Wildfrost review: Beautiful, yet devilishly challenging
Wildfrost is a gorgeous card game with an inviting art style, yet may prove too challenging to many players enticed by its charm.
Don’t be fooled by Wildfrost’s cute exterior. Despite the cartoon visuals and cuddly atmosphere, this can be a tough-as-nails experience. After spending hours with the game and attempting various runs through its perilous trials, we still found ourselves clutching our Steam Deck in despair when it all fell apart.
While this blistering difficulty may be offputting to many players enticed by the game's visual flair, Wildfrost proves to be a satisfying and tactical experience for anyone who wishes to put their time into it.
Stay Frosty
Wildfrost is set in the world of Snowdwell - a world ravaged by an eternal winter. Playing out as a roguelike, players must set out on an adventure to reach the Sun Temple, where they can banish the harsh natural forces and save their home.
Many other games would have taken this narrative and adopted action-based gameplay around it, yet Wildfrost does something a little more unique. Instead of prioritizing quick reflexes and controller-mashing combos, players engage in card-based combat in order to survive.
The objective is to keep your leader alive as you progress further and further through the adventure. Fail, and your run is ended and you are returned to Snowdell, which acts as a hub throughout your time in Wildfrost.
As you complete runs and fill requirements for objectives, you’ll progress your town, building new structures that offer benefits. This will enable you to unlock new cards for your run, different leaders, and even the opportunity to complete daily challenges if you feel so inclined.
While this aspect offers a constant sense of progression as you attempt more and more runs, it never quite gels as one would hope. The town’s progress and unlockables never really feel like they impact your attempts too much. Occasionally, you’ll get a neat upgrade, but these are few and far between.
Wild Card
Despite any reservations with the upgrade system, Wildfrost poses some stellar tactical gameplay when it comes to its card-based combat. Each card is decorated beautifully, and it’s pretty simple to pick up, but quickly, the game will show you its true colours.
Wildfrost is an incredibly challenging game at times, in fact, its difficulty can be seen as too punishing if you don’t play your cards right. Each card you place on the board has a countdown of how many moves it will take before it’s played, meaning you’ll need to plan multiple moves ahead at every turn.
To help you out, you also have a variety of cards in your deck that can be played on each turn, such as the ability to freeze an enemy in place for one turn or buff the attack of one of your characters on the board.
You can also move the cards you’ve placed on the board in Wildfrost, putting other characters in front of your leader to protect them. Combining these elements into play can be extremely satisfying when it works, but it can also fall apart quite easily.
Cards positioned behind a character may provide a buff to the one in front. For example, one card can raise the attack of the one in front. If you let your guard down, things can fall apart very quickly, meaning you always have to think ahead.
As you progress through each run, you can enhance charms by picking up charms that increase stats, or new heroes that you can play on the board. There are quite a few combinations you can create, making each run unique.
The Verdict
Wildfrost is an incredibly charming game that’s easy to like. It maintains that “one more go” mentality, despite its two main systems not connecting in an organic way. With some updates and tweaks, the experience could flow more naturally, but instead, it feels like two disconnected elements.
Its devilish difficulty may be offputting for many, but if you can buy into its charm and take the time to understand the combat, Wildfrost can be an extremely rewarding experience.
3.5/5
Reviewed on PC. Code provided by the publisher.
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