The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood Review (PC)

Fortuna has enough magical energy to craft another divination card before her next meeting with a visiting witch. I choose the sphere and the arcana carefully, trying to use the lore I’ve gained by reading about magic power before sleeping. I don’t pay as much attention to the symbols and choose one that uses air energy, which I have an excess of. I spent quite a bit of time trying to make this card as beautiful as possible.

After all, a reading can determine someone’s fate and it’s only fair to respect the process as much as possible. I might be the kind of witch who’s ready to make a pact with a powerful malefic being to get out of exile but I’m still trying to be a force of overall good for the universe.

Fortuna has been in seclusion for 200 years. She’s already caught up with her two best friends and is now ready to use her talents to, maybe, help others. A bigger deck means more cards to draw on and more potential for positive results. And, of course, divination is a matter of interpretation and only she who creates and knows the cards can understand all they have to say.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is developed by Deconstructeam and published by Devolver Digital. I played via Steam on the PC. It is also offered on the Nintendo Switch. This is a narrative-focused adventure with a cool universe, compelling characters, and plenty of card action.

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Fortuna is the main character, a witch who specializes in divination, originally using a classic Tarot deck. She is also exiled by her coven and banned from doing anything other than meditating for one thousand years. So she decides to summon a Behemoth, something very much forbidden, and enters into a pact with him. She gets to create an entirely new deck of cards and use them to explore the past, present, and future.

But this is a classic damning pact, which means she will have to pay the price for her newfound power and freedom. As the game progresses, Fortuna gains a better understanding of her abilities and uses them to guide the fate of many other witches. She also gets involved in a political campaign and makes some decisions with huge implications.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood has a strong core narrative and varied cast of characters, with good to great writing. Fortuna starts off interacting only with Abramar but more witches start to visit her as the narrative moves in some intriguing directions. It also grapples with major questions about power, free will, the nature of the universe, and how one can behave ethically.

The game is not dry or boring, but it is very narrative-driven, with limited gameplay. Players will use magical energy, first obtained from the pacts with Abramar and then flowing from other sources, to create cards for their new divination deck. There’s a lot of space for originality here, as they mix a sphere, an arcana, and symbols. The number of possible combinations is high, and gamers have full control over the visual associated with the card (an option opens up later that offers a way to destroy them and recuperate magical power).

The deck, not quite Tarot but familiar to those who have used one of those, will then be used for readings. One witch might be interested in interactions with a special mortal. Another might worry about her plants. Abramar thinks about a past relationship. Fortuna will pull out her customized deck, ask her conversation partner to focus on the question that needs to be answered, and then shuffle and draw cards.

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Gamers can choose where to place each card if more than one topic is being investigated, and they will then pick the specific interpretation. This becomes especially important after the game delivers its first big twist. Some of the chapters also feature short flashbacks, which feature more traditional Tarot action, and the game’s big finale also sees Fortuna leave her asteroid to interact with her coven.

I played the game with a focus on meeting as many other witches as possible and without trying to carefully craft each card to target potential outcomes. Try not to worry about magical energy and never pick an interpretation just because of the resources it delivers.

The story in The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is good enough and there are enough choices that a second playthrough feels almost necessary to explore alternate paths. The title’s narrative richness is undeniable. But its gameplay interactions are relatively limited. Conversations flow well and card creation can be engrossing. But this is a game designed for story lovers that might leave others underwhelmed.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood look is very pixel-driven, like that of many other modern indie narrative experiences. The game does manage to stand out thanks to its careful character design and to the impressive variety of the crafted cards. The development team has worked hard to create interesting backgrounds, central figures, and additional embellishments, offering players the components for some truly weird cards. The user interface is minimalist and it’s easy to create decks and use them.

The sound design is less impressive, mainly because there’s no voice acting. Given how much one’s enjoyment of the experience is linked to the narrative, this can make the world feel a little empty. The soundtrack, which features some nice surprises, compensates to some extent.

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The Good

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