I put a frankly embarrassing amount of hours into the first Monster Train, and by the time I completed all of the difficulty levels I was convinced I was done for good. So when I saw that Monster Train 2 is almost here, I barely even blinked. Been there, done that. Whatever. But then I randomly tried the demo - and five hours later... yeah. It turns out I'm very much so not done!

Monster Train 2 has wisely stuck to the original's formula, and just made everything bigger, better and more intricate. And honestly? It kinda blew me away! Greetings and welcome friends, I'm Ash and today I'd like to show you what exactly hooked me, what's new in Monster Train 2, and why you might want to jump aboard.

Video version of this recommendation (~12 minutes)

Simple yet addictive

Monster Train 2, much like its predecessor, has a very simple yet addictive gameplay loop. Mutated zealots enter your train, you kick them out with a combination of might and magic, and then you use your newfound riches to upgrade and expand your welcoming committee. Your train then moves onto the next batch of madmen, and so the cycle repeats until you either win or finally realize that it's 3am, whichever comes first.

The actual combat is also quite simple. You place down your units in one of three floors, and then you fling cards to either buff them or hurt your opponents. But simple does not mean boring or easy. Quite the contrary. The enemies quickly scale up in strength, so you're going to need to do some outrageous stuff in order to survive, which is exactly what I find so much fun.

The synergies you can achieve between your units and cards can be completely and utterly absurd - often resulting in nearly unlosable runs once you have all the pieces slotted together. I had one run where every single combat encounter I would earn around 600 gold, while most upgrades I could buy were in the ballpark of 20-100 gold. That run almost instantly went off the rails, and yet despite how powerful I was there were still some hairy moments as setting everything up does take a bit of time.

Even the humblest unit can become amazing

The way it all works is that at the start of an encounter you'll draw most of your units and will have a chance to place them on one of three floors. The obvious solution would be to just slam them all onto the first floor where the enemies enter, but you'll have to be a bit more clever than that since some of these units are thick, wide boys that take up a fair bit of the limited floor space. The positioning of the units also matters as their order dictates when they attack, as well as who gets the honor of being punched in the face in order to protect the rest.

What I find really cool is that every single unit, and it doesn't matter if we're talking about your super-powerful leader or a random dragon whelp, has the potential to become the keystone of your strategy. As long as you invest the time and effort into making them good, you can utilize just about any strategy. Even in the very limited demo, all of my runs played out in vastly different ways despite sometimes utilizing the exact same characters.

This right here is the core of what makes Monster Train 2 so addictive to me. There's just so many different things to try out, so many different ways to play the game that jamming run after run just doesn't get boring for me. And things are only going to get better in the full version as instead of having access to only two clans, there will be five!

As I discovered since then, the original five clans are also playable!

The many flavors of hell

The first clan I focused on was the Banished - a cabal of fallen angels that are all about showing off for the sake of valor. They all want to get into the thick of things as quickly as possible, so their cards and units reward you for switching up positions and trading blows with the opponent. The second clan was the Pyreborn - a gaggle of gold-hungry dragons that not only shower you with wealth, but also allow you to utilize some of that money to power up spells and abilities in a pinch.

I found both of them to be a great time, though I would be lying if I said I didn't favor the dragons at least a little bit. I mean they're badass hell-dragons, for goodness sake! 10-year old me would never forgive me if I chose some hoity-toity angels over them!

Once you're done with your unit setup the real game will begin. Each turn you'll draw five cards, and more often than not a new batch of enemies will enter the train. You'll need to either destroy them right then and there, or wound them enough that they'll get taken out by the B team on a higher floor. Failing to stop them means that they'll go and stab you in the heart, and I don't mean that in the romantic sense. And much real life your heart can easily fend off a couple attacks, but anything more than that will likely make it go 'KABOOM'.

Dragons are like angels, just cooler! You heard it here first.

What's new?

Besides units, Monster Train 2 also gives you access to spells, as well as two brand new card types - equipment and rooms. Let's go for the new stuff first. Equipment are cards you can... wait for it... equip onto your units in order to grant them extra stats or new abilities. Each unit can only have one equipment, though you can staple two different weapons together at a vendor to create a powerful yet impractical-looking abomination. It's a fun way of buffing and customizing your units, and I'm genuinely surprised this wasn't a thing in the original game. It's a perfect fit.

Same story with rooms, really. They are essentially equipment for your train. You can enhance one of your floors with a passive effect that lasts for the entirety of the battle. My personal favorite is the one that gives you 10 gold every time a unit dies in that room - and that includes your guys as well! So if you can ride that fine line between genius and insanity you'll be able to score a mountain's worth of gold per encounter, which is something my inner dragon found to be quite pleasing!

The downside, both with equipment and rooms, is that you have to commit to a floor or unit and can't really react to changing circumstances. So if you gear up all of your lads and spruce up the first floor, any enemies that escape your clutches are almost certainly going to reach the heart as you simply won't have enough time or resources to build up a second layer of defense. But that's what makes it interesting. You need that little bit of risk to make victory feel all the sweeter!

As for the spells, they let you either blast enemies or fortify allies. If you've ever played a card game you already know what to expect, and if you haven't - welcome, you picked a pretty good game to start with. Each spell has a unique effect that is tailor-made to synergieze with some aspect of your clan, so choosing which ones to add to your deck and which ones to purge is going to be a constant struggle. If at all possible, I'd recommend going for as lean of a deck as you can since this will allow you to draw your best cards more often.

This can come back to bite you, however, as enemies often have abilities of their own - some of which could directly counter the few cards you have come to rely on. So much like everything else, you'll have to find the right balance - or just go all-in and enjoy the power trip. You might occasionally get unlucky and fail because of it, but at least it'll be an exciting journey!

Equipment is so powerful it can often define your strategy

Deep and varied customization

Where Monster Train 2 really differs from other card-based roguelikes is with its upgrades. Every single unit and spell can be customized in a variety of different ways - some of which are so powerful you can base an entire strategy around them. Units can get the usual stuff like extra health or damage, but also things like multi-strike or a massive buff along with a corresponding size-increase. And considering how Monster Train 2's numbers tend to be fairly small at the start of a battle, these sort of upgrades can really transform a basic unit into a straight up super hero.

Spell upgrades are even cooler. Some can give you a massive power boost in exchange for consuming the card afterwards - effectively trimming your deck for that battle and making you more likely to draw your good stuff. Speaking of which, you can also upgrade spells so they always start in your opening hand, or make it so they reappear in your hand after you use them.

And if that's not enough, there's also random events that can give you a selection of strange bonuses, as well as artifacts which offer passive bonuses that are generally powerful enough you'll want to build around them. Combine all of this with various upgrades you can give to your equipment, rooms and the super-powerful faction leader, and you end up with a very deep and varied system that's a whole lot of fun to mess around with. Like I said before, I've done a whole bunch of runs at this point and not a single one of them ended up being the same, and for a roguelike that's some high praise.

Artifacts are pricy, but well worth the investment

Hell has a good vibe

As for the presentation, it should come as little surprise to hear that Monster Train 2 looks and plays great. I especially love the unit design, and not only because they are well drawn and animated, but rather because even the most generic of badguys have something weird and interesting going for them - like a weapon fused to their hand or a bunch of phantom limbs floating around them. It adds a nice bit of flavor and mystery to the world, and I'm absolutely a sucker for that sort of stuff.

The music, appropriately enough given that you're playing as the forces of hell, is all sorts of heavy metal. The main theme is phenomenal, and most of the boss tracks are no slouch either, but I did find some of the random battle music to be a bit too subdued. So much so that I've just had to check my footage to even remember what it sounded like in the first place. I'm not particularly bothered either way as Monster Train 2 and its roguelike brethren are, in my humble opinion, best experienced while listening to a nice audio book or podcast. No music, no matter how great, can remain exciting when you listen to it on repeat, and that's exactly what you'll be doing when pushing your way through the difficulty levels.

I love how weird all of the enemies look.

Closing thoughts

Like I said at the very beginning, I had no plans to play Monster Train 2. However, the demo ended up impressing me so much I'm going to be getting it as soon as it launches, which has likely already happened by the time this video goes out.

So if you're a fan of deckbuilders or roguelikes, I'd heartily recommend you give Monster Train 2 a try. It really is a great game. Enjoy!