Shattered Heaven, a promising card-game RPG | Tried

Shattered Heaven

Dark fantasy has always been a genre that has offered books, films and countless television series that have made history, and Shattered Heaven seems to follow this philosophy. In this regard, there is no lack of video games and multifaceted productions, able to surprise and thrill, we can still count and remember many of them today. The Witcher 3, traveling in the northern mountains in Sacred and finding ourselves in Diablo's Hell, unable to imagine ourselves elsewhere. And as we explored its claustrophobic and distressing levels, we were surprised, won and failed, with our journey becoming longer and more difficult. This is where the great stories begin, the ones that really matter, the only ones we hope to live through our favorite passion.

Shattered Heaven, developed by the Italian studio Leonardo Production and published by Leonardo Interactive, is a independent production that we have tried in the last seventy-two hours, exploring an exhaustive tutorial and a first part that pleasantly surprised us, leaving us with excellent sensations and giving us the opportunity to deepen it and discover it with a lot of patience, understanding it and giving it all our attention. But let's proceed in order, from the beginning, since we clicked "New game" and we found ourselves in a realm far and forgotten by time, in turmoil like so many fantasy worlds that need a company of adventurers ready to do anything to free it, even to unmanageable gestures.

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Three warriors, one destiny: as Shattered Heaven tells the fantasy

Meanwhile, let's clarify it: Shattered Heaven does not seem to innovate the genre or propose something different from others similar video games. Yet, in one way or another, it intrigued and intrigued us a lot, making us explore a small slice of history, which we have explored and tried to understand and interpret at best. At the moment we only know that there are three main protagonists, who we played carefully, trying them all. We are talking about an armored warrior armed with a shield, a skilled swordswoman and a sorceress, capable of casting spells of all kinds against the creatures we have had the opportunity to clash with.

Our three heroes, each different as usual, they have names and surnames: there is Magni, the armored warrior with the shield; then there is Ishana the sorceress, and then Andora, a silver-haired warrior with an intriguing charm. Before explaining the gameplay of the game, it is necessary to talk about the context, which seemed excellent and well structured also thanks to the protagonists we got to know during our test.


* Each of them has different ways of approaching dialogues and situations, and each maintains doubts, perplexities and fears. We understood this from the dialogues with a visual novel setting, which we found fitting and apt, as well as a choice that allowed us - as far as we have seen - what is happening. The writing, in this sense, seems to us well structured and interesting, because at the moment it has offered a three hundred and sixty-degree vision of the events, making us better know the characters and the various supporting actors.

We appreciated, moreover, that each protagonist has its own importance within the dynamics of the game, as well as its depth. The Italian team, in fact, seems to have worked carefully to propose a concept and ideas capable of overwhelming the player without going into too much detail, with the risk of ruining something that we can't wait to play in its version. Later, as we explored the behavioral characteristics of each of the heroes, we introduced ourselves to the world and its brutalities, armed with swashbuckles.




The atmospheres do not seem to betray expectations, with a great inspiration for the best known fantastic works and a great way to tell oneself. The Italian team seems to have carefully taken care of the personalization of the characters, so much so as to dedicate doubts, fears and perplexities to them, involving all the primary emotions. The visual novel style could indeed be a winner over the long course of the experience, which we can't wait to play in its entirety.

Interesting gameplay: Shattered Heaven takes nothing for granted

During our test on the game, we came across procedural dungeons that we did not find complex and that entertained us, but to place the new Leonardo Production video game we had to think carefully about our past experiences: Shattered Heaven, in fact , is a roguelike card-game with RPG elements that winks at Slay the Spire and the Voice of Cards series, taking inspiration from Pillars of Eternity, the masterpiece of Obsidian Interactive, which we loved and appreciated around here.

Shattered Heaven seems to follow that epic and engaging style, fitting an enviable personality deeply linked to the progression of the protagonists and the adventur a in its entirety through a playful skeleton that packs an intriguing and crafty production, which we tested with hand for almost two and a half hours, learning a lot from the tutorial and from the first dungeon, which did not turn out to be too complex or articulated as it is happened in the past with other productions.

Earlier we mentioned Slay the Spire and Voice of Cards, and it is fair to reiterate that we are not talking about any video game. Shattered Heaven, while taking inspiration from both works, seems to be able to put his own, consequently refining an already tested but always fun play system. We move our three heroes for a map made up of small hexagons that represent the game setting, in which we have to pay attention to where we put our feet in order not to trigger a sudden trap that could catch us unprepared, to be moved in total safety if the percentage - or rather our ability - allows us to do so.



There may even be an encounter with an old woman in which we have to decide what to do and how to approach the situation, perhaps choosing what to say so as not to get a curse; or, we might meet someone who needs us but hides secrets, and our only chance to help him could be to answer his questions and perplexities correctly.

It is a system that has already been tried in the past by works such as Pillars of Eternity and Voice of Cards and there doesn't seem to be anything new in Shattered Heaven, although we enjoyed the dialogue and its construction within the narrative, which we have already talked about. However, the real beating heart of the video game are the two-dimensional turn-based battles that we cannot back down, being casual and vital while exploring a dungeon. We are on the screen, on the right, while on the left there are the enemies, as fierce as ever. There is a vitality bar, as well as positions useful to heal us and restart the attack, which can make the difference in the most excited moments.

Magni is an armored warrior armed with a heavy shield, which increases the defense to better withstand enemy offensives while Ishana is able to cast curses. And Andora, our favorite, can use two swords capable of slicing the beasts generated from the abyss of the world. Having faced several of them, we can assure you that at the moment the battles seem to have a pressing and enthralling pace, and do not seem at all too complex and intricate, because they are strong in a convincing turn-based structure.



Advancing in the dungeons, in fact, the clashes will become more and more difficult and it will be our concern to prepare properly with potions of all kinds, thus returning from the enemies better prepared, as well as stronger than Before. In the main hub, which is an immense altar, there is also the possibility of crafting objects that are very useful for our survival, dedicating ourselves to other activities, such as buying additional items from a merchant, spending our hard-earned gold in the various procedural dungeons of the production.

A lot of style and a great desire to amaze

In summary, the play structure of Shattered Heaven does not seem to betray its soul at all and focuses on the player and his decisions during the clashes, giving him a freedom of approach that could be his strong point. For sure, we are faced with a respectable Italian production, which takes inspiration from other great video games and lays the foundations to create a united and unparalleled video game, unique but at the same time traditional. We couldn't ask for anything better, in fact, especially in a local landscape that is afraid of experimenting and involving the player, making him a memorable story and gameplay.

On the other hand, that's exactly what he needs, especially in the Italian panorama: of video games with a goal that are able to face the jungle of the market with courage and authorship, but we had already talked about this topic. In addition to this, it is the graphic aspect and the design of the characters that have convinced us: each, in addition to having its own personality, has a detailed design, drawn by hand and inserted in the context in an appropriate way.



It's the style that makes Shattered Heaven strong, which at the moment starts on very solid foundations, but it couldn't be otherwise: it started as a constantly changing Kickstarter project, and we can't wait to have the work at complete to play and deepen in the review. For sure, we couldn't ask for more: an inspired dark fantasy, a compelling play structure and a story to be discovered. What could be better?