The action roguelite thread

Wait… did no one put Hand of Fate in here? For shame!


Huh. Granted, I only played about 20 minutes of Hand of Fate, but I came away with the impression it was a card game, not an action Roguelite. Am I thinking of a different game maybe?

It’s an action roguelite with an FTL-like design, except better. The little vignettes in FTL are self-contained, whereas here they continue in serialized fashion when you draw the sequel’s card after you’ve unlocked it by completing the previous one. It’s awesome. It’s also a deckbuilder, but at least in the first game, that aspect isn’t emphasized too much IMO.

Updates on Hades, after playing a bit more of 7 hours: Yes, it’s an excellent game, together Dead Cells they both are the best action roguelites in the market.

Beside the 2 mentioned. Are there any other games with good combat you would recommend?

I hate this too. I like weighing up my options but this almost always feels like work. That said, I’m keen to try Dead Cells at some point.

I don’t recall anyone mentioning Cryptark:

https://www.cryptark.com

…and by extension, Void Bastards:

I liked Cryptark a lot.

In other news, Dead Cell has sold 3 million copies and have a new update.

Also people like the genre. Right now in Steam, at least in my region, the bestsellers are 1) Hades, 2)Issac Rebirth and 9) Skull Hero Slayer, still in EA

Skul looks good but still in EA… I might have to break my non-EA purchase rule like I did for Dead Cells.

In other news. I saw an interesting game in EA too. It’s a monster taming, action roguelike.

I beat Dead Cells with 1BC… I’m a hero!

…wait, there’s more?

Did you guys actually finish the game on max difficulty?

Hell no. I beat 0BC, 1BC and… I think I actually beat 2BC but only once, with a very OP build? Or did I get super close to do it? I can’t remember at this point. But in no way I advanced beyond that.

Ok, I played Hades for close to 25 hours. Time to make a silly comparison! Dead Cells vs Hades

I think I’m going to actually give Hades the edge in how the combat develops, if only because it’s isometric, that allows for two real axis of freedom, vs Dead Cells 2d platform paradigm. Where yes, you can jump, climb up or down platforms, and in fact some enemies behave differently (some can jump platforms, other can’t, some can fire through walls, others can’t) but it isn’t the same.

On the other hand I will give Dead Cells the edge on pure visceral feeling of the action. the chunky sounds, the freeze frames and flashes, the gore, stuff like the stomp the ceiling and crushing down someone below, it’s superb.

In weapons & item variety, Dead Cells wins, with… 120sih? different implements of death, each one differently animated, with different stats and gimmicks. The game mixes everything, from melee weapons to bows, crossbows, two-handers, magic spells, curses, gadgets, traps, grenades, etc. Hades has more variety than it seems at first, with the weapon aspects and some radical modifiers you can fin while playing, but still I prefer DC’s design.

Hades wins in build variety, as the game is focused on that, on obtaining ~15 boons per run and mixing and matching them in different ways, creating synergies between them, your weapon and your keepsake. There are thousands of permutations. Hell there is the mirror too, that affects your build also. DC is more humble in this regard, with just up to three mutators to choose, three main stats to upgrade, and upgrade stats and random affixes for your weapons.

Biome and level variety, Dead Cells takes the win, 16 different biome themes are more than four, and the procedural generation makes more unique-ish layouts vs the limited room layout pool Hades have, I know already most of them by memory.

Plot and characterization, well, doh, obviously Hades wins.

Enemy variety is for Dead Cells, Hades isn’t bad, but I guess it’s an unfair comparison, as DC has obtained new enemies in the post-game support.

Huh, so there is a Way of the Samurai spinoff Mystery Dungeon action game.

There’s even a Shiren DLC to prove their roguelike bona fides.

The reviews seem pretty bad, though.

I hereby declare Watch Dogs Legion an action roguelite

(images removed)

This reminds me of a 3d version of Streets of Rogue. You die, you switch to a new character with new stats and unique powers, with a wide array of ‘classes’, from police and spies to hooligan and grannies.

So if anyone cares, I caved in and bought it.

It’s a mix of Way of the Samurai’s action and sword fetish, Recettear’s debt-repaying shop sim and Shiren’s mystery dungeon roguelike.

It’s a bit barebones, but it’s kinda fun and does the job. It’s the closest thing to a Sekiroguelike there is right now, I guess. You can block at the perfect moment and go schwing and teleport on the other side of the guy and he drops dead. What more could you ask for? Don’t expect the same quality in the controls, though: movement is kinda slow and unresponsive and attacks don’t seem to have the reach they should have.

That sounds awesome to me, concept-wise, but execution is oh-so-important.

I think they would have had a real winner if they polished it a bit more. Maybe a sequel? Still, I like it.

It’s funny the game has kind kind of yojimbo, warmongering thing going on, where you arm three factions, and the more they’re armed, the more they get nervous and start itching for a fight, the more weapons they want, etc.

You can sell an expensive sword to someone, kill them, then sell the sword right back again. It’s a thing the game lets you do. No sense in wasting good merchandise, eh?

It releases on August 6th. Trailer

They are saying the price will increase when leaving EA.

Neon Abyss is now on Gamepass

My impression of Neon Abyss isn’t very good. Decent enough to play it a few days on gaps of free time if you get it from Gamepass or a future bundle, not good enough to actually buy it.

Action: The action is bland, it’s far away from something like Dead Cells or Hades. This is perhaps one of the most important points.

Mechanical action: The previous point was more about how it feels, if it’s visceral (it doesn’t. This is more about how interesting is the combat from a mechanical standpoint. Well, it isn’t. You can’t carry several weapons, they don’t have extra modes, nor there is ammo, there are no movement abilities like dashes, you can have a single ‘active’ ability but it seems to be rare to have one and its use is very limited as it uses up a resource, for now there is only on consumable I have seen, the grenades which sucks to use as they can’t be aimed. 98% of the game is hold fire while jumping/avoiding enemy fire.

Build variety. And this is the second most important. The first issue would be somehow admissible if in exchange the game would have a super crazy build variety, with an incredible amount of variation. But it doesn’t seem to be the case, from what I played and watched on some youtube videos. Most of them don’t really affect a lot on how you play the game.
In fact some of modifiers I have seen were ‘dupes’ with another skin.
edit: example, in my current game I have:
-extra damage when you are in the air.
-extra life? I’m not sure
-extra damge and rof… when I’m wounded, I suspect
-explosion around me when I’m wounded
-extra max health + slight more damage
-extra damage in this room each time you pick up something on it
-you can use a egg instead of a key
-chance of getting a key when I melee someone
-extra rof and movement speed
-chance of firing a laser in addition your normal fire
-chance of dropping a bomb or mine when using a key
-extra rof and and damage
-gold gained when you are wounded
-extra jump height
-extra damage when you are wounded

Pets. Perhaps the most distinct gimmick of the game is how your character is followed by three, four or even more pets, that shoot at enemies for you or whatever. It’s actually kind of annoying, because at some point you can have 7 or 8 sprites moving around you and confusing the action you see on screen more. And some enemies and encounters are bulle-hell-y so it isn’t something to dismiss.


Awesome or stupid? you decide

Information obfuscation. Items or weapons don’t show descriptions until you pick them up. You may thing is an oversight, but there is passive you can get that enable it seeing them before picking them up, so yeah, bad design decision. They punish the new players, and in addition make a passive without any use for veterans. The game has some stats because sometimes you pick up passives or perks that increase slightly your damage or talk of a % of chance, but no number is seen anywhere. Some descriptions, even when you see them, are gibberish, I have no idea of what the object does.
edit: hell in the shops you can’t even see the name of what you are going to buy.

Something that also dislike is how is one of those games that close the entrances and exits and spawn the enemies when you enter. In games with a bigger combat arena (like Hades) is fine, but here it feels more constrained, and sometimes it spawns melee enemies super close to you starting position. Lovely.

As a positive, I will say the game has three difficulty modes from the start, easy / medium / hard, and easy is noticeably easier.
Enemy variety is fine, if there are new enemies in the later world I haven’t seen.

That’s pretty much it.

The reviews do look pretty bad, though, and it reminded me that Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin still isn’t out. I give 2020 a 40% chance.