Arcana of Paradise -The Tower- preview: Bread is life

Arcana of Paradise -The Tower- delivers on satisfying gameplay and challenge.
Arcana of Paradise -The Tower- is all about gathering bread and survival (Image via Shueisha Games)

Being a big fan of roguelikes, Arcana of Paradise -The Tower- certainly scratches that itch for me. I recently received access to a preview build of this upcoming game from Shueisha, which combines real-time roguelike combat with deckbuilding tactics and survival. It brings together several really cool concepts without feeling especially overwhelming.

While the story of Arcana of Paradise -The Tower- is fairly dark, it still offers hope for the future and boasts a delightful blend of tones. You won’t always have good runs down into the Tower, but with each run, you should get a little better, time after time. Even if you cannot complete a run or run out of bread for your orphans, you can start once again with any upgrades that you had for your home base.

Just remember, bread is life in Arcana of Paradise -The Tower-.


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Bread is the way of survival in Arcana of Paradise -The Tower-

Without spoiling too much of the story of Arcana of Paradise -The Tower-, there's a mysterious force watching over a group of orphans. Essentially, they’re trapped at the top of a Tower, and there's a myth that if they go far enough through the tower, they can be free and reach the surface. However, they'll need to survive long enough to do that, which obviously requires bread.

You find bread while exploring the Tower, and if you restore the Oven, you can get free bread every day. Although it won’t be enough to offset the cost of going to another day, it's still something.

With each 'day' that takes place in the game, all the orphans in your care will eat a loaf of bread, and the more children you rescue from the Tower, the more expensive that’s going to get. In every playthrough, you’ll encounter nine of the 20 unique children.

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Introduction into combat.

That means adding more potential combatants to your home base in Arcana of Paradise -The Tower- will also come with a greater challenge. Each time you descend into the Tower, you’ll want to farm as much bread as you can for this reason.

Bread can be used to re-baptize characters in order to change their stats and passive abilities, and it’s also used to pray at the Great Tree. The cost of bread goes up each time as well, but doing this and completing a run into the Tower will reward you with new upgrades for your base.

Before you go on an adventure, you pick a target: bringing back bread or going deeper into the Tower. If you pick "To bring back bread," you'll receive a bucket that, at certain spots, can bring you back to the top of the Tower safely. You can use this in battle as well, but there's a chance that you'll drop your bread.


Combat and survival in the Tower

Arcana of Paradise -The Tower- does a solid job of teaching you the game's mechanics and features. You’ll have to pick a few members for your team and begin auto-walking the Tower. At certain points, you’ll stop and either take part in an event or do battle with a foe.

Each character class has its own type of cards that it can use in combat. For instance, Spellcasters won’t be using Sword and Shield cards. If you have two warriors, and you select the Sword, they will both attack.

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Enhancing a Spell in combat.

If you have two mages, and you select one of the elemental spells, they will both start charging a spell. Selecting multiple copies of a spell type while it’s casting will further enhance its effects.

You're advised not to use alternate magic types, because it will cancel out your current spell. When combat begins, you’ll draw a hand of four cards, which could be anything that's currently available on your deck. Furthermore, most cards have at least a minor chance to tear. Basically, if a card tears, it’s gone forever.

Here’s where things get really interesting in Arcana of Paradise -The Tower-. Certain cards do different things based on what side they’re oriented to when you draw them. For example, if you draw a Sword, but the hilt is facing up, you can’t attack with it. But if you draw the Sword & Shield, and the hilt is down, you can use it as a defensive card.

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Using stuns efficiently.

When an enemy's about to attack or counterattack, you can see a timer near their HP bar. If you perfectly time a defensive card like your Shield, you either reflect the attack or stun the enemy. If you don’t have any cards that are useful, you can press a button to shuffle new cards into your hand, but doing so might reorient some of your cards.

Keeping these facts in mind, you also have a powerful card known as The Hanged Man. While it can swap all of your cards’ orientations, it can affect your enemies in mysterious ways as well. I cannot stress how important this card is - that way you don’t accidentally damage or poison your party instead of the heal that you intended to use.

In general, there’s so much fun and tactical gameplay in Arcana of Paradise -The Tower-, which is something that I personally appreciate. Basically, it’s difficult without making you feel frustrated. You'll have a clear idea of when bosses and other events are likely to show up, so it won't really be a surprise.


The game's visuals and graphics are simple, but effective

When it comes to visuals, Arcana of Paradise -The Tower- is fairly simple, but I’m still a fan of it. It features a subdued color palette and very cute, simple-looking orphans. The monsters are unique, and I have a feeling that this is a game that’s not going to be hard to run on any PC. The music is charming and fits the setting of the game. Genuinely, I like the presentation of this game. There’s a lot of heart in this challenging roguelike.


Conclusion

Arcana of Paradise -The Tower- is a charming, fun, roguelike deck-building. While there are only three classes, I like the tactical possibilities that are present in the game. It should be noted that not every run down into the Tower is going to be a success. Even if you have to start back on day 1, you’ll keep your upgrades, and you can continue to push forward.

Every time you take a trip down into the Tower, you start with a brand new deck of cards, the defaults that the party members would normally carry. That offers interesting risks, though. Do you want to keep any powerful cards that you've already picked up and dive further, or be safe? That's entirely up to you.

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Adventuring in the Tower.

Since the game's combat is performed in real-time, you can really overwhelm opponents with tactical decisions. I had so many battles where the opponents across several floors never hit me once, because of the perfect timing on defensive moves. Although Arcana of Paradise -The Tower- is yet to be officially released, I highly recommend taking a look at it when the time comes.

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Edited by Atul S
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