“Gwent” made cheap – review of the game “Gwent: Renegade Mage”

Gwent: Renegade Mage is an interesting creation of a Polish corporation. The first announcements suggested a title somewhat similar to Blood Wars : The Witcher Tales , which tried to tell the stories of Queen Meve with the help of gwent mechanics. Unfortunately, the production was completely unsuccessful. Instead of an interactive book with sometimes repetitive but interesting fights that sometimes turned out to be puzzles by themselves, we got the game literally the opposite. The Mage Renegade described in this review looks like a failed copy of Slay the Spire after the first trailer and a few minutes of gameplay .

The butcher of Blaviken falls in his grave

What is most missing in Gwent: Renegade Mage ? Plots and polishing. I will focus on the technical aspects later, because this is not the biggest problem. The production has about 12 minutes of pure history, known to us from other installments of The Witcher . This is where we will learn about Alzur’s adventures and discover the fate of the first witcher. The narrative was conveyed well, but there is far too little of it. It’s weird, however, to listen to the narrator’s voice of the trailers for Cyberpunk 2077 . People unfamiliar with the culture of marketing the production set in Night City will probably not be bothered by it, but I often felt it out of immersion. The game mechanics itself is Slay the Spire– that is climbing up the map to the last boss, defeating single opponents. Instead of fast fights, which are to keep us waiting for the bus, we get long, dragging battles, which we cannot speed up in any way. This aspect is really interesting, because the combat mechanics itself has been simplified, probably to improve the gameplay, but it takes away one of the better aspects of gwent. There is only one turn now, but it must always last until the end. You can no longer pass before all cards have been dealt. If this was to speed up the game, unfortunately it also extended it and took one of the most interesting tactical mechanics.

Above all, the goal is missing

By playing the so-called expeditions in Gwent: Renegade Mage, we will quickly notice that fights are about countering the opponent. This is the fastest way to win. Artificial intelligence will always tell us what its special skill is when it draws a card. All this so that the player can focus on how to prevent the opponent from his combinations. The problem is that fights are always about counterattacks. Theoretically, you can build your deck to always have the highest score, but not being able to fit, it could end up badly for you. After we defeat the opponent, we move to the next one, draw or discard cards, sometimes we collect a treasure or restore energy to cast a spell during the fight. That’s all. This is the whole game. Aside from the short narrative and individual statements by Alzur, the player will do the same over and over again until he experiences the story’s ending, which itself is predictable. I was really disappointed when I saw that the only rewards after completing the expedition are short story scenes, drawn with a very nice line, or new experience levels that unlock bonuses to expeditions, cards or entire decks.

Technical issues and price

Gwent: Renegade Mage is currently only available on PC, Android phones and IOS. A few platforms are missing, especially the Nintendo Switch, which would be perfect for “one last trip” in bed. It is true that we have access to the game on phones, but its price in terms of mobile standards is definitely too high. Therefore, I am reviewing this game as a full-fledged product. The PC version is really cheap by today’s standards, but it doesn’t represent the quality of previous CD Projekt games. The control on the pad is really inconvenient, because instead of moving around the map in leaps and bounds, we have to move the cursor with the analog stick. The game does not support 21: 9 resolution. The worst thing, however, is that Gwent: Renegade Mage does not have a Polish language version.It is probably due to low production costs, but I ask you. Each CD Projekt game had a Polish narrative. Here we get English dubbing, which is not bad, along with the Polish interface and, attention, the votes of the cards! Of course, they are copied from the multiplayer Gwent . I like the fact that the game can be turned off on the computer at any time and after restarting we go back to the same stage. This allows for breaks in sometimes too long games.

A game for really big Gwent fans

If you are a true fan of Gwent , you will find a lot of interesting but predictable fights here. Enemy decks often resemble builds from Gwent: The Witcher Card Game . You will find here unequal by randomness level of difficulty and possibly more interesting tactics with the help of Alzur’s magic. Unfortunately for honest fans of the Witcher saga or just players looking for something to pass the time Gwent: Renegade Mageturns out to be a repeatable production with small rewards. The tactical elements come down to the same, and the story is not satisfying. The lack of availability on other platforms, a considerable price in the telephone discourse or simply control problems may turn out to be too much of an obstacle to attract many people for long hours. You can try the game on computers, but I would recommend it for promotion.
PS: I will not even mention that the creators did not want to change the end credits and at the very beginning the title of Gwent: The Witcher Card Game pops up …