Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Shattered Heaven is a deck-builder tactical RPG with extensive story elements, set in a world trying to limp towards redemption. Taking command of a team of three heroes, the player must forge a path through dangerous dungeons and defeat competing hero teams to emerge victorious. The game employs a mix of exploration (including traps and choices that can impact your path), crafting and story sections to keep the player pushing towards the finish.
Even in the early build that was bestowed on us to preview, this is a game that keeps you playing, and has no signs of major bugs or issues that would be a cause for concern.
Combat
Shattered Heaven showed us four major levels of interaction as we progressed through it. First, the combat screen. Done as a 2D turn-based system, players will have to balance the costs of playing each ability on each character’s turn. Each character is given a limited number of Action Points (AP) that they can either spend or save for later turns, and cards may take AP, health, or other costs when played.
For example, some powerful abilities may result in random hex cards being added to the character’s deck. When drawn at the beginning of subsequent turns, these hex cards will usually result in a debuff - but the benefit you got initially might just be worth the cost later on.
In classic RPG fashion, combat won’t end until all enemies have been reduced to zero health. The three characters the player controls are each initially inclined towards a particular type of combat role. This can be changed over time through customizing their card decks and choosing different talents. At the end of combat, the player will receive three new cards, and must give one to each character.
This choice is surprisingly important, as I did not see any way to later trade cards between characters. You can choose how to build your decks between dungeons, but each character’s deck can only be composed of cards that that character has collected. If you want to turn your tank into a damage dealer, for example, your choices after battles need to reflect this to give them the cards they need to fill that role.
Exploration
Second, Shattered Heaven uses a tile-like map for dungeon exploration. The party can only move one tile at a time to an adjacent map piece, and each new tile entered has a chance of being a combat, an event (including traps), or just an empty room. Events frequently offer a choice to the player in how to resolve them, and potential outcomes are clearly presented.
For example, a tile containing a trap event may give options to try to dodge the trap or use an item to try to disarm it. Both options will show the respective chances of success, making it clear to the player what they are choosing between. Other events may have no real “right” answer, offering a choice between two different debuffs for example. These sorts of choices with no clear right answer are a recurring theme in Shattered Heaven. Overall, this reinforces the idea of a broken world where there really is not a clear way forward for anyone.
Art and Graphics
Third, Shattered Heaven gives us some extremely beautiful 2D art scenes for locations as hubs for activity. The central cathedral in the game serves as the home base for the player. From here players will access dungeon selections, get quest information, buy and sell at merchants, craft, improve characters and more.
Leonardo Productions has done a great job in maintaining a consistent environmental aesthetic here, and these scenes really reinforce it. The impression is of a once-beautiful world, now drained of most of its color and the vibrancy of life. This isn’t to say that the game is rendered entirely in drab sepia tones. Individual characters and monsters still use colorful palettes, but the environment as a whole provides that impression.
Story
Much of the story in Shattered Heaven is delivered via dialogue, using a 2D art style common to many RPGs. While much of the dialogue is a simple read-click-read format, there are also times when a choice in how to proceed is presented. Will you trust your childhood friend - who is now a competing hero - with your true thoughts, or deceive them? The conversation proceeds differently depending on your choice, giving more replayability to the game. After all, don't you want to see how else things could unfold?
Customization
As a deck-building RPG, Shattered Heaven makes sure that players have control of what is available to them. New cards are collected after each battle and dungeon, and the contents of the decks can be configured between dungeons. Each character’s deck must always contain 20 cards, with a few limitations on how many high-rarity cards you can include. Some of these limits can be relaxed through crafter upgrades (more on that below). Overall however, there will always be tough choices to be made on what does and does not get included.
Crafting
Crafting is a key component of Shattered Heaven, and several different resources are used in the game to support this. The most common are ‘bones’, which serve as the basic coin of the realm here. Merchants will accept these for common items and temporary in-dungeon buffs, and these are gained after most combats.
More rare are ‘black bones’, which serve as the currency to upgrade character abilities and reduce restrictions on deck-building. Beyond this, the game provides a plethora of ingredients and reagents that can be collected and purchased. Used in creating potions and other items, everything comes down to aiding your party’s progress in dungeons.
Conclusion
Shattered Heaven is already in a good state even with significant time before the game hits public release. Game mechanics seem well developed and balanced, and the game’s graphics and visuals have a strong and consistent theme. In terms of audio there are hints that there may be sections with voiced character lines, although this did not yet seem complete in the Act 1 development build we had access to preview.
Based on what I’ve seen here, Shattered Heaven is definitely a title to add to your wishlist. An expected release date in October 2022 based on their Steam page is also a pleasant surprise, beating the date from the original Kickstarter by two months. As the latest entry in a chain of solid releases, Shattered Heaven looks set to be another great addition to Leonardo Interactive’s stable of games.
Summary
A deck-building RPG, Shattered Heaven is a tactically challenging romp in a world drained of hope. Solid mechanics and gorgeous art even in early development builds give us confidence that this project from Leonardo Interactive is one to put on your wishlist now. Crafting, customizable decks, multipath dungeon exploration and an interesting story will land on target with players looking for fun when this releases in October 2022.
Score: N/A
