The question you're all thinking is: "What does Chrono Ark offer that other games in this genre don't?"

Let me break it down:
- A cast of characters that initially seem shallow and archetypal but rapidly drag you in with narrative arcs that are easy to get emotionally invested in - which given that there are 16 or so characters is honestly pretty impressive.
- Unique mechanics for each character that lend themselves to be used in a variety of ways. You can play a beatstick character as a DoT, a DoT character can be a healer, a healer can use her baseball bat to smite enemies like the fist of an angry god, and all can synergize in ways that you might not expect. No matter what there's enough RNG mitigation (and free deletion of cards from your deck) that you will always end up with the build you want, with only a handful of exceptions due to extreme rarity. Alas, sometimes the stars do not align.
- A surprisingly compelling narrative. Not gonna lie when I first played the game I skipped the intro, fast forwarded through chunks of it, until I started encountering dialogue and cutscenes that got me curious. Then I started over again, from scratch, and while some of the early stuff is a bit dry they kept finding new ways to intrigue me as the campaign progressed, with new developments, twists, and reveals until it finally reaches a climactic finale.
- The music... goes surprisingly hard at times. I usually don't pay attention to the audio in games like these but even lowered in the background I ended up muting other stuff just so I could listen to it. It's subjective, ofc, but it's impressive one the less.
- Pluck. Okay, so maybe this one isn't so tangible, but basically it's pretty clear that they were working with a fairly limited budget - I mean obviously there's no hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into a neat indie game - but they make that money work. Whether it be animatics, simple 3d backgrounds or even little text comments during a fight there's always something charming going on. Something a little "extra" stuffed into every element of the game. As a result you just want to help the developers because they clearly knew what they were doing, at least with the main game.
- Mechanics that force you to adjust your plans. In a lot of these games you just sort of... have the same goal every time you run into a fight. Get max stacks, do a turbo hit, etc. That stuff is still in Chrono Ark, but the bosses and even some regular enemies often interfere with certain tactics so you'll often find yourself having to adapt to situations where your typical strategy might dramatically backfire.
- When you die you aren't necessarily dead. Basically we're going on Darkest Dungeon rules where once you hit the end of your HP you go into negatives and every time you're hit you have a chance to go down. Healers can heal you out of that and get you back up and running, but it also means that sometimes you just get lucky and dodge an incoming attack that should kill you, or have a resilient tank who has just soaked like five deathblows in a row and still isn't giving up. It adds an interesting dynamic to the fight where HP isn't just a hard line - it's a flexible one that sometimes works in your favour.

Now, that's just the stuff that makes it stand out from its competitors. In addition to that it has solid, satisfying combat, extensive lists of cards, relics, and equipment that do everything from making DoT turn into burst damage to making it so you accumulate crit chance/damage and crit chance against you with every attack you make until unleashing it all in one terrifying strike. Sure, mostly it's less awesome stuff, but it's nice that the awesome stuff is there. There are also items that, well, you're going to inevitably learn to use if you want to survive the endgame. Even though your characters can usually heal/use status effects/etc., during a fight, sometimes you need to use an item to have what you need right now rather than waiting to draw it.

So, all that gushing aside, what's the negative?
Well... The DLC.
For how polished and great the core game is - and how much the DLC does add some neat cards and effects - it feels like they haven't quite figured out what they want to do with DLC and sort of extending the life of the game. For the most part the DLC adds relics, new Lucy cards and new animations, along with a new boss that... well, honestly isn't very fun (Beach DLC). I feel like they'd be better served creating a new character, adding new cards to existing characters, adding levels that can replace existing ones (so instead of the carnival you head to, I don't know, a ruined city or something with its own enemies/bosses), and stuff like that. Adding a swimsuit flair to the existing game isn't as fun as actually adding new content to the runs themselves - much as I do love the sex appeal. That said DLC is also entirely optional so it's up to you whether the content is worth buying so that's not really a negative if you just want to enjoy the main game.
- Pressel is spooky AF. I may love her but she's got big serial killer vibes. Lady needs to chill.

All in all Chrono Ark is one of the highest quality games in this niche subgenre of ours and it's clearly got a fair bit of passion put into it. If it looks even remotely interesting I'd strongly recommend giving it a shot.

Absolutly outstanding card/rpg-roguelite. Uses a lot of cool mechanics not often seen in your typical SlayTheSpireButNotReally#1249 (Death door, big focus on in-combat healing, full hand retain) and mixes them with some amazing boss and encounter design (which feel less like common build-checks and more like some intricate older Megaten fights). Despite the simplicity of the RPG mechanics the overall game captures a mix of satisfying in-run progression and climactic and complex "70 hours into an epic saga"-type bosses that make your blood pump even after you've beaten them many times.

As far as metaprogression goes the game has a typical get credits for killing bosses->unlock stuff at shops loop with some unlocks being gated behind achievements/challenge modes/story progression. Not a bad system but will deffinately take quite a few runs to unlock everything (is is a plus or minus - deppends on personal prefference).

The soundtrack is goated. Studio EIM just can't stop making bangers.

As far as story goes it certainly is a big part of the game. I am quite biased in my love for time loop plots, so i can't really critique it in a way that wouldn't just sound like fanboying (even more so than everything mentioned above). The good news is that cutscenes and dialogues are skippable and mandatory story progression does not require anything beyond just clearing the game (which is what you'd be doing anyway), so anyone who couldn't care less for the story can play it without needing to trudge through a visual novel (tho i still do recommend it a lot). On the other hand if you mostly wanna expirience the story the game does feature an easy mode that let's you respawn at floor start after dying (tho i can't really vouch for how much easier it makes the game).

My main issues with the game are all pretty minor:
A typical run usually takes about 3 hours (without rushing nor afking) which is on the longer side compared to other games in the genre and a bit too long for a single session.
The balancing is not perfect (a character is slightly underpowered here - a boss is somewhat overtuned there).
The artstyle is a bit bland and the game doesn't visually stand out in your memory (the chibi card-art is really cute tho)
Somehow drains laptop battery like it's Cyberpunk on max settings (not sure if it even applies to other people/steam deck users).

Overall this is an amasing roguelite with great gameplay and design, plenty of content and some banging soundtrack and story. A real must try if you like StS-likes or older (-ae Nocturne era SMT) JRPGS or ambitious indie korean story-focused takes on turn-based gameplay (you ow it to yourself to play this if you liked Library of Ruina)

[This review has been abriged for steam, but I think I managed to convey what I wanted.]

I’ve been thinking about Chrono Ark.

Or perhaps it would be more apt to say I’ve been thinking about why I’ve been thinking so much about Chrono Ark. A game that appears not only unnoteworthy in the gaming landscape at large, but even among its genre siblings seems to do little to stand out.

Is Slay the Spire the better game? Absolutely.
Have I spent more time playing Chrono Ark? Yes.
Why? I don’t rightly know—but let’s try to break it down.

Chrono Ark is a roguelike deckbuilder. Your deck is sourced from 5 different card pools. Card pool 1-4 is decided by the characters in your party. The 5th is your “card draw” skills—your main character’s. As you go through the game you acquire new cards for your different characters to craft a cohesive deck. You then utilize your increasingly optimized deck to defeat some bad guys, explode some bosses and finally beat your run.

The most interesting aspect of Chrono Ark’s deckbuilding is the necessity to synergize your deck across multiple characters. Every character belongs to one out of three roles, and are all equipped with a unique passive ability. This design goes a long way in helping to incentivize experimentation between the ability of one character with cards from another. What can be a boring card in one composition can be a complete game changer in another. This also means that the strategy of choice for each character depends less on what is “the best” and more on what is “the most fitting”.

In a way, however, this is also a weakness. Due to the large cast of characters, each individual card pool is relatively limited. This means that, on a per-character basis, the player’s skill expression becomes rather limited. Each character only has about two viable strategies to choose between—and the strategies are heavily reliant on the rare skill you acquire. It also means the act of acquiring new cards can be relatively unexciting. You either get one of the cards that support your strategy, or you don’t.

The card design itself is fun, if somewhat bloated with keywords and qualifiers. This is only somewhat true for the player’s own cards, but extremely obvious when dealing with enemy abilities. You will not get through a single boss in this game without properly reading every single line of text on every single ability. There is also very little reuse when it comes to mechanics between bosses and different enemies. This is as tiring as it is fun—which is to say it can be both, to a variable degree. To a tired or distracted mind, this can be irritating, but when you actively engage with it, it can be extremely fun to figure out. Some fights stand out above others, and the last boss especially stands out in both complexity and mechanical ingenuity.

Completing a run of Chrono Ark can be a rather cumbersome mission. Not only are the runs themselves relatively lengthy, but traversing the map and interacting with the game feels overly finicky. Rather than moving through the encounters with the click of a mouse, you have to physically traverse each map by trudging through the environment. Picking up items, unlocking chests, resting by the campfire etc. all takes more effort than it should. Traversal is even further bogged down by the need to be on the lookout for the rare skill book—of which a run (usually) contains only 2.

On a micro level Chrono Ark appears sparse, but on a macro level it is becomes surprisingly rich.

I won’t go too much into the story itself. Mostly because much of it is driven by plot or character reveals and partly because it is an affair all too familiar.

The concept is thus: the world has gone to ♥♥♥♥ and humanity has found reprieve inside a virtual world—the titular ‘ark’. Simple enough. Been there done that, right? Weeeell, yes and no. The concept itself is undoubtedly unoriginal—but again, what isn’t? The characters too are derivative for the most part. But the story’s strength lies not so much in the character writing or plot, but the concepts it handles. A lot of thought has obviously been put into the mechanics of the world and setting. This fact overshadows much of the shady writing and does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to engaging the player. So while I was never properly invested in the story or character drama, I was never distracted by contrivances or leaps of logic. It would be an easy task to either disassociate the gameplay from the story altogether, or contrive needless explanations for quirks of the gameplay, but Chrono Ark manages to navigate this minefield seamlessly.

While the story does overstay its welcome at parts, I never think it does anything to turn the player away from it. It simply makes sense. The world and the game you play within that world, that is. Though you are given ample reason to critique the writing, you are given little reason to question its logic. The text is boring, but not missguided. It always puts into the right place the right piece. Characters wax on about their woes in paragraph after paragraph, yet at the end, they manage through some effort to pull the story along to its conclusion. There is some unneeded strain put on certain parts of the plot, but the ideas it puts forth are coherent and worthwhile. The last reveal of the game also presents some nice food for thought—perhaps not wholly through the merit of its writing, but simply because the game marries the bridge between story and gameplay as well as it does.

The story’s strength comes from its genuinity and thoughtfulness. Whereas its weaknesses shows in its prose and delivery.

Chrono Ark looks uninspiring. There are no ifs and buts about it. This stands true for the main characters, the supporting cast, the enemies, bosses, and the environment. The art is not unpolished, however, and the game is sprinkled with enough flair that it does not become all-out boring.

The game looks as uninspiring as the character are written. The UI too suffers this ailment. Drab—that’s the word I’d use to describe it. When fighting an enemy, the interface is clear enough as to not present any problems, but the same cannot be said for navigating your inventory or other menus. Nothing is as easy as it should be. Be it equipping gear in a certain slot, or using an item in a specific way. Sometimes the outcome of an act is unclear before it is too late, other times it is just needlessly complex to perform a simple task.

The music, on the other hand, is great. For normal encounters and while exploring the map, it is unobtrusive but atmospheric. It is during boss fights and certain story beats that it really shines. Every area boss and every major scene in the story comes with a score that is either an ear-worm, or a straight up banger. Again, I feel the need to put extra emphasis on the story’s final boss fight which is amplified 1000x times by the score accompanying it.

Despite the development team's small size, and the game’s obviously limited budget, Chrono Ark has a surprising amount of CG to go with the story, as well as some nice animations for the character’s rare skills.

Chrono Ark is a strange mix of overly simplistic, yet overly convoluted. The story is a massive part of the game considering its genre. Though not always well written, it is heartfelt and interesting. The aesthetic is dull, but strangely effective at just the right times. The last boss of the story is probably the peak of what this genre has to offer, yet getting there can be a chore sometimes.

Chrono Ark is not in any of my list of best games, and I would recommend it to others only with certain qualifiers. Yet, I’ve been thinking about this game a whole lot.

If this is AlFine’s first foray into the gaming industry, I cannot wait to see what their next game will deliver.