The action roguelite thread

I had some fun, but I left Atomicrops after not that much time, 15 hours or so. It’s doesn’t have a big variety in the experience itself.

Dracula Genesis is 33% off and it has a new update:

  • 3 new Characters
  • Brand new water shader with cool reflections
  • When you’re irradiated, radiation on your bullets will trigger more rarely
  • Added weather effects that change gameplay slightly, introducing new enemies and powerups
  • Reworked some minibosses
  • You can use HP to unlock “manalocked” chests when you have no mana
  • Reworked many world 1 areas, added new island variants
  • Fury system - a way to gradually unlock more difficulty for those who feel the game is easy
  • Manalocked chests can now be opened with HP when you have no mana, also you can now also reroll them
  • New default Drakoh’s gun (experimental)
  • Some tier 3 relics are now tier 1 relics with slight balancing

I’m just approaching 50 hours now. Did you ever venture into the outer regions? Beyond the initial desert/plains/tundra/jungle areas? There’s a lot of big nasties and big rewards out there (including the meta-progression discoverables).

I initially stopped around the 15 hour mark too once I’d beat year one and realising that each subsequent year would be the same, but harder. Like Risk of Rain, a lot of the game’s variety and excitement for me comes from the different synergies you can discover and seeing how far you can get with them. That’s why the bumrush enemies are disappointing because they feel cheap after everything else!

Yes, I saw the outer desert area at the West. Scary stuff, even with a upgraded flamethrower on my hands!


Spelunky 2 is out. 15€ for me.

it would be sacrilege to call this orange box-level value at $18 on release day, but its close! instant buy!

My reflexes were on point and I kept the camera and reticule locked ahead… I’m now on the final year. Gourds make the best bullet hell guards.

How aggressive is the metaprogression in Hades? I’m one of those people who are philosophically opposed to the idea, but secretly I don’t really mind, as long as the gameplay is very good, like in Dead Cells. Should I be okay here?

I figured I’d post my question in this thread to avoid stinking up the game thread.

Not very aggressive.

Firstly, there are the weapons. You need to unlock most of them. I have favorites - I am sure everyone does - but they are really about play styles. There’s an additional system where you can unlock stuff for each weapon but I haven’t gotten to it yet (I have a bit of the currency). I think this is more about modifying move sets and such.

Then there’s the mirror in the bedroom. This has a decent amount of stuff (with many upgrades gated by the same currency you use to unlock weapons). But a lot of it has a low maximum. I just hit the max health upgrade, which I believe doubles your starting health (50 to 100). There’s interesting stuff here, like getting an additional dash you can chain or a small amount of healing each time you finish a room. So it’s not all just “here’s more damage/defense/etc”. In fact more of it is not that than is. And the scaling tends to be quickly capped, as I said. It’s enough that you feel it, but not crazy overwhelming.

Then there’s the palace itself. You can change the decor and add rooms. Some of these confer permanent bonuses, but they’re all pretty modest and I haven’t seen anything stacking so far. And opening up stuff in the palace is important for other reasons. The plot here is terrific.

There is some sort of. . . I can’t remember the term. Let’s call it relics. As you curry favor with various characters in the game, you;ll unlock more of them. you can equip one (there’s a mirror upgrade that allows you to swap relics each time you finish a region).

There may be more systems I haven’t gotten to yet. The game’s design philosophy is clearly not “we’re going to let you upgrade damage 100 times and then scale enemies accordingly”. This is true of the in-run upgrades as well. There’s some of that, but there’s a lot more “this thing changes the way one of your abilities works”.

I can’t recommend Hades enough.

Buy it. :)

@TimJames JUST DO IT

Aggressive on the first hours, moderate later, and finally falls off on the endgame where you grind alternate versions of the weapons. But the gameplay is good, like in DC.

Retrunal for PS5 is supposed to be a roguelike, probably one of the bigger budget ones on the horizon. This is Housemarque studios taking a crack at a more AAA game (previous games include Nex Machina, Resogun, Outland, Super Stardust)


well if nex machina and super stardust is their pedigree im interested. but “returnal” is a groaner of a name.

I’m reading some impression of Spelunky 2. They highlight the difficulty, saying it’s higher then in 1… which it wasn’t an easy game.

I played some Spelunky 2 last night.

I never played much of the first so can’t comment on comparative difficulty, but this seems tricky for sure.

But in a good way, as I do feel the urge to instantly restart after every death! And the deaths can be pretty entertaining.

I think I only made it to level 1-3 so far. Note I am traditionally terrible at platformers. :)

I played an hour of Spelunky 2, made it to the second zone once, and I’m already eager to unlock the shortcut. I haven’t mastered the first zone yet so I’m being a bit more impatient than I should be.

Another thing I wanted to ask to previous Spelunky players is if I should skip the first game because the second part is ‘the same game, but with more’, or if instead, it should be played.

So here’s the thing: Spelunky 2 includes many of the areas from the first game, but they’re redone in a very different way. Personally, I would say play it – even though the areas are there in the new game, they’re different enough that 1 gives you a different experience, and Spelunky 1 is a lot of fun. I don’t think anyone can make the case that 2 is ‘better’. It’s bigger, it has some different design decisions, but Spelunky 1 stands on its own as well.

However, getting good at these games requires a lot of time and effort. I personally really enjoy playing some rounds of Spelunky 2, dying (as I learn from my mistakes), then going back to Spelunky 1 and easily beating it since I know it so well. But if you don’t know both games, I think you’re better off focusing on one of them. Plot-wise… Spelunky 1 has no plot really, and 2 has a little bit of lore, so you’re not missing out on anything there. But 1 is still awesome.

I hope that helps somewhat.

You can still download the original free version of Spelunky.

I still prefer the original cave music over what I heard of the newer OST!