The Bazaar

1. Summary

The Bazaar is an asynchronous PvP roguelike autobattler: you draft items through shops and events, arrange them on a board, and your build fights the saved "ghosts" of other players' runs. Reviewers describe the Steam version as a paid game with three heroes included and the rest sold separately. The praise centres first on build-crafting, item synergies and the pull of "one more run", then on the hand-drawn art, voice acting and music, and the freedom to pause a run at any point because no opponent is waiting on you. Even among negative longer reviews, 30% say something good about the gameplay itself.

Money and balance are where the reviews part ways. 45% of longer reviews discuss pricing or monetization, much of it about extra heroes that reviewers say cost about $20 each, the same as the base game. Critics also say new paid heroes launch overtuned, that a few builds dominate each patch, and that too many runs come down to luck in shops and opponents. A smaller group defends the model: you pay once per hero, every card comes with it, and cosmetics and the reward track are free. Launch week ran at 85% positive, and a large share of its reviews came from players who had played on Tempo's own launcher before. Later reviews cooled to around 70%, while complaints about balance and luck grew. Negative reviews that praise the gameplay usually turn on the price of heroes, and less often on balance or luck.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

Build-crafting and the one-more-run loopHigh

Players describe adapting to whatever the shops offer, pivoting mid-run into a build they had not planned, and the payoff when an engine of items starts firing. 31% of longer reviews praise this loop in some form: synergies, build variety, replayability, being hooked, or calling it the best autobattler or deckbuilder they have played. Hearthstone Battlegrounds, Slay the Spire, Backpack Battles and TFT are the usual comparisons. "The core gameplay loop is incredibly satisfying, and the ability to pivot mid-run keeps every run feeling fresh," one reviewer wrote. Each hero has its own item pool, so players say a single hero can carry dozens of hours. The same praise shows up in negative reviews too, usually just before a complaint about pricing or balance.

Art, voice acting and musicHigh

The presentation comes up in 18% of longer reviews: the hand-drawn item art, the voiced merchants and heroes, the sound effects and the soundtrack. Reviewers call it polished and full of personality, and some compare its charm to Blizzard's games. "The art, the voice acting, the world, the gameplay, everything is top tier." A few find the style childish or tire of hearing the same pre-fight voice lines.

Asynchronous PvP you can pause anytimeMedium

You fight recorded boards instead of live players, so there is no turn timer, and a run can be left and resumed at any point without penalty. 11% of longer reviews value this. Parents and people with little free time bring it up ("Made for dads as well, you are able to pause the game and come back whenever because of the asynchronous matchmaking"). Players also like studying the boards that beat them for new ideas. The same system draws complaints when a ghost far ahead in its run shows up early (see the matchmaking item below).

Frequent updates and new contentLow

Reviewers who praise the update pace (5% of longer reviews) describe monthly patches with new items, events and monsters, and regular balance passes that keep the meta moving. "Game is well maintained with sizable monthly updates and events." Others see the same pace as churn, covered under the balance items below.

Where players are split

How much luck decides a runMedium

Some players treat the randomness as the puzzle: "Your job is to mitigate RNG as much as possible, for the best chance of success." Others say shops can withhold a build's key item for a whole run, and that an early bad draft or a high-rolling ghost settles the result: "If you are not high rolling, after a few ingame days you just want to concede and start another run, that is not good game design." About 10% of longer reviews talk about RNG, luck or high rolls. Those that blame luck clearly outnumber those that call it part of the fun, and the complaint is much more common among players with hundreds of hours than among newcomers.

A steep learning curveMedium

7% of longer reviews mention the learning curve, tutorials or onboarding. Positive reviewers tend to call it steep but worth it ("I will say, the learning curve is brutal") and suggest sticking to one hero or watching gameplay first. Critics say the game explains too little in-game: what enchantments do, which items work from the stash, and what PvE encounters contain. Several say they rely on third-party websites. "The game is also very bad at teaching people how to play."

Cosmetics, chests and the free reward trackLow

Cosmetics, chests or the battle pass come up in 12% of longer reviews, mostly in passing. The favourable side (3%) notes that the battle pass is free, ranked is unlimited, and chests hand out cosmetics just for playing: "the game actually throws free cosmetics at you like candy." A few reviewers say that leaves nothing meaningful to work toward, with gems useless and the pass "approximately 95% just useless chests and 20 crystals". Reviewers also mention premium boards and skins priced at $50 or more, and occasionally mock them.

What frustrates players

Paid heroes at $20 eachHigh

"Game is very fun but $20 per character is highway robbery." Pricing or monetization comes up in 45% of longer reviews, and 12% use words like overpriced, greedy, predatory, paywall or pay-to-win. As reviewers lay it out, the game costs about $20, ships with three heroes, and every further hero costs about the same again, with no way to earn them in play. Some add up $80 to $120 for the full roster. Players who had unlocked heroes with gems before the Steam launch were upset that the option was removed. A defending group (5% of longer reviews) argues that each hero is close to a whole new game with every card included, that the three base heroes are enough on their own, and that heroes go on sale: "Each new character is basically an expansion of the game and you absolutely do not need to buy them all straight away." In between, 8% of positive longer reviews mention sales or discounts, and some advise buying the base game and picking up heroes later at a lower price. Reviewers also report that a March 2026 bundle of the base game plus Karnok angered existing owners, and that it was changed within about a day so owners got the discount too.

Balance swings and a narrow metaHigh

19% of longer reviews discuss balance or the meta. Critics describe patches that leave each hero with two or three viable builds, burn, shield or freeze strategies that dominate for weeks, heavy-handed nerfs, and an item pool so large that key pieces become hard to find. "Months of boring updates have led to a super stale meta," wrote one player who says the game used to be better. Others push back ("Build diversity is in a great place and the balance is the best it's ever been"), or note that overtuned items get fixed fast. Critical balance comments roughly doubled as a share of longer reviews between August 2025 and the June to October 2026 period.

Lag, disconnects and bugsMedium

8% of longer reviews report technical trouble. Reviewers say every action is checked by the server, and they describe multi-second delays when moving or selling items, disconnects mid-run, and rollbacks that undo a day or more of progress: "I disconnect probably 5 times a run if not more, and it's absolutely infuriating." Others mention black screens on start, freezes before fights, and a required Tempo account whose verification emails failed for some players in launch week. Some say server stability improved after specific fixes, and a few later reviews complain about a redesigned interface.

The paid Steam launch and its shifting priceMedium

How the game came to Steam is the subject of 6% of longer reviews, and 11% of those written in August 2025. Reviewers explain that it had been free to play on Tempo's own launcher, with ranked tickets, a subscription and gem-bought heroes. By their account the Steam release launched at $40, briefly sold for $19.99 in a launch bundle, went back to $40, and was later cut to about $20, leaving full-price buyers asking for the difference ("Jacked the price up to $40 the day before I bought it."). Early backers and founders objected to paying again to play on Steam. Some veterans welcomed the change, saying a one-time purchase beats the old tickets and subscription.

New paid heroes arrive overtunedMedium

6% of longer reviews call the game pay-to-win or say newly released paid heroes are overpowered at launch, naming Mak, Karnok, Stelle and Jules. As players describe it, a new $20 hero dominates ranked for a week or more before nerfs land, and players on base heroes feel pushed to buy: "There's a new character that costs $20. EVERYONE is playing her because she's OP (Jules)." Defenders answer that the free heroes win plenty: "I have used the free base characters and completely destroyed my runs."

Mismatched ghost opponentsLow

A small group (3% of longer reviews) complains about matchmaking: ghosts that are further into their run, carry gold-tier items early, or seem to counter the exact build you are playing. "A lot of times I'm put up against optimized player decks while I've barely gotten 3 weapons out." New players say this makes their first ranked runs especially rough.

Slow fights and missing quality-of-life featuresLow

There is no speed-up or skip for fights, and 2% of longer reviews ask for one: PvE battles you always win still play out in full, and menus and chest opening feel slow. "There's no way to fast forward fights and the fights are so rarely worth watching." Some also want better controller support on Steam Deck.

3. The player conversation

Launch week alone produced 1,819 reviews at 85% positive. 40% of the longer ones came from players who mention the beta, founder packs or Tempo's own launcher, about half of them citing hundreds of hours played. By the third week after launch the weekly positive share had fallen to 71%, as anger over the launch price and complaints about overtuned new heroes came in. It recovered to 82% across October to December 2025, then eased to 76% in January to March 2026, 73% in April to June, and 70% from July to mid-October 2026, with several weeks in September and October 2026 in the 50s and 60s on small weekly samples.

What people wrote about shifted along with the tone. Money was the biggest subject throughout, rising from 41% of longer reviews in launch week to 50% from July 2026 on. Complaints about the price of entry and paying twice faded after the first month, and complaints about each new hero took their place. Luck and balance complaints grew over the same period, and both come more from long-time players: reviewers with 200 or more hours mention RNG and criticise the balance far more often than those under 10 hours. Complaints about hero prices appear at much the same rate at every playtime level. Launch-price complaints cluster among reviewers with few Steam hours, some of whom say they played far longer on the old launcher.

4. What the developers could do

1. Make extra heroes cheaper or earnable in play. 12% of longer reviews call the pricing overpriced, greedy or pay-to-win, and players specifically miss the old option of unlocking heroes with in-game currency.
2. Release new heroes at par with the roster. Players say new paid heroes such as Karnok and Jules arrived overtuned and were nerfed only after people had bought them, which makes the paid model feel like pay-to-win even to players who accept the price.
3. Widen the viable builds each patch and hotfix dominant ones quickly. Critical balance comments roughly doubled as a share of longer reviews over the game's first year, with players describing two or three viable builds per hero and burn, shield or freeze metas that last for weeks.
4. Fix lag, disconnects and rollbacks. Players describe actions that stall for seconds while the server checks them and rollbacks that erase a day of a run, and some say they stopped playing over them.
5. Give players more control over luck. Long-time players increasingly say runs are decided by whether shops offer a key item, and they ask for better comeback options and more ways to find specific items.
6. Match ghosts by run progress and skill. New and mid-level players report facing finished, high-tier boards early in a run, which some read as rigged.
7. Explain items, enchantments and encounters in the game. Players say they need third-party websites to learn what enchantments do and what encounters contain, which makes a hard start harder.
8. Add a fight speed-up or skip. Players ask to fast-forward PvE fights they are certain to win and to cut menu and chest-opening delays.