Becoming one of the Chinese Zodiacs is a lofty ambition for a Panda, but that’s exactly the journey at the heart of Zodiac Mountain. This deckbuilding roguelike from Mystic Road is in early access, and sees you ascending a mythic mountain, battling creatures drawn from Chinese folklore as you attempt to prove yourself worthy.
Climbing the Mountain
Each run in Zodiac Mountain sees you charting a path up a procedurally generated mountain towards a showdown with one of the Zodiac guardians. Along the way, you’ll encounter branching routes filled with different battles, shops, shrines and other events.
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Battles are turn-based; you’re dealt four cards from your deck each turn and have a defined number of turns to defeat your enemy, leveraging the standard array of attack and defense plays, buffs and de-buffs.
Battles reward gold to be spent at shops to buy new cards or heal, and seals, which allow you to improve cards in your hand. If you’re lucky, you’ll also stumble upon relics, which typically offer permanent buffs, such as increased health.
Choosing your path up the mountain takes strategic decision-making in and of itself. It is often tempting to take the routes with less battles and more shrines, but the absence of battles can leave you without enough gold or seals to formulate a powerful enough deck. The procedurally generated nature of the path also means no two climbs feel exactly alike.
The Yin and Yang of Combat
The star of the Zodiac Mountain’s gameplay show is undoubtedly the dual-hand system. Every card in your deck has a Yin side and a Yang side, and when in combat, you can move the cards between each side as you please.
The Yin side generates Qi, the resource you’ll need to play Yang effects. Yin cards generally lean towards defence, buffs and setup, while Yang cards are where you’ll typically find your attacks and more explosive abilities.
It is a simple yet novel concept that adds a surprising amount of strategic depth. The Yang side of your deck always looks fantastic at first glance, but if you haven’t generated enough Qi to actually use them, they’re effectively dead weight. Equally, stockpiling Qi through playing the Yin side of your cards is pointless if you don’t have a way of spending it.
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You can also see what your opponents are preparing for next turn. This results in a combat system that constantly asks you to think ahead – you’re not just planning which cards to play, but the order you’ll play them in and the Qi you’ll generate.
A Beautiful Celebration of Chinese Mythology
If the gameplay gets you through the door, it is the presentation that convinces you to stay. Inspired by traditional Chinese ink paintings and watercolour work, Zodiac Mountain is absolutely gorgeous. Everything feels lovingly crafted, from the mountain itself to the creatures that inhabit it. Even smaller details, such as the card backs, help create a really strong aesthetic identity.
Many of the characters you fight are pulled directly from Chinese folklore, too. The zodiacs themselves, of course — they act as the final boss once you’ve reached the ascent. Others draw directly from folklore, including Wangliang, the tale of a once innocent child who tragically drowned while playing in a river, and returned as a vengeful water spirit.
In all, the game carries a really unique and clear identity, and the genuine passion underpinning it is clear.
A Mountain That’s Perhaps Too Steep
As enjoyable as the core gameplay loop is, Zodiac Mountain occasionally felt a little too eager to humble ambitious climbers. Like any roguelike worth its salt, you naturally learn by doing and inevitably falter in your first few steps up the mountain. But, before long, the first mountain felt like a comfortable trek.
The second mountain, however, felt like hitting a brick wall. Run after run, I arrived at almost exactly the same point before the same tough encounter kicked me all the way back to the beginning.
Part of this is the nature of roguelikes. Success is always going to depend partially on the RNG gods — finding the right cards and relics along the way. But the jump in difficulty felt noticeably sharper than I would’ve liked.
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The limited structure of the current Early Access build doesn’t entirely help either. There are currently two mountains available (which are concurrent in one run) and a third is in the pipeline. I often found myself wishing runs were longer, offering more battles, shops, shines, events, and other opportunities to shape my build.
Early Access: Final Thoughts
Zodiac Mountain offers a genuinely fresh take on the roguelike genree with its Yin and Yang system, outstanding presentation and deep connection to Chinese mythology. While it could benefit from a gentler difficulty curve and I lost plenty of runs in the same spot while climbing the mountain, the good news is that I almost always wanted to start another one immediately afterwards. And that’s the top tell of a great roguelike. Zodiac Mountain has all the ingredients of a roguelike worth keeping an eye on.
Zodiac Mountain is out now in early access on PC via Steam.
A copy of Zodiac Mountain was supplied to Quest Daily for the purpose of this review.
