Quinterra is a roguelite turn-based strategy game. It’s sort of a mix of Faeria’s battle system and Slay the Spire’s map structure.
You choose one of four heroes to start your adventure. Each of them has a different playstyle and different abilities you can unlock by leveling up and starts with different elites and minions. On your way across five domains, you’ll be able to get new minions, structures, elites, equipment, and crystals.
Turn-Based Combat
Battles are turn-based. There are 24 plates on the battlefield. Each of them has one or several different elements (fire, water, etc.). Each turn you need to select one to conquer. This means you will gain one or a combination of these elements to select for one of your elites.
If you conquered a fire-only plate, you can’t choose a water elite, and so on. If you select one elite, you can choose to equip crystals which will make the unit stronger. After that, he will be in your hand for the rest of the battle. You can summon an elite on the battlefield with mana.
Aside from mana, there are command points. You gain one each turn. With command points, you can summon minions and structures. Structures are basically small buildings that give bonuses like “+1 mana every turn” or “+1 attack for minions or elites nearby”, etc.
Some elites and minions have special abilities. Some abilities can be activated whenever you like while others get activated whenever some condition is met such as attacking someone and gaining +1 attack.
Each monster has different stats like attack, health, and armor. You can attack once per turn or move one plate. If the monster’s HP reaches zero, it dies and you’ll have to summon it again. It will also cost more to summon it each time it dies. After each turn, the mana cost gets reduced until it eventually reverts to its initial cost.
All these rules sound a bit complicated but after a few battles, you’ll get the hang of them. Knowledge of the rules is essential to crafting winning strategies and can be rewarding on its own.
Speaking about rewards, you can get crystals, gold, armor, as well as draft minions or elites. Rewards are procedurally generated, just like the maps. Enemies and missions are random which is supposed to result in a dynamic experience.
In my playtime though, each run didn’t exactly feel like a whole new experience like it does with other roguelite strategy games. It’s more like the few building blocks in the game just get placed in a different order.
But maybe that’s because Quinterra is still in Early Access. I’m quite sure there will be a lot more content down the line and should help each run feel more different eventually.
On the map, there are a few different encounters waiting for you. You can go into a shop or find treasures with rewards, but before you can get to these sweet rewards or into the shop, you need to do missions on each area your airship lands on.
Missions vary somewhat. At the moment, there are two types of missions: “beat the elite enemy” and “collect X points to win”. Different missions are a good way to bring more strategy into an already tactical game and it feels great to find a new way to win. I’d be happy to see a few more different missions as the game is further developed.
Every mission won gives your Hero EXP and for each level, you gain talent points. You can use them to unlock talents like your minion’s “+1 spell power”.
You lose if your morale reaches zero. You start with 50 morale and it gets reduced throughout your journey, such as if you take too many turns against a boss.
The UI and the visuals need some more work but aside from that, the game is in really good shape. I played the game first in November 2020 and in the following months, they changed and added quite a lot to it. I’m very positive they’ll keep working hard on the game and keep their promises like bringing in more units.
Currently, there is no long-term progression aside from unlocking species, but the devs already said a long-term progression system is one of the most important things they’ll work on during early access.
Summary
The devs describe Quinterra as a tactical game and it really is one. It’s not a mindless turn-based strategy game at all. You will need some time to get into it, but it’s worth it. It’s engaging, thanks to the roguelite part of the game, and addictive, thanks to the tactical turn-based battles.
I definitely recommend the game to everyone who is into turn-based strategy games.
Credits
| Program | Founding Writers |
| YouTuber | TSouL22 |
| Publisher | MGN |
| Game | Quinterra |