At Pax East 2022, I was invited to check out Power Chord. Recently I started playing a lot of deckbuilding strategy card games and dungeon crawlers. When I heard about Power Chord, the game caught my interest especially the Rock & Roll concept. Power Chord is a rogue-like deck-building strategy game developed and published by Big Blue Bubble where players will have to assemble earth’s mightiest musicians, battle legions of demons, and find new ways to improve their card decks.
During the Demo of Power Chord, I was assembling my team. Like any Rock Band, the team consists of a singer, bass, drummer, and guitarist; I assembled a team similar to a dungeon team where the drummer is the tank, Singer is the support, Guitarist is the attacker, and the Bass is the debuffer. Each character has its own unique abilities. The drummer helps guard allies and tanks damage. The bassist inflicts AOE damage to enemies and can apply debuffs lowering their armor or damage dealt. The guitarist is similar to a Warrior, as he takes damage either to his armor or health, he gains a Rage buff dealing additional damage. Finally, the vocalist can either buff and amplify an ally’s abilities or deal damage to enemies while at the same time stealing health from enemies.
The final game will have multiple characters in each class, with different variations based on their skillset based on what the developers mentioned but didn’t go into any specific details.
Power Chord Combat
While playing Power Chord for the first couple of battles, I played cautiously to better understand the game. Power Chord is a turn-based game, and it took a couple of battles to understand each of the character’s capabilities and the card battle system. Each card is color-coordinated to the band member that can use the ability. Each round the player can only use cards equal to the amount of lighting power they have on the side. In Power Chord, you have to think ahead with each turn to plan your attack. Do I go concentrate all my attacks on a single enemy? Should I focus on buffing my characters? Every battle is different, depending on what cards I have available and what kind of enemies I will be facing.
Each battle features specific objectives. There are times when you face enemies who can be tough and with that sometimes you will be unprepared; good thing I had help from the developers when I had to face them. Understanding and researching your enemies by rotating them rather than randomly attacking any enemies. I was mainly focusing on defensive cards, improving armor and shields, and targeting one enemy at a time, especially if they were a special enemy. One card I often played is “Relentless Onslaught” because this card is like a Rage Attack card and if I used it at the right time, I could take out an enemy in one turn.
Pathing
The path you take in Power Chord can lead to epic rewards or even more battles, intense battles, however the harder the battles the better the rewards. For a player, it is your choice if you want to take the safer or more dangerous route. While the full plot of the game hasn’t been revealed yet, throughout the demo there were hints about the different environments as we traveled deeper into the world of Power Chord.
As you progress through the game you will be able to unlock more cards and get rewards to purchase items from the shops. From the demo, combat appeared fair and easy to understand. Hopefully, as you progress through the game, the difficulty will increase.
Impressions
While the game does focus on a rock-themed genre, I enjoy the card battle system that makes you think to win each battle. I did enjoy the variety of cards, I just wish that there were cards that can affect the battle environment (Smokescreen, Spotlight, Different Music). This is something that would be a cool idea for the developers to think about, focusing on the card deck building theme. Where the game is currently at, I enjoyed every minute of the demo that I played and I would play it over and over to see the different outcomes from each path I could take in Power Chord.
What I am curious about above all is the story? Where do these demons come from and the backstory behind the characters? Power Chord is not just another Indie game; it is a game that is going to be loved by many players including myself.
Power Chord will be out on Steam and Switch later this year. A demo of Power Chord is currently available to download on Steam. You can also check out Power Chord Twitter to keep up to date with news.
