Mahokenshi blends magical combat, deckbuilding, and celestial samurai

Honestly, who needs a deck of regular-shmegular cards, eh? The boom of deck builders has shown us so many wonderful ways to play with cards from Slay the Spire to the recently released Card Shark. Even Firaxis' next game has them. 

To continue the trend of exciting card combat games, Mahokenshi's trailer at the PC Gaming Show introduces us to magical samurai battles. 

Mahokenshi is all about four houses in the fictional Celestial Islands. Although very much based on Japanese culture, these houses are more mystical than they are historical. The four houses have a Mahokenshi to choose from, Ayaka from the House of Ruby, Kaito from the House of Sapphire, Sota from the House of Jade, and Misaki from the House of Topaz. As with many other card games each one of these characters has their own style of play  with elemental powers so you can learn each one as you go. 

Each of the Mahokenshi have one main goal in mind: protect this ethereal plain above the clouds by battling demons and monsters. Where it differentiates itself from many other deck builders is that you'll be travelling across terrain as you play, the trailer shows that the fighting is more continuous rather than level by level. 

Additionally, these deadly movesets are fully animated so you get to see your character beating up the bad guys rather than just imagining all the action. After all those years of seeing cards practically kick each others' shins it makes a nice change right? 

There isn't yet a solid release date for Mahokenshi but we have a timeframe at least. You can expect to play as these celestial samurai some time in 2023! 

Imogen has been playing games for as long as she can remember but finally decided games were her passion when she got her hands on Portal 2. Ever since then she’s bounced between hero shooters, RPGs, and indies looking for her next fixation, searching for great puzzles or a sniper build to master. When she’s not working for PC Gamer, she’s entertaining her community live on Twitch, hosting an event like GDC, or in a field shooting her Olympic recurve bow.