Ancient Enemy

When I reviewed Regency Solitaire back in 2015, I thought it was a fun and fresh new take on the 250-year-old card game. Little did I know that a quiet time-waster inspired by the writings of Jane Austen would ultimately lead to Shadowhand, a 2017 swashbuckling follow-up of sorts filled with adventure, intrigue and, let's be honest, one of the sexiest heroes in video game history. Now, the developer behind those two titles is back with their best game yet. Ancient Enemy takes everything that I already love about this brand of solitaire and turns it into the card-collecting role-playing game I never knew I wanted.

This is the harrowing story of a man known only as the Mage, who wakes up from a long sleep to discover that the war between good and evil was over, and the bad guys won. Cities have fallen into ruin, roads overrun by nature and there isn't a single sign of civilization anywhere to be seen. Knowing that he already failed his people before, the Mage sets off on a lengthy journey to regain the distant powers that he once wielded and defeat his ancient enemy.

It sounds glib to say that he does this by playing solitaire, but that's kind of the truth. Similar to Shadowhand, the gameplay revolves around clearing cards by counting either up or down. The basics are surprisingly simple; if you draw a three, then you're looking for either a two or four. You won't have to worry about suits or anything else, because the idea is to keep counting up or down until you either clear the board or need to draw a new card.

As the Mage travels across the hostile fantasy world, he'll get into a number of one-on-one fights that mix this solitaire mechanic with card-battler tactics. The idea is to take three different cards into a fight, including one that is a melee attack, one that summons magic and a final defensive card. Clearing the table and creating long combos will simultaneously activate these cards and make each attack more powerful, so there's an incentive to continue eliminating cards as long as you possibly can.

Of course, it's not as simple as it sounds. On top of stabbing enemies with your sword and casting fire spells, our hero will need to pay close attention to not only what's in the opponent's hand, but also what attacks it is resistant to. A lot of the game comes down to choosing the right cards for each battle, which will make you rethink some of your strategies. If you see that a foe uses nothing but melee cards and is able to deflect fire damage, then you'll want to bring in some sort of defense card against physical damage and a trusty ice spell. The battles have a puzzle game element to them, forcing you to defend, counter and outthink a wide range of ghoulish monsters.

On top of choosing the right cards and knowing when to play them, you'll also be able to equip multiple passive and active abilities that will make solving the solitaire portion of the game a whole lot easier. For example, one of my go-to cards will completely reshuffle the board, while another one will randomly erase two different cards. There are also single-use items cards you can add to your hand, giving the Mage the ability to throw grenades and use healing potions. There's an impressive mix of cards you can find from defeating bad guys and exploring the post-apocalyptic wilderness.

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That brings me to the other half of this game, which involves the more traditional puzzle levels. It's here where we ditch the magic and fighting in favor of uncovering new cards and items. The goal of these stages is to clear the board using a handful of cards and little else. This is a nice diversion from the combat levels, though are nowhere near as exciting. Still, even if I prefer the one-on-one battles, I still went out of my way to go down every path and dead end in order to collect everything the game had to offer.

As I mentioned at the top, this is my favorite of Grey Alien's solitaire series. A lot of this comes down to the combat, which has been smartly honed and perfected after Shadowhand. You can see the evolution of the formula from one game to the next, and that experience has led to a more refined and well-rounded game. I have to hand it to the developer for constantly finding a way to innovate on the theme and come at solitaire with a fresh new take. It makes me wonder if they'll even be able to top themselves.

That said, I do have a few criticisms of Ancient Enemy. For one thing, I found the story to be far less interesting than what was in Shadowhand. I think part of the problem is that the Mage isn't nearly as fun of a character, and his one-man adventure means that he's mostly only talking to monsters that want to kill him. There's a general repetition to the narrative that left me a little cold, which may be why the final battle with the titular ancient enemy felt so anticlimactic.

I also found this new installment to be a bit too easy. There's a slight learning curve in the beginning, but once I got over that hump, I found that a lot of the enemies to be pushovers on the default normal difficulty. The disappointing side-effect of this is that I didn't feel the need to experiment with the dozens of cards I collected. Only being able to hold three cards at once meant that I stuck with the same few tried and true favorites from start to finish. I wish there was more incentive to give each card a try.

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On a visual level, Ancient Enemy looks good. I like the enemy designs and world the Mage is exploring. If it sounds like I'm a little disappointed, it may be because I prefer the old-fashioned clothing and architecture found in Shadowhand. That was a game where every location was brimming with details and memorable touches, whereas a lot of the settings in Ancient Enemy can best be described as "open field" or "swamp." That's a little disappointing, but I have a hunch that you won't even notice when you're in the heat of battle. That's when this game is at its best.

Grey Alien has a good thing going with this solitaire RPG series, and Ancient Enemy is their best game yet. While I prefer the storytelling and visuals found in Shadowhand, there's no question that the card-based combat is both exciting and a great fit for this type of game. Clocking in at over ten hours, this is also a lengthy adventure filled with great enemies and tons of cards to collect. I don't know how this developer keeps coming up with so many fresh and unique ways to shake-up solitaire, but I hope they never stop.