If you’d asked me last week, I would’ve said deckbuilding rougelikes aren’t for me. I dislike a lack of progress, and repetition must always be paired with meaning, in my mind. But last week, I hadn’t played Monster Train 2. This week, I’m a very different sort of person. With snappy cardplay, an ultra-cool gameplay loop, and a raft of motley demons, this game has turned me around on the entire genre.
The premise here is very simple, to the point where you barely get an introduction to the action. You’re the conductor of a monster train. It’s both a train that is a monster, and a train that’s filled with monsters. I guess you also train monsters while you’re playing, so the name serves a delightful array of purposes. You have one goal in your time with Monster Train 2: to defend your Pyre from an encroaching horde of monsters (angels, demons, goblins, and more) using an ever-growing army to push back on each level of your train.
Row by row, you’ll place cards from a deck, allocating monsters to defend each of your train’s levels. You’ll have a limited amount of space to place monsters, and must spend your time carefully planning balance, arrangement, and which buffs to allocate where.
What works so well about Monster Train 2 is how enemies advance. While you’ll occasionally have a more powerful boss with its own rules to fight against, gameplay typically revolves around monsters trading blows on lower levels of your train, and then advancing up, one level per round. If you don’t defeat a monster on a lower level, it will continue to advance upwards, so you must carefully plan your firepower and ensure you’re making the most of your attacks.
Keeping Monster Train 2 rolling

The ramping difficulty also ensures careful strategy and planning in every aspect. If you manage to get through the early battles with your Pyre intact – it has its own health bar, and a powerful counter-attack for enemies that reach its housing – you’ll travel along a train track in an overworld, with various bonuses and options for new card draw.
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Selecting one unique pathway, you might find a shop where you can buff cards, or a special weapon or armour for your next round. Certain spots on the map will also let you shuffle or destroy cards, ensuring you have an overall more powerful deck for the next turn.
There’s trial and error in the early stages, but a real satisfaction once you figure out which buffs are most powerful, and how you should build your team to ensure they’re protecting your Pyre from the ground up. While you will inevitably fall in your quest to progress – that’s in the nature of roguelikes – you’ll learn valuable lessons along the way, while also slowly levelling up your chosen faction, and your future opportunities.
There is a sense of moreishness in these never-ending Monster Train 2 battles. It’s largely down to the pacing of each battle, and the pride of watching your tiny monsters play out your moves to great success (or sometimes, frustrating failure). You’ll laugh when a powerful card you picked on a whim turns up in your latest card draw, and you can strike down a monster with an instant hit. Or when the card you reduced to a zero-cost base turns up, so you get a free action.
You only get a few brief turns to make an impact, but that makes every battle higher-staked and more intense. You’ll want to slow down and make better choices as you advance, with that layer of complexity elevating each round. Like the best games, Monster Train 2 appears simple on the surface, but there’s so much going on beneath, for those with the patience to understand it.

Do you sacrifice a pawn for the benefit of a future struggle? Do you hit hard and heavy on the lower floor, at the risk of leaving yourself vulnerable on higher levels? It’s all a matter of analysis, careful planning, and patience.
I’ve been playing Monster Train 2 on Nintendo Switch 2 – so far, it’s one of the more underrated launch titles – and I’ve found myself enraptured by the experience. In portable form, the game looks and plays great. It’s not exactly a demanding game, so you’re pretty much getting the same experience on PC or other consoles, but with the added benefit of portability. Dealing with the ongoing cold in Sydney, I’ve been wrapped up in a blanket, curled over my Switch 2, eyes glued to my latest run.
At this point, I’m now thinking, ‘Why write about Monster Train 2, when I could be playing it?’ When I left off last, I was knee-deep in monster guts, before a silly decision on my lower train floor left my Pyre open for a whopping hit. For next time, I know more about which character abilities I should use and where, and which cards could get me an instant-kill that would push me far ahead of the pack. Next time, I’ll go harder. Be better, and stronger. I’ve certainly got work to do, and many miles left to travel. So, let’s keep this train rolling, and sign off.
A code for Monster Train 2 was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.