see myself really wanting to download the soundtrack to listen to while working or on the road.

Put together, I would have to say the game is more about the story which is a big, “traditional” RPG element. The little scatterings of other RPG mechanics like the HP pool, rage bar, and general combat concepts helps to cement together the various aspects of the game. The one place in which immersion is broken is the whole poker concept. The allies you gain aren’t magically turned into cards, but they appear that way in the user interface. Similarly with the consumables. It’s not a game-breaking immersion, but it does leave me scratching my head a bit before accepting it as it is and moving on.

As I mentioned before, I wish there was a way to bypass some of these battles. I was doing quite well until I hit the four wardstones quest and I must have spent a good hour bashing my head against the lightning wardstone before trying the fate wardstone a couple of times. I’m sure there is some special Achilles heel consumable that I haven’t figured out yet, but that kind of pigeonholing is not a great way to retain my interest. As you can imagine, each encounter has a random set of cards so becoming more skilled is more on the meta level than figuring out the AI’s pattern. Even then, I noticed the AI would sometimes refrain from attacking to stack up his attacks and then deal massive burst damage or it would most of the time attack as soon as a hand was built and then use special skills to wipe the floor with me.

I think I’m old enough to say enough is enough and put the game down before I throw a brick through my monitor. :P