Games like Touhou: Lost Branch of Legend

The Squirrel's verdictThree Kingdoms: The Blood Moon restructures the deckbuilder turn around hand retention: one attack per turn, with any held card usable as a reaction to each incoming enemy attack. The mechanic creates sequencing decisions around what to play immediately versus hold back. Reviewers call the difficulty low and note limited staying power across runs. Uses AI-generated artwork.

Not for you if you want meaningful difficulty, clear roguelike meta-progression between runs, or hand-drawn artwork.

The Squirrel's verdictNeoverse runs the same climb-and-battle deckbuilder structure but trades Lost Branch's colored mana system for combo chains: play card types in sequence for damage multipliers, and defense stacks across turns instead of decaying. More build control, more consistency, less punishing draw variance. Suits players who want the genre's shape without its randomness biting back.

Not for you if you want the deckbuilding tension of working against bad draws rather than smoothing them out with combo control.

The Squirrel's verdictDeathless: The Hero Quest uses Slavic mythology as its setting, with four characters available from the start, each carrying distinct decks, bosses, and events through the same turn-based deckbuilder structure. Reviewers praise the art and find the core loop engaging, but note runs frequently feel thin when synergies fail to come together, and some enemy animations run long. Median playtime is 27.4 hours.

Not for you if you want Lost Branch's color-mana sequencing depth, or find slow animations and inconsistent build synergy hard to overlook.

The Squirrel's verdictBreach Wanderers keeps the Slay the Spire skeleton but hands you control before the run starts: you build your starting deck and curate the card pool you'll draw from, rather than reacting to random offers. Reviews describe deep meta-progression through Guild, Bounty, Forge, and Market systems layered over long play sessions (median 48 hours). Suits players who want to engineer a build in advance rather than adapt one on the fly.

Not for you if you dislike heavy meta-progression grind or want randomness and adaptation over pre-run deck planning.

The Squirrel's verdictYao-Guai Hunter runs the same Slay the Spire chassis Lost Branch of Legend remixes, but instead of a five-color mana system it changes the energy model: unspent energy carries over with a flat regeneration rate, forcing different sequencing decisions than either STS or Lost Branch. Chinese-inspired art with per-character animations. Suits players who want another deckbuilder variant rather than the same mana puzzle twice.

Not for you if you found the carryover energy system's regeneration rate frustrating rather than a fresh puzzle, or wanted co-op.

The Squirrel's verdictPirates Outlaws runs the same Slay the Spire deckbuilding loop as Lost Branch of Legend: climb, draft cards, beat bosses. Instead of the five-color mana system, it uses a shared card pool across all pirate captains and a no-buff-stacking rule, plus a no-skip draft that forces your deck to grow. Suits players who want the formula in a pirate setting rather than a Touhou one.

Not for you if you want per-character card pools for build variety or disliked being forced to add every offered card to your deck.

The Squirrel's verdictIndies' Lies adds card-replacement decisions and multi-character health bars with mild positioning to the standard deckbuilder loop. Reviewers describe it as less refined than stronger genre entries, though the core is functional. At $4.49 and a median 20.5 hours, it suits players looking for a low-cost genre entry with a distinct card-management wrinkle.

Not for you if you play offline regularly: an undisclosed always-online DRM layer blocks progress unlocks without a live connection.