One Step From Eden

One Step From Eden is really one of those games that I'm playing currently, but can't put down. Every run gets me closer to the end and every strategy seems viable. This game is taking heavy inspiration from the Mega-Man Battle Network series which I was personally never a big fan of, so take that how you will. 
The battle system revolves around cards used to cast spells that do a variety of things. The grid-like movement system lends itself to some creative spell design. Some of them change the land within the grid and place structures on the field for either good or bad to the player. However, a lot of them are "projectile in a straight line forward" type moves that have different effects to them either by doing damage or giving them (or yourself) a status effect. These effects might be a little overwhelming to newer players. This is due to how the system's in place are meant to reward players that chose cards that have good synergy rather than players who get the stronger looking cards. Using flow or trinity correctly will result in much stronger spells being cast. This is something I honestly ignored in my first few playthrough's and opted to go for a standard burn or frost approach. That being said, Frost and burn work slightly different than most games and I really like how they were implemented. A complaint I do have on the card system is just how random it feels at times and how many times, the drops aren't as desired. The randomness is lowered through the 2 class system the game gives where you can choose up to two classes to have a higher chance of cards drop from that class. While I will always applaud the randomness of any game being lowered, I often found myself getting card drops that I had no real use for in the deck I was building or item drops that were too late in the game to be useful (such as the ones where saving hostages gives stat boosts).
The fights are very interesting to play out every round with certain challenges being presented that sometimes reward you. There can be rounds where a structure must be destroyed before it starts unleashing random attacks and showers the field with shots all while still being attacked by the standard enemies. Another type of round is where you can have a structure that should not be destroyed or attacked. These structures will either release a challenging enemy if destroyed or do heavy damage on the player. These were some of the better standard fights because it forced the player use precise attacks over mindlessly using spells for damage (which really was my initial strategy that only got me so far). The fights overall felt fun and were great to end without taking damage. However, there is nothing more disappointing in a match than having full or near full health and one of the hostages with health drops. 
With the exception of about 2, the boss matches seem very different and unique from one another. There were two fights that always stood out to me and I enjoyed enough to not play the characters just to be able to fight them. One fight involves precise movement against dodging projectiles in limited terrain that is constantly breaking, while another has you dancing throughout the fight forcing you to plan your attacks accordingly so there is a lot of creatively designed battles. But then theres the the matches which honestly play out the same. These fights are essentially dodging projectiles that get shot in a line and a quick slash attack by the boss rushing at you. One fight that is more interesting due to how its played is against Saffron (the first character you play as) when you play as a different character. The fight is interesting in that she uses many of the different spells that you would normally use in a standard run compared to how most characters have their unique moveset (you can use their moves as well, but they are still their own moves). It's cool to see her throw knives and random glimmer attacks after you used them constantly before. I can't honestly talk too much about the final gate and boss due to the fact that I barely beat them and still have trouble in those sections to give an unbiased opinion.
The soundtrack is there to do its purpose and there isn't much to be said about it beyond a few tracks that stand out. Violette's theme is the track that stands out the most in the game and matches the fight perfectly with the respective character and definitely one of the tracks I would listen to outside the game. The rest of the tracks blended in with the setting they were used in and truly helped with the atmosphere, but nothing I would personally add to my game's playlist.
Overall, the game is extremely fun with some depth to be explored. I know I have barely scratched the surface with spell combinations and strategies. The best way I could describe this game is that it is hard to learn but extremely satisfying to master.