14 DAY TRIAL // Magni deals 8 damage to one enemy before shielding himself as much as he can, anticipating a coming strike from a Clamoris. Andora launches her own attacks, using the Swift keyword to get in as many strikes as possible. Ishana adds her own damage and some bleeding before healing herself. We’re a long way from finding the key to the dungeon and I need to try and keep health up as much as possible, considering that it’s impossible to know how many other battles we’ll have to deal with.
Shattered Heaven is developed by Leonardo Production and published by Leonardo Interactive. The game is in Early Access on Steam. The title offers a card-driven combat system that powers a role-playing game with a focus on dungeon exploration.
The story is a little murky, with a deity that has already fallen and has made the world a hellscape. Four factions have gathered the survivors, who compete for dwindling resources but need to cooperate to put together a team of warriors that can, alongside the sacrifice of a Vestal, remove the curse that affects the entire world. There’s a lot of writing in Shattered Heaven and it was all flowery and a little opaque.
Card-powered battles represent the core of the gameplay loop. Three heroes and a variable number of enemies face off. As with many other titles in the genre, players can always see what opponents are planning to do. They must then use their hand of cards and their limited action points to deal damage, create defenses, or activate special skills.
Between battles, the player party will explore dungeons made up of nodes. One can contain an encounter, a chance to get extra cards, an opportunity to rest and regain health, or a long conversation that leads to a choice.
Shattered Heaven has a decent presentation that is too clearly inspired by Lovecraft, with a dash of other mythologies thrown in. The player-controlled characters and their enemies look cool but the cards and the cutscenes are not impressive. The sound design is decent, but the music is easily replaced and the character exclamations become repetitive fast.
Conclusion
But I struggled with the narrative, especially the long exchanges between the characters that deliver little information and feature plenty of posing. It will be interesting to see whether the 1.0 version of Shattered Heaven balances the story and gameplay well.
Preview copy provided by the publisher.
