The Amazing American Circus

About the Game:

This is a very fun game. If you love the circus, you’ll love The Amazing t American Circus Video Game, but if you don’t, it’s a very entertaining and enjoyable fusion of genres: Think Slay the Spire Banner Saga.

The basic gameplay is an inspiring theme of spire-Esque deckbuilding and card-based combat, instead of just fighting monsters you are trying to impress the opposing audience. In each battle, you choose three artists, each with cards in their hand that go to your deck, and can be upgraded between actions. These cards are either a “crime” affecting the audience, or ignoring the “defense” hackers causing your artists to lose focus, or utility, which affects your other influences. Are doing

This allows for a suitable place for combos and gameplay which can be difficult if you have not built your deck and artist skills in the artist tent. It’s very satisfying once you do, and especially once you find some more powerful artists (like Counting, Safe Cracking Chicken).

The good

• The atmosphere is great. The graphics are lovely, the music is awesome, and the voice actors are good enough. The story adds to all of that with crazy and very creative quests (distracting someone, and using a chicken to open a safe that will end in a “battle”, etc.). The story in general is a bit thin but interesting enough. The characters in the story are a bit crazy as if you imagine them working in a circus this time.
• Though it takes some time to get used to the battles, once you get involved they are fun enough to keep you on your toes.
• Difficulty feels good for the most part. Not that you’re going to lose much, but it’s not as easy as taking a walk in the park.
• There is a lot of content in the game. Different enemies, artists, possibilities of what to do, and missions. The only thing they could add is more cards per artist, but overall this isn’t a big deal.

The bad

• The beginning is a bit rough and you will need a bit to get into it. Especially the battles are not for beginners in my opinion. They’re not exactly complicated, but because it works a little differently than most deck builders and the keywords are so different, you’ll have to get used to it. Add to that, the tutorial isn’t exactly for beginners either and you’ll be overwhelmed at first when right after the first show you’ll unlock like 10 tents where you can do different things and only a few text boxes explain it to you.
• Leveling up characters doesn’t change much. You cannot change their playstyle in any way. Each character has a playstyle (mostly defensive cards, attacks, a mechanic only they can use, etc.), and leveling them up gives you a new card or upgrades to an existing card. Updates are very small and new cards are very rare. Through says “new” card, you will mostly get a card that you already have. Three characters I leveled up had the option to add a duplicate card to their deck. I have yet to see a new card and I have leveled up 7 times in total.
• Characters don’t get much stronger as they level up. There are no stats to boost. The only chance to make them stronger is by upgrading their cards and as I said, these upgrades are very small.
• It feels unfinished. To give some examples: some names are not finished yet (_name_artist_ or something like that), card animations fail, are missing or there are translation errors, very small texts with a different font and some voice lines sound quite bad in comparison with the others.

The Amazing American Circus is a fun story-driven deck builder. Try something new, it has an amazing atmosphere and looks beautiful. Overall, it feels very rough around the edges, has its flaws, and takes some getting used to. I had a lot of fun with the game until I got into the “just one more round” phase of addiction that you know from other games. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad game at all even if it looks like it because the list of “bad” things is much longer but the things that are good are very good. You live off the atmosphere and the big idea in general. The execution is a bit flawed and that’s why the game is not a masterpiece.

System Requirements of The Amazing American Circus Game