RPG Insanity

Now that the premium version is out, I've started to dive in and learn some of the finer details and strategies of the game. Most people who play will probably note that for a Kemco/EXE game, they spent quite a lot of time on creating the different cards and decks.

Some overall tips:

Beginner difficulty should be utilized to progress the story if needed. As this is a roguelike, you can get into situations where failure isn't necessarily your fault, or comes out of nowhere. Beginner lets you move on with the story, which is how you unlock more 'themes' (decks).
Normal mode gives you more Blightstones. Play on Normal whenever you feel comfortable.
Save Blightstone for the Secret Room unlockables. Things like "Normal Drop Rate Down" can be stacked and will thus raise the drop rate of Rares. Initial Mana can be bought twice, giving every character 5 MP instead of 3. Most of these are big boosts in some way.
Every deck theme gacha has the same number of cards, but wildly varying number of stickers. Stickers give small, permanent buffs to unlocked cards. Card counts:
Ultra Rare - 14
Super Rare - 23
High Rare - 29
Rare - 27
Normal - 22 (20 for theme 1)
Stickers - Start: 67, Everdark: 166, Isolation: 326, [Theme 4]: [?], [Theme 5]: [?]
No-brainer, but the roulette is once per real-time day, so try to start up the game just to run the roulette, if you remember.

My deck tips:

Theme 1 / Start:

Fleetfoot is a common buff, most cards are low cost but also low power. Can stack Power Up turn after turn to become high damage.

Another Change > Next Slice > Running Attack: 24 dmg, 1 MP, +Fleetfoot
All three are common cards, but getting them in your deck might not always occur. In my experience, Another Change combos are very useful, since it is almost necessary for the Start deck to maintain Fleetfoot on all heroes to keep damage output high.

Theme 2 / Everdark:

Focuses on chaining and discards. (ish?)

Slime Chain > Grave Chain > Limitless Swordflash: 50+ dmg, 3 MP
Slime chain is free, and if you use it frequently, combined with discard and draw cards, you can easily do over 50 damage in a turn. Grave Chain will return those 3 or 4 Slime Chains right back to your hand.
Cast Away > Hades Attack: 52 dmg, 1 MP
Hades Attack is hard to deploy normally, but a single Cast Away in your deck can allow you to use it once per shuffle.

Theme 3 / Isolation:

Lots of cards that have self-growth. More high power cards and cards that require 'juggling' (moving from draw to discard, etc).

Icicle Delete > Slender Stone > Limitless Ax Attack: 46+ dmg, 0-3 MP
Slender Stone can cost as little as 0. If you have clones of Icicle Delete, you get an extra 8 damage to Limitless for 0 MP.
Step Charge > Particle Cannon: 45+ dmg, 3 MP
Ideally you would step charge multiple times to maximize Particle Cannon to its maximum power of 65 (un-upgraded).

I'm only at 45% card completion at the moment, so I have a lot to learn still!

So I beat the game on Android, and now I'm playing it on Switch. So I might add a few things.

For me the best themes were 1st, 3rd and 5th. I struggled while playing 2nd and 4th themes.

The 5th theme is the best one - the Death card and the artifact that gives Elize 1 Reflect are the things to go with. Foam cards and covering fire  will carry you on.

The 1st theme is all about slashes and the artifacts that support them. Later on the deck is too weak to destroy end game and bonus bosses, but it will be enough to reach the end game.

The 3rd theme I remember that it was easy to play with, but I forgot why.

Never swap rewards in the middle game. Only swap boss chest with treasures. And aim for the golden key that gives extra blightstones.

In the secret room first buy extra strarting mana, and then extra power to cards. Then go for starting lvls. There are some gloves that give extra fortitude depending on your party lvl. When you have a party lvl 30-40 then it makes a difference.

Always go for events and always try new things. Even if the other option is a treasure, go for an unknown option.

If you have any questions, go ahead. Right now I'm playing on auto-pilot, so lots of things and decisions I make automatically.

Good card on Theme 1 (you can skip every other card)

UR
Abyss slash = strongest theme 1 attack card. low cost high damage and buff other slash card.
Walking Dash = best theme 1 buff card. use all your mana to get 4+ speed for everyone.
Spread = aoe
Reinforce = pick if drop, dont buy too expensive

SR
Sonic Thrust = best sr card on this deck. 1 cost high damage that give 3 speed.
Unity Slash = on slash deck it have insane cost perfomance ratio

HR
Barrage Spear = high damage for 1 cost
Digging Work = to use card twice
Utility cutter = for 0 cost its awesome
Lost Spear = its decent aoe for early chapter

R
Baton Pass = main buffing card, dont get more than 2
Full slash = cheap aoe
Hard slash = good for early chapter

N
Change Chute = quick free gold
Front Slash = good attack
Another change = 0 cost change that buff
Change heal = heal is valuable
Running attack = good attack but dont have slash synergies

It's also worth noting that it's always better to keep the deck small, so the important cards will come sooner. So it's not worth taking a new card all the time, but rather skip some (or a lot of) treasure chests. Also it's worth using card removal in shops. For example I always remove the Power Up card first. You almost never will have enough long fights to have this card be worth using (on the other side the Reinforce @spoilerspree mentioned is an awesome card).

My Theme 1 recipe (in random order):

1. Lost Slash

2. Slash Pick (also awesome card)

3. Unity Slash

4. Hard Slash

5. Full Slash

6. Heavy Thurst

7. Front Slash

8. Utility Cutter

9. Final Spear

10. The End (with Hard Slash it's easy ~80 damage)

11. Reinforce

12. Abyss Slash

Except the cards mentioned above, I don't ever take any other cards.

Early on, Change Slash can be a useful tool to healing and causing damage at same time. But this assumes you actually need this healing.

 

Healing is indeed virtually worthless on Beginner.

In contrast, the small bonus recovery you get from swapping is almost necessary every turn on Normal!

Blight stone unlocks are seemingly becoming more and more of a requirement for Karma 10 and Nightmare.

Achievement guide
I only mention harder ach to complete.

Win without cards
Easiest would be using Theme 1 treasure Fire attack lens. It deal 20 damage every time character back to spot when changed. This relic damage is fixed type, it ignore Clinks (glowing special monster with 10 hp) defends

Deal 100 damage
Theme 1 Big behavior - UR card that deal 1/10 gold
Theme 4 Self destruct

30 hit
Theme 4 Denver mirror + Copy sheep + Machine gun bullet on 3 mobs (3 x 2 x 6 = 36)
Theme 5 treasure Soul eater staff (every hit become 3 hit) and Gamblers knife (if head attack 8 times)

Win with swift foot 15+
Theme 1 got so many swift foot buff card. can use sheep card to help too.

Win with fortitude 30+
Theme 3 Stacking, Equivalent exchange. Use Will, Wormhole and Cheap copy to generate those card. Other useful card to take is Reload and Anti sheep empress.

25 poison
Theme 4 poison card. Stack poison with Brewed poison + Tree, born in terra and other card until 19+ then finish with Venom fang.

5 gamble
Theme 5 gamble card

I was thinking about getting the 30+ fortitude thing, and instead of Stacking (that require using the cards) I came up with this:



Important part is getting the Pickaxe treasure as it gives 1 fortitude each time you get less than 3 cards in a turn. Then choose an enemy that rarely attacks (or attacks for low) and keep ending the turn. Beware of using Sticky Mana card. Once you will get it, you will be unable to get rid of it.

Yeah, that's one way to go about that. Another way is to reuse theme 1's card "Bitter Resistance". It applies 3 Fortitude to the vanguard, and as a nice addition (I don't know if it's even mentioned in the effect text), it heals the vanguard for 10 HP in exchange for the small disadvantage of not being able to change positions for 7 turns (7 restraint) each time the card is used. Using this method, you don't have to worry about a random mob clobbering you to death before you reach 30 fortitude. There might be other methods, especially since I haven't even unlocked themes 4 and 5 yet.

Now that I've tried out all theme decks, my favorite strategy - I like it even more than theme deck 5's "Surprise Strategy" + "Death" combo - is theme deck 4's acceleration and delay strategy. You only need to obtain as many copies as possible of "Gravity Burn" and "Aero Sonic" during one dungeon run (you already start with one copy of the latter one). Don't acquire any other cards, and delete as many cards as possible, starting with any imposed ones (like "Time Bomb", "Smile", "Scalding"), then "Fire" next and finally your "Bio Balls" (which support "Poison" strategies and thus aren't needed here). Upgrade your "Aero Sonic(s)" first, then your "Gravity Burn(s)".

Once you've done all that, your deck is a no-brainer nonstop speed fire machine that rarely lets enemies take turns. Fire off your "Gravity Burns" (delay enemy actions by 0.3) first, since they're removed for the rest of the battle upon use, follow with your "Aero Sonics" (accelerate the user by 0.2), and if you have mana left, finish with "Knock Backs" (delay enemy actions by 0.05 - you start every dungeon run with three copies of them in your deck). Two treasures that are of great help and that you should obtain as soon as possible are "Swift Disc" (boosts acceleration and delay effects by 50%) and "Hovering Device" (accelerates all party members by 0.2 at the start of a battle). There's also a treasure that delays all enemies' actions by 0.4 if an enemy is defeated, but that's rather "nice to have" than "must have".

Since I know from other Exe Create games - like "Ruinverse" - how overpowered action delay is in the battle systems of recent Exe Create games, I'm not surprised this strategy works in "Overrogue" as well. "Gravity Burn Aero Sonic Knock Back" - it's a fine name for a strategy (or a random fighting skill right out of a Shonen Manga).