Nadir: A Grimdark Deckbuilder Review: Deeper and Deeper Into the Inferno

As someone that’s played a lot of deckbuilders in my days, it says something that Nadir: A Grimdark Deckbuilder is utterly unlike anything I’ve played before. Not only does it feature a stunning aesthetic that’s reminiscent of both Dante’s Inferno and pulpy comic books, but it also has a combat system that’s refreshingly unique. Which initially made me think I’d have an amazing time with the game. Sadly, as this Nadir review will quickly establish, too many technical and design issues held it back for that to be the case.

Red vs. Blue

First, let’s cover how Nadir actually plays. You have a deck of cards, and will gradually accumulate more as you play. Each card is split down the middle, leaving a red and blue half. Each opponent will always have three cards visible on screen, and those are how you activate your own cards. Unlike your cards, those played by your opponent are only one color. You essentially use them as energy to power your own abilities, which are listed on the cards in your hand.

Get ahead with… a head?

Some cards only cost one red or blue energy, many cost two, and the hardest to use cost three. Further complicating things, each of your opponent’s cards has a circular nodes called Charges. Once an opponent’s card is fully charged, it will activate, and then that card flips over to reveal the opposite color. There’s also a mechanic where you can redraw your hand, tossing everything you have and flipping each of your opponent’s cards. Just keep in mind, each foe has different redraw reactions that trigger each time you do so. This is the crux of how Nadir is played. It’s complex, but it works surprisingly well. The amazing thing is it’s essentially you playing against yourself, in a weird way.

Don’t Call Them Heroes

Further mixing things up, there are three playable characters in Nadir, each with a unique combat style. You start with Jeanne (as in ‘of Arc’), then can unlock Vlad Tepes and Hernan Cortez. Each of them is working their way through Hell, and represent a particular Sin. Jeanne, who represents Pride, is an iron wall. She starts each turn with a set amount of armor, and can easily gain more, occasionally swiping foes with powerful, high-energy attacks. Vlad Tepes, known for his Lust-y vampirism, heals by damaging enemies and can also enhance his own Rage, which boosts his damage modifier. Also, since he’s a vampire, he’s pretty good at making things bleed. I’d love to touch on Hernan Cortez (team Greed), but alas, I haven’t been able to unlock him yet.

Structural Integrity

Unlocking content in the game requires resources that are found in runs. While it’s better to get them by defeating standard and Elite foes, you’ll get a little even if you die in combat. At first, you can only find specific resources, but by unlocking other Sins and foe types, you’ll have access to more. The first Sin is Gluttony, represented by Beelzebub, but there’s also Wrath, Lust, and Greed. And no, I’m not sure what happened to Envy and Sloth either. Resources fall into several camps. The most common are Soulshards, also used to buy items from the shop. But there’s also Filth, Relics, and more. Besides unlocking playable characters, you can also unlock additional cards unique to each character, as well as facilities that improve your chance for success. Early on, you’ll be forced to unlock one that heals 10 HP every time you dive deeper into a dungeon, which is absolutely essential.

Your Constant Friend, Death

Even after playing Nadir for several hours, it never gets easy. It’s very possible to lose in battle to lower-class demons if you’re not playing your cards well, or even if you get unlucky with your draw. Elite foes require all your attention and more, and have some truly nasty tricks up their sleeves. There are a lot of status effects that come into play, including two that cause you to constantly lose health. My least favorite is Bleed, which cuts through your Armor and damages you every turn. There’s also Decay. It’s not as bad if you’re really careful, but if you’re not, it can wallop you. It adds extra damage to your total every time you take damage from attacks. There are also Shields that block all damage from one attack, as well as Breaking attacks that cut through them, and Piercing that ignores Armor entirely. Point being, there’s a lot of complexity that keeps you constantly guessing as you explore Hell.

One saving grace was Delay and Stealth effects. Delay applies various positive effects when you redraw. Meanwhile, Stealth let you activate them without triggering enemy Charges, which can be a true lifesaver. Unfortunately, both effects are few and far between. One run, I was surviving only because Jeanne had a Delay ability that healed her every time she redrew. Another time I got lucky with Vlad and could spawn multiple Bite cards that healed him enormously. To balance these out, there are some negative effects enemies can saddle you with. Cards that don’t go away until you play them, and which cost you health or inflict a negative status when played.

Hellish Difficulty

Honestly, I would be fine with Nadir if that was all. But the game was incredibly unbalanced in one key area – the boss battles. Beelzebub loves to layer negative status effects on you on a regular basis, even weakening your characters so much that they can only inflict minimal damage each turn. I tried my luck against Abaddon, who starts weak but gets progressively stronger the more damage he takes, and who can easily one-shot you after a few turns. And let me stress that I didn’t try beating these bosses once or twice. I probably tried a couple of dozen times in my several hours with the game and still haven’t had any luck, which brings me to my next issue with Nadir – technical problems.

Help is hard to come by in Hell.

Early on, I noticed one odd quirk. Resources looked different on the building screen than they do everywhere else. For example, one resource looks like a bundle of bananas on one, and like barbed wire-wrapped gibberish on another. Worse than that, however, was the game indicating I had enough resources to build a facility called the Throne of Want, yet being inexplicably unable to unlock it. This Throne is how you upgrade your characters further in each run, and is probably the determining factor in my inability to get farther in the game. I also had one really odd issue where, after unlocking and playing a run with Vlad Tepes, suddenly, the game told me he was locked again, and that I had to rebuild his facility. I repeatedly tried to make sense of this and then stumbled onto fixing it by turning my Switch off and on again. Besides that, there are a couple of other annoyances. Moving the cursor around can be a hassle, and sometimes it’s unclear where it is. It’s also irritating that the redraw symbol often blocks cards, preventing me from fully reading what my own cards do during battle.

Beautiful Dystopia

Visually, I really enjoy Nadir. I’m a pretty big comic book fan, and I love the dark, edgy nature of everything here. There are lots of really interesting demons you’ll face, each which gesticulates and swipes at you with every attack. Special shout out to the critical attacks, where both your character and their opponent rush across the screen in dramatic fashion. I also like how the color choice is simple but not boring, with lots of black, white, and yellows to contrast the blue and red cards. Musically, Nadir isn’t quite so impressive. There’s a general sense of dread it conveys, but not really much of interest otherwise.

Abandon All Hope…

I really wanted to rave about how great Nadir: A Grimdark Deckbuilder was. Unfortunately, while there are some genuinely noteworthy elements in the game, such as the unique combat and striking visual style, it’s ultimately held back by some problematic issues. The game is quite unbalanced in its current state, and the developers desperately need to fix some pretty glaring glitches. Until that happens, it’s hard to fully recommend.

Final Verdict: 2.5/5

Available on: Switch (reviewed), PC; Publisher: Crunching Koalas; Developer: Black Eye Games; Players: 1; Released: February 7, 2023; ESRB: Everyone 10+ – Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood; MSRP: $19.99

Editor’s note: The publisher provided a review copy to Hey Poor Player.