Dice Legends Review: A Beautiful Deckbuilder Where Lady Luck Is a Cruel, Cruel Mistress

There’s a beautiful, polished game somewhere inside Dice Legends, screaming to get out. It has gorgeous pixel art, a slick UI, and a killer concept that blends the strategic deckbuilding of Slay the Spire with the dice-rolling chaos of Dicey Dungeons. The problem is, it’s currently being held hostage by a cruel, unforgiving god of randomness that makes every run feel like a spin of the roulette wheel.

I wanted to love this game. On the surface, it has everything I look for in a roguelike: clever mechanics, a distinct art style, and that "just one more run" pull. I’ve had moments of pure, strategic bliss, lining up the perfect dice with the perfect cards to unleash a devastating combo. But for every one of those moments, I’ve had five where the game decides to kick my teeth in for no reason other than bad luck.

It’s a frustrating, maddening, and occasionally brilliant experience that feels like it’s just a few major balance patches away from being something truly special.

A Promising Hand

The core loop here is fantastic. You pick a hero, each with their own unique dice and abilities, and venture out into a world filled with monsters. Each turn you roll your dice, draw a hand of cards, and try to make the best of what you’ve been given. It’s a wonderfully tactile system that feels great when it works. Slotting a high roll into a powerful attack card feels satisfying as hell.

The presentation is top-notch. The pixel art is gorgeous, and the card illustrations are genuinely beautiful. Even the music, while a bit repetitive, is catchy and keeps the energy up during combat. For the first few hours, I was completely hooked, lost in the addictive rhythm of rolling, planning, and executing. The developers clearly have a knack for creating a compelling gameplay loop.

When the Dice Turn Against You

The honeymoon phase ends the first time you get a god-tier deck and still get absolutely demolished by the second boss because you rolled nothing but ones. The game’s biggest flaw is its over-reliance on luck. While all roguelikes have an element of randomness, Dice Legends stacks the deck against you in so many ways that skill often feels like a complete afterthought.

You’re fighting against the luck of your dice roll, the luck of your card draw, and the luck of the enemy encounters. It’s not uncommon to have a turn where you literally can’t play a single useful card because your dice betrayed you. Then the enemies pile on debuffs that make all your dice ones, burn you for using them, or stop you from gaining shields. It’s a death by a thousand papercuts, and it never feels fair. I’ve had runs where I breezed through to the third world, only to get stomped on the very first fight of the next run because the RNG decided my time was up.

Number Go Up... Slowly

The combat itself quickly becomes a monotonous battle of attrition. Most fights lack any real decisive moments; you’re just chipping away at massive health bars while trying to mitigate the absurd damage being thrown at you. Enemies rarely do anything surprising, so it all just boils down to whether your numbers are bigger than their numbers.

This is made worse by a progression system that feels padded and unrewarding. Most of the cards and items you find are just simple numerical increases, more damage, more defense. There are very few upgrades that actually change the way you play in an interesting way. It feels like the content was mass-produced to fill space rather than designed to create dynamic new strategies. This makes starting a new run feel like a chore, as you have to grind through the slow, boring early levels just to see if your build is even viable.

A Few Polishing Scuffs

On top of the balance issues, there are a few other nagging problems. The game is borderline unplayable on the Steam Deck, with a tiny window and no real controller support. I also ran into a few bugs, like an item that’s supposed to revive you upon death just… not working. It’s a shame, because the core is solid, but the whole experience lacks the final layer of polish you’d expect, especially for its price point.

And then there are the character portraits. Let’s just say there are a couple of embarrassingly horny designs that feel completely out of place. I’m all for artistic expression, but some of it just feels like it was ripped straight from a DeviantArt page.

The Verdict

I’m torn on Dice Legends. There’s a brilliant game in here, and the developers are clearly passionate and actively listening to feedback, which is a huge plus. The art is fantastic, and the core dice-and-card mechanic is a ton of fun when it’s not actively trying to screw you over.

But in its current state, the game is just too frustrating. The overwhelming randomness and lack of meaningful variety in the progression make it hard to recommend over more polished titles in the genre. I find myself turning it off in a rage, only to boot it back up five minutes later for one more roll of the dice. It’s an addictive, flawed, and beautiful mess that I hope gets the tuning it so desperately needs.

Score: 6.5/10 A roll of the dice that comes up snake eyes a few too many times.