Black Book

I had no expectations for Black Book but grabbed it because I love deckbuilder RPGs. What a stroke of luck to get it, esp. on sale! To say it simply, Black Book is great. The deckbuilder combat is engaging but not overly complicated (yet; I have more decks to unlock still). The art style is beautiful. The story is neck-deep in religion and culture from far-NW Russia that I'd never heard about before the game, so that is so, so cool to me. You even get rewarded for reading the lore unlocks (info you learn there helps with some quests). Only complaint is the subtitles don't always match the spoken word (it's all voice acted, btw). Buy this if you like deckbuilders or want a great introduction to them!

Turn off the lights, buy this game, and gather your favorite drinks, smoke, or snacks while its downloading. You'll need them as you lose track of time while traversing through the dark, but beautiful 19th century slavic lands of Black Book on your quest to unlock the 7 seals and rescue/reunite with your lost love in hell

Lots of fun, lots of interesting folklore, card battle isn't advanced but still enjoyable. Approximately 36 hours to 100%. Several achievements are easily missable, recommend following Steam walkthrough guide and yekbot.com chieve guide. TIPS: Reload autosave to choose differently. Use Restart Battle to get optimal hand and enemy attacks. Items that grant Prayer on battle start can be glitched to give effect twice by using Restart Battle at least once each fight. You must choose your companion before leaving rest point, chosen will lock for rest of zone. Can reload autosave to reroll vendor items. If you play low sin count first, create separate save at Chapter 6 - How Kolduns Die, when Egor isn't home. You will have a few choices to get a lot of sins to get over the 130 necessary for the Evil ending and achievement. Faster than playing the whole game twice.

Loading starts from the beginning of the chapter or latest event not exactly when you save 9.0 out of 10

The game is enjoyable but its difficult sometimes to pick the right answer to the questions some things ask, people who dont wanna read 1000 word long lore pages/wiki search will find themselves loading a save. Manual saves on that note also dont take you back exactly where you saved and act as a save just after you enter a new area. In the forest of mist i had to load a save because it wasn't clear that I had to assign chorts jobs, some fights are unwinable without a card like the stat removing card, it also doesn't say when a action is moraly wrong so when you dont understand what your doing you gain sin without knowing until its already done and have to load a save, also it sucks to get forced out of areas when you pick a option thats not last and miss out on stuff. The games still super fun and enjoyed playing it, people who argue about the difficulty on some enemies arnt kidding but most battles are not that hard and all battles are winnable. If they had a 2nd game I would buy it!