Game file / ROGUE BY ROGUEMonster Train
Monster Train is a strategic roguelike deck building game with a twist. Set on a train to hell, you’ll use tactical decision making to defend multiple vertical battlegrounds. With real time competitive multiplayer and endless replayability, Monster Train is always on time.
Why this score?
Original text · Simplified Chinese
把布阵和卡组发展结合得很紧密，路线规划足以影响胜负；主要局限在敌人变化和高难度下的策略收缩。
Core gameplay
Weight 25%9.0 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
三层布阵把出牌时机、承伤和上楼敌人联系起来，短局能较快形成决策循环；同时处理多层对新手有负担。
Builds & strategy
Weight 25%9.0 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
主副氏族、英雄、卡牌改造和复制产生相互制约的选择；高契约下部分路线被极端数值压缩，因此未给满分。
Replayability
Weight 20%8.5 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
氏族机制、英雄和变异条件会改变解题方式，难度阶梯持续提出新要求；敌人与首领池偏小限制遭遇的新鲜度。
Randomness & fairness
Weight 20%8.0 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
首领信息预告允许提前针对，路线和卡牌升级能缓解抽牌运气；最高难度对强组合的依赖使容错下降。
Polish & usability
Weight 10%7.5 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
波次计数、首领预览和对局记录改善信息表达；多层盘面仍有学习负担，快照包含片头导致启动挂起的报告。
- Reviewer
Original text · Simplified Chinese
Rogue by Rogue · AI 资料评测- Version reviewed
Original text · Simplified Chinese
具体构建未知；以所引资料描述的版本为准
Scope and limitations
Original text · Simplified Chinese
未进行试玩；分数是依据已收录评述与社区具体反馈作出的主观资料评测。旧反馈跨版本、部分原始材料为不可重开的本地快照；本次 Steam 核查仅确认玩法与功能，未复测平衡、性能或报告的故障是否仍存在。
Review sources 02
- 01Archived materialView archived external material ↓
Original text · Simplified Chinese
收录评论与社区资料（2026-10-01 快照）
使用 作者观点摘要 的 Tier list Part 1 (2023) 的具体优缺点，以及 玩家好评、玩家批评 与 资料核查说明；不使用旧等级、外部分数或销量反推。
- 02Web sourceView original ↗
Original text · Simplified Chinese
Monster Train · Steam 官方商店
2026-10-08 访问。Steam 商店核对三层战场、双氏族、卡牌改造复制、契约难度与首领预览。未据商店介绍推定性能或故障已修复。
Video reviews
Reviews and deep dives from YouTube and Bilibili, in every language. Open the original video to watch.
Other voices, for reference.
Archived third-party reviews and community material may refer to different versions. External opinions and ratings are presented separately; consult the original videos for their full context.
Community discussion
A 2020 roguelike deckbuilder from Shiny Shoe in which you defend a multi-floor demon train's pyre from angel invaders by placing units on vertical floors, pairing two clans per run.
Monster Train is broadly regarded as one of the best roguelike deckbuilders after Slay the Spire. Steam shows about 96% positive across roughly 23k reviews (Overwhelmingly Positive), Metacritic critic score is 86 from 27 reviews (all positive), and the Metacritic user score is 7.9 (lower and more mixed than Steam). Critics and players praise the floor-placement tactics, clan mixing and snowball-into-broken-combo runs. Criticism centres on the small enemy/boss roster, a long unlock grind, balance at top Covenant ranks, and dated art. It is not early access; it has had free content updates and a paid DLC (The Last Divinity), and since 2025 many reviewers steer newcomers to Monster Train 2 instead.
What players praise
- Multi-floor train layout adds spatial tactics (what goes on which floor, floor-wide effects, hit-point math) that Slay the Spire lacks; critics called it its own kind of puzzle
- Pairing a main clan with a secondary clan produces many synergy combinations and encourages experimentation
- Each clan has a distinct signature mechanic, which keeps runs feeling different
- Snowballing into an over-the-top 'exodia' deck and steamrolling enemies is deeply satisfying; some players say it feels more empowering than Slay the Spire
- Boss challenges are telegraphed up front, so you can draft toward them; several reviewers like this clarity
- Runs are fairly short and playable in bursts; the game is accessible to genre newcomers and ramps up via the Covenant difficulty system
- Upbeat soundtrack, and strong replay value (players report hundreds of hours and 100% achievements)
- Steady free updates added champions, mutators, run records and Steam Workshop mod support
What players criticize
- Very small enemy and boss variety: players say you see essentially every enemy within a single run, and encounters feel like repetitive bullet sponges
- Runs are short and deckbuilding feels cut off just as it gets interesting; only about 10 fights per run compared with dozens in Slay the Spire
- High Covenant ranks (around 20-25) scale enemies so aggressively that many cards and some clan pairings become unviable, forcing the same 'broken' combos
- Some complain drafted cards are not much better than starters, or that picks are obvious, so choices feel less meaningful
- Art style and animation are polarising: several call it mobile-game or Hearthstone-like, cheap looking or ugly
- Reported crashes or hangs on startup linked to the intro video (AVProVideo/Unity errors) that some say persist years later
- With Monster Train 2 containing the first game's clans and more, a number of recent negative reviews say not to buy the original at $25
Distinctive features
- Vertical multi-floor battlefield with a pyre you must protect, mixing deckbuilding with tower-defence-style positioning
- Two-clan deck construction (main plus allied clan) with a champion choice defining the strategy
- Units persist and level up across fights via upgrades, making the deck feel like an army that grows stronger
- Covenant ladder, with a campaign structure where bosses are known in advance and players draft toward them
- Playing the demons defending hell against angels gives it a goofier, lighter tone than Slay the Spire; one reviewer calls it Slay the Spire's chiller, goofier cousin
- Competitive PvP multiplayer mode, unusual for the genre, and later Steam Workshop mod support
Divided opinions
- Versus Slay the Spire: many say Monster Train is deeper and more empowering, while others find it less tightly balanced and more luck-dependent or 'braindead'
- Difficulty: some call it much easier than Slay the Spire and relaxing, others call high Covenants punishing and unfun
- Art direction and music: praised as slick and upbeat by some, called dated, ugly or only serviceable by others
- Whether to buy the original or go straight to Monster Train 2, which many see as strictly better for the same price
Repetition and friction
- Unlocking all clans, cards and Covenant levels means replaying the same handful of stages many times, and some reviewers describe it as more grind than strategy
- Low Covenant ranks are seen as too easy, and reaching meaningful difficulty takes 15-20 runs
- Late-game balance feels restrictive: players can sense at the start of a run whether it is doomed, and failing is less fun than in Slay the Spire
- Repetitive encounters and bloated card mechanics make runs feel samey after the first dozens of hours
- Weak narrative, so there is little story motivation between runs
- Drafted cards often feel only marginally better than the starter cards, so some players feel drafting choices matter little and the meta-progression is outrageously long
Hoped-for improvements
- Add more enemy types and bosses (Metacritic users and critics such as Softpedia asked for more boss variety)
- Fine-tune Covenant scaling and clan balance at the top ranks so more cards and clan combinations stay viable
- Reduce or streamline the unlock grind, since factions and content are gated behind repeated runs of the same short campaign
- Give players more ways to reduce variance (starting-hand or loadout options) rather than rerolling setups
- Lengthen or deepen the drafting phase so deck building feels less rushed
- Fix the persistent startup crash and improve Steam Deck and other platform stability
Launched May 2020 to strong reviews (IGN 9/10, Game Informer 9/10, Rock Paper Shotgun called it possibly the best deckbuilder since Slay the Spire; Northernlion dubbed it 2020's best deckbuilder) and was nominated for IGN Best Strategy/Tactics and a D.I.C.E. strategy/simulation award. Ported to Xbox One (Dec 2020), Switch (Aug 2021, later the First Class complete edition), iOS (Oct 2022) and PS5 (July 2024). Post-launch free updates include Friends & Foes (champions, bosses, run records), Wild Mutations (35 mutators) and Herzal's Workshop (Steam Workshop mods); paid DLC is The Last Divinity. Steam's all-time rating stays around 96% but the recent 30-day sample was 88% (small sample), partly reflecting negative reviews urging buyers toward Monster Train 2 (released May 21, 2025). Steam shows Windows only. Revenue estimate is approximate: steam-revenue-calculator.com estimates about $23.6M gross and $7.0M net on Steam (Boxleiter-style estimate, not audited), and SteamSpy lists 500k-1M owners. OpenCritic could not be retrieved (search budget exhausted and the page was not located), so opencritic is null.
Community sources
- Top helpful positive and negative English Steam reviews (local file) ↗
- Local Steam metadata: review counts, SteamSpy owners, Metacritic 86, revenue estimate ↗
- Steam store page: review summary, DLC, critic quotes, update list ↗
- Metacritic Metascore 86, 27 critic reviews, user score 7.9, outlet snippets ↗
- Metacritic user review themes: limited enemies, easy low Covenants, weak narrative ↗
- Wikipedia: IGN 9/10, Screen Rant 4/5, awards nominations, platforms and release dates ↗
- Steam community discussion themes: crashes, balance, DLC bugs, localization ↗
- Estimated gross/net revenue (approximate, Boxleiter method) ↗
Archived creator commentary 1
Third-party summaries based on automatic captions may contain transcription or interpretation errors.
Tier list Part 1 (2023)
Monster Train is a deck-building roguelike set on a three-floor train, where you manage three separate boards at once. He calls the gameplay amazing, with one of the largest pools of possible builds thanks to faction and champion choices. He admits it can overwhelm people new to deck builders and that it is challenging. He has played it a lot, loves the art and soundtrack, and ranks it high A, possibly S.
What the creator praises
- Huge variety of builds and decks, possibly the biggest roster of builds in the genre
- Pick a main faction with its own champion (two per faction), then a secondary faction, so every run starts differently
- Replayability: he says it never gets old
- Challenging gameplay
- Phenomenal art style
- Great soundtrack
Issues raised by the creator
- Managing three levels at once can feel overwhelming, especially for newcomers to deck builders
- Not suited to people who don't know deck-building games
- Animations are pretty basic (he corrects himself to say the art style is what shines)
Design observations
- The three-level train means you manage three boards simultaneously, placing minions on different floors
- Main plus secondary faction pairing changes the run completely from the start
