Magin: The Rat Project Stories review for PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo, PC

I don’t think I’ve played many games that are as close to being fun and interesting as Magin: The Rat Project Stories without quite making the jump to actually being fun and interesting.

Is that extra-insulting? Probably. But it captures the feelings of frustration that marked my time with Magin: The Rat Project Stories. It’s a deckbuilder that does some interesting things with the genre, but that doesn’t seem to know what to do with them.

Admittedly, a lot of what it does that’s interesting has nothing to do with its gameplay. Unlike a lot of other deckbuilders, Magin: The Rat Project Stories has a fully fleshed-out story. It’s a dark fantasy involving magical hitmen, which is kind of cool, and it’s got plenty of distinctive characters. Given that most other games of this ilk only have a barebones nod towards a narrative, it’s neat to see a game like this really plan out a story.

Likewise – and likely because there’s such an emphasis on narrative – Magin: The Rat Project Stories also has a distinctive look and feel. At times the game feels like a comic come to life, and the environments and characters all have a style that makes you get sucked into the game’s world.

Unfortunately, all it takes is for you to get into one battle and you’ll get dropped right back out of it and be reminded that the game isn’t actually very good.

A big part of the issue, ironically, is that the game’s focus on narrative is kind of at odds with how really great deckbuilders function. Games like Slay the Spire and its imitators work so well and are so addictive because they always offer the promise of one more run: sure your last one may have gone up in flames, but all you need is a little luck and you’ll be flying through the dungeons.

Magin: The Rat Project Stories, by contrast, isn’t a roguelike. Yes, you can choose your path to some extent, but it’s not the kind of game where you can go back to the drawing board when you die and start over again. Instead, you’ll find yourself getting into the same battles over and over again – and every time you do, you’ll have the same deck, and you’ll be battling the same enemies, and they’ll have the same overpowered cards that force you to grind out every single victory. It means that you’ll face enemies who have insane healing cards that help them stay at full health no matter, or enemies who can spam block cards so you can’t get an attack in no matter what, or enemies who have hugely powerful cards that knock off half your health or more with one shot.

To be sure, it’s possible to improve – it just takes forever. You have to grind out your wins and then hope that the card you add to your deck is helpful in some way, because if it’s not, you’re basically stuck with it forever. As intriguing as the narrative is, I’d be lying if I said it was so good that I wouldn’t mind going through the same story over and over again in the hopes of getting a better deck.

But you can almost see a world where Magin: The Rat Project Stories could be that game. It’s got loads of style and a solid story, it’s just that it can’t figure out how to square that with the genre it wants to inhabit.

Daedalic Entertainment provided us with a Magin: The Rat Project Stories PC code for review purposes.