Obtain souls by killing enemies during a run which are spent to unlock items/spells as a possible seed in a future game
Run into said item/spell on a future run now that it is seeded
Equip said item/spell on a hero to functionally identify it
Once step 3 is done, the item/spell will always have full disclosure in tool tip form when encountered in future games (some games I treat as just “identify runs”).
You can change who picks up the item by moving them to the pick-up lane, but once equipped they are stuck with it and you can’t move things around. Yes, this means you will have to blindly equip something once. It is this game’s equivalent to the rogue-like tradition of finding “a bottle with effervescent green liquid” and drinking it blindly not sure if it will heal you, make you immune to nature damage, or just poison you. Thankfully, in this game you only need to make the leap once and don’t need to remember all items forever. Usually the look of the item is a clue. Does it look like armor, a weapon, a magic thing, or other such?
Note about step 2: The same souls you collect for unlocking after a run can be spent in game to cast a spell on cooldown if the orb is full. Unspent souls after a battle go to the soul pool that feeds unlock progression. Thus you need to make a choice as to whether it’s worth it to burn souls in a bad fight to live on to earn more, or if you should sit on them for more meta loot.
Note about step 1: Some monsters are real F-ing jerks! =)
So does this apply to spells when I play the shell game? Whoever gets sent to open the chest will equip the spell without me getting to look at what the spell does? I seem to remember being unable to do the lane change thing to get the spell where I wanted it to go, but I might have been Doing It Wrong.
I will have to check. Most interfaces have a two step process. One is to view/buy, the other is to equip. Maybe with her that is not the case and you just get whatever (or nothing…shenanigans!!). To be honest, I skip her now. It’s usually a bad idea unless you get very lucky (or just have WAY too much gold for whatever reason).
Besides the first leap of faith equip, generally this also means you can manipulate the stacking of spells as what kind of spell and where in a hero’s slots can effect that spell. For example, I like to fill up the rogue’s second slot ASAP, then camp the third spot for a buff (or what I guess is a buff) so that when that buff is cast from slot three on the rogue, it buffs the whole party per her specialty bonus for slot 3.
You cannot jigger things around though. So you sort of need to plan and build as a sort of skill tree (that has no respec option) not knowing what choices will come down the line. Luckily your build has, at best, a life expectancy of two hours. It’s kind of weird yet neat. Often when I replay a game (usually back to back to back) I find myself wanting to use options that I had in the previous game (“what, why can’t my rogue charm!!!..oh yeah…”).
I have not figured out what drives the blue versus the purple orb yet.
As to the “free” thing, no. That said, if you are in a big fight and the orbs are capped, you can spend souls to increase the cap to maybe fill again for even more souls. I expect this will be a thing in longer runs after a few more bosses are killed. I’m still stuck on the third pirate.
It really is obtuse, isn’t it? It took quite a while for it to click with me. But I really enjoy a game that seems impossible over repeated attempts to play and then, just as you’re muttering “fuck this game” and about to uninstall it, CLICK. Ah, so that’s how it works!
I’m glad I stuck with it. It can be really gratifying. Tough, but that’s partly why it’s gratifying.
Yes, I think I am going to take a crack at it. I tend to like games that Chaplin and Mysterio like, and if you dig it too I think that pretty well seals it.
Yeah, there have been more than a few controller throwing (but not really) cussing storms followed by… hitting the new game button. Then after a bit of experimenting, I find a new trick.
Oh, souls get added when spent?! I have not watched that close, I thought they were gone. Well, heck! It’s on, I’m spending like a mad man now.
While mechanically fairly repetitive, the game offers a frantic stacatto of tactical choices blended with a sort of rhythmic calm. Plus the hero, spell, and item variety in each run really change the feel of each play through a la Isaac. My Switch is a HBH box; Zelda who I say. ;)
Confirmed. Wow! My game just jumped up a few notches as appearantly I was being waaaay too stingy with souls. Fire boss (3rd) down! To be fair, I had an amazing run with triple skull pets, two portals, and a dual firing wet potato-- I mean, if I’m remembering my history right, that combination WAS used to topple many an empire.
I have a terribad build on my current run, but it’s looking like I’m getting to the next boss anyway. I guess it’s clicking more now. However, my left index finger is sore from frantic L bumper (pause) toggling.
Why did know one say this is available on Steam? Or, why did I not check to see this was available on Steam before one hour ago.
You will get information on Items and Spells the second time you come across them? I was confused why I was just getting a question mark when I hovered over them.
Grabbed this on the Switch and I’m mostly enjoying it. I’m finding the boss fights to be long to the point of absurdity though. I beat one only to find that it just threw me into another map with no real reward, and was doing well when I got to that boss, but it just went on and on until I got overwhelmed.
Also not a fan of the insta-lose when a single hero dies.
While boss (or mini-boss) fights can get long, it usually is a sign that there is a trick or two to be discovered. For example, the shield guy that you run into usually at the end of map one or two (has 40 stamina) used to take me forever. Then I realized that they were trying to teach me ways to get through stamina. Now that I get that, I can beat him pretty darn fast with several types of tools plus I NEED those tricks now as it’s pretty common to get regular fights filled with high stamina guys.
As to progress, it is a rogue-like. The genre is about doing what you can with the tools and challenges you find. That said, every run gets you souls. Souls unlock things that can show up in future games (new items, spells, damage types, etc). Also if you make it to the boss (Pirate) then beating him gives you a very tangible reward. Next time you play you will have a new character and another boss with different tricks further down the line.
Here’s a screenshot of my stats on the Xbox One version. So far I’m liking the game, but it took me 4-5 hours to warm up to it. I could tell a good game was in there somewhere, but I’d have to keep chipping away until I found it. I do think this game takes a little too long to break out of the repetitive tedium those first few hours offer, while I’m learning the ropes and getting a feel for the rythm of the game, but that could also be a sign that maybe if I were a better player I’d simply have progressed/unlocked faster.
All in all it’s been worth the purchase, and there’s still another 80% of the game left to unlock, so I’m expecting my next 8 hours to go smoother than my first 8 hours.
I’m a tad miffed that the Steam version is still at v1.0.0 while the console versions have been updated. In what world do console versions get updated before the PC version? They’re doing it backwards.
