The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood Is a Deck-Based Narrative You’ll Want to Play at LEAST 3 Times

As a big fan of video games, tarot and all things witchy, it didn't take much for me to know I had to play The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood.

It's been on my radar since I first spied a trailer in April, and when the folks behind the game asked if I'd be interested in checking it out for a review, it was an immediate yes. They were kind enough to send me an early review key for Nintendo Switch, and after playing through the deck-based, narrative adventure (three times), I have some thoughts. Here's what you need to know.

Fortuna's Fortune

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood opens with our lead Fortuna, a witch who's precisely 200 years into a millennium-long exile. She's stranded on an isolated asteroid with just her little home to keep her company, and when the solitude, boredom and despair finally become too much, she decides to go against the rules of her coven and summon a forbidden Behemoth called Ábramar.

(The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood via Devolver Digital)

Ábramar may be enormous, monstrous and as old as time itself, but he's instantly charming, and after making a pact to become Fortuna's familiar, the two strike up a partnership—at a price. First and foremost, the two work together to restore Fortuna's powers of divination. The coven leader, Aedena, exiled Fortuna and confiscated her tarot deck after it foretold the implosion of the coven. Now, Ábramar suggests crafting a new kind of deck with even greater power thanks to his unique magics.

Fortuna must seal four contracts with Ábramar—one each for the elements of Air, Water, Earth and Fire—and choices must be made at each step. Choose wisely, because these decisions have a major impact on your gameplay from here on out, including the sacrifice you're willing to make for this raw power when all is said and done.

(The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood via Devolver Digital)

 

Stacking the Deck

The cards that Ábramar helps Fortuna to create are anything but mere tarot cards. Using her Arcane Grimoire, she can exchange elemental points she collects to summon different images to add to her magical cards. Each new card combines three elements—Spheres for backgrounds, Arcana for the primary figures and Symbols for background details and an extra touch of magic.

And you don't just pick the aspects for your cards. You fully design them. That includes everything from deciding which patch of the background appears on the card to where all of the elements from the Arcana and Symbols are placed, making every card in your deck completely unique to you. After a bit of tinkering, this system becomes pretty intuitive and you can design cards to your heart's content (though I did find the button controls to work better for this than the slightly finicky touchscreen controls on the Nintendo Switch).

(The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood via Devolver Digital)

Each different combination of a Sphere, Arcana and Symbol results in a unique card with a different title and meaning to the others. Throughout my three playthroughs, as I mixed and matched these aspects, I don't believe any of the cards I constructed were repeats, which adds even further to the replayability.

The result is something that's technically a deck-building game, though the cards themselves are used for purposes far more interesting than combat—and with much greater consequences.

(The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood via Devolver Digital)

You see this for the first time doing card readings for Ábramar himself. For each question or theme, a card is randomly drawn from the deck you've constructed, and you assign the card to the question (or questions) at hand.
From there, you'll be given options about the meaning of the reading based on the card you chose, using your powers of divination to make your choice in anticipating the future. Often upon drawing cards, you'll want to think about their significance and which question you want them to answer in order to create preferred outcomes. You're also granted elemental points with each reading, which can also lead your hand. After all, your fortune-telling abilities are powerful, and what you share can have a major impact on both you and those around you.

 

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Visiting Witches

Once Fortuna and Ábramar have sealed their four contracts, an unexpected visitor arrives at the lonely asteroid. Her name is Théa, and she's an Arbiter—a former witch whose job is to uphold the law. After looking into your case, she decides your punishment has been too harsh and lifts the part of your banishment that means you can't receive visitors.

From here on out, when witches' familiars appear in your window, you can invite them to see you, both to have conversations and unfurl your fate and to do new readings—or even be gifted new Spheres, Arcana or Symbols to infuse into new cards. This, in my opinion, is where the game really comes to life, and every last decision you make must be made with care.

(The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood via Devolver Digital)

Though the majority of the game unfolds from Fortuna's small home as she takes visitors at her windows, goes downstairs to craft new cards or heads to bed to study, read interactive fiction (for more elemental points) or sleep, there's never a dull moment. As the story continues, we also get glimpses into her pre-ascension days and her life back on Earth, with vignettes about her past and the predictions she made that ultimately shaped her history.

(The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood via Devolver Digital)

It's these witches that make the game feel truly alive. Each and every character is just bursting with personality, and even if there are some that you don't really relate to on a personal level, they all feel fully fleshed out and real, to the point that you can see where each one is coming from. It also helps that the lore feels so lived-in and specific, like you're just seeing a tiny part of the universe you're playing within, and there's a story to tell here well beyond just the events of The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood. Soon, you'll also find that Fortuna's predictive abilities are even greater than they might first seem.

(The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood via Devolver Digital)

All of this becomes clearer that even when the game evolves into a political struggle, plunging players into the middle of an election for a new coven leader, with each participant seeking to change the laws in their own way.

(The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood via Devolver Digital)

I don't want to spoil too much (especially given that, depending on how you play, different events can unfold entirely), but gaining insights into the different groups of witches and how to win their hearts is another thrilling aspect that makes the game unforgettable.

 

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Bottom Line

Though parts of The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood are quite cozy, it can also be an incredibly tense game, at times. It's rated M for adult themes, self-harm, language and substance use, and also includes a content warning section on the title screen, so you can be aware of the game's content before you begin. But that intensity was something I loved about it.

Often, I felt like I was left with only bad choices and had to go with the lesser of two evils. Or should I just lean into it and start making the most chaotic choices possible? The game lets you sit in your own guilt and forces you to reflect on selfish or evil decisions in ways that many others don't, and if you want to change your mind about something, you need to start all over again to see how that other option plays out.

(The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood via Devolver Digital)

I completed the game for the first time in just under six hours, and if you're anything like me, once you get there, you're going to want to play it all over again to explore different choices and see how the game unfolds depending on them. I wasn't satisfied that I'd seen what the game had to offer until I completed my third playthrough, and even now, I'm tempted to go back and try to forge new paths (and make some very different decisions when things get political).

Of course, it's more than just fun, branching paths and neat cards. The music is comfy and lo-fi, the pixel art is lusciously rendered at every step, both in the character designs and the more abstract scenes and the dialogue is sharply written as well as clever. There's no point where it drags, and I'm always curious to see what else I can make happen. For example, a character that Fortuna romanced in my first playthrough was killed in my second because of a choice I made early on. Even though most of the game takes place in the same room, it doesn't ever grow stale, and despite Fortuna's feelings of solitude and boredom, I wish I could spend even more time there.

(The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood via Devolver Digital)

I do wish there was a way to move through the dialogue faster on subsequent playthroughs, since so much of the game consists of identical text, but on the Switch, I found that tapping the screen with alternating fingers is a way to quickly speed through text you've already seen. That shaved about half an hour off of each of my other playthroughs. And I'll be honest—writing this review made me want to play it for a fourth time.

 

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is available now on PC and Nintendo Switch. Normally priced $17.99, it's currently on sale for $16.19 through Aug. 23.

 

For more thoughts on our favorite new games, click HERE to read our review of Disney Illusion Island.