Hearthstone and Inscryption heads should pay attention to Cross Blitz

rockpapershotgun.com:

You know when the look of a game instantly captures your attention, and then you play a demo for it and it's even better? That's the journey I've been on with deckbuilding RPG Cross Blitz this week. I first heard about it last month back when word hit that it was coming to early access this year, and I was instantly taken with its chunky animal character sprites. There was something a bit Advance Wars about the look and style about its burly lion pirate captain, but just, you know, in a high seas card battle kind of setting instead of dealing with sergeants, tanks and air support. But its Steam Next Fest demo has really sunk its teeth into me this week, offering up turn-based card duels that scratch exactly the same kind of itch as Inscryption did for me a couple of years ago.

In fact, if you didn't get on with Inscryption's meta agenda and just wished it was a purer kind of card battler, then you might end up liking Cross Blitz even more. The demo lets you play the opening chunk of one of its character-driven story modes - the aforementioned lion captain and his quest for fame and glory - but other characters and storylines will be there as well when the game arrives later this year (three to start with, according to its Steam page, out of an eventual total of five), as well as a separate roguelite mode if that's more your bag instead.

The story mode gives the game a rough structure to hang its card battles on, but so far it's very fast moving and you're ferried from one battle to the next in quick succession. It keeps the story moving, is what I'm saying, and cuts straight to the business of letting you enjoy the card battling with minimal fuss and setup.

The card battles themselves are very Inscryption-like, too,