While I would normally start by bemoaning yet another roguelike deckbuilder of sorts in the eShop, in the case of Montabi I believe it has done enough work to save it from being lumped in with what has become quite a large pack out there. Yes, during combat in the game you will be using cards to manage your attacks, buffs, and other strategies anyone who knows the genre should be familiar with. That said, when you are engaging in said combat within a grid-like arena, where positioning is as important as the cards you’re using, and which types of cards you have are tied to your collection of some oddball creatures that are trying very hard not to be too much like Pokemon, it points to a very different experience than you’re likely used to.

Throwing all of that together, it may be a challenge at first for people who enjoy or are familiar with any one of those styles of gameplay to grasp the rest. The battlefield is tactical, with you needing to manage yourself and your critters, and the nuances of that can be tough at first since you have limited choices for moving around. Given that your enemies will telegraph where they’ll be attacking, it’s absolutely critical that you take action to either get out of the way, or perhaps move them around to wreck their intended attack. But then given this is a roguelike, your goal won’t be to collect everything, you’ll instead start with your initial creature and you’ll then need to try to be selective about what others to add when you’re given the chance to try to set up some synergies if possible. Doing that will take a little time though, if nothing else just to get a chance to wrap your arms around how each of them plays tactically, since there’s some very different styles out there.

What’s impressive is that this amalgamation of so many different concepts and styles of play works at all, especially since it’s the first game I’ve played that has attempted it. For it all being newly mashed together into one package, it’s surprising how balanced everything feels, even if perhaps not always well-explained. The challenge here will be that you’ve got fans of 3 pretty different styles of strategic play out there, but the question is whether or not this hybrid that has new ideas from different areas will then manage to draw people out of their normal comfort zones. I can’t fault the game at all for trying something new, especially when they have done it pretty well, but I’m very curious to see how strategy fans will respond to something this daringly different.