One of the things I’ve come to realize is I’m not a fan of how many of these games are speed focused, rewarding rushing. The games that don’t do this I tend to enjoy a lot more.
Wizard of Legend gets new update:
- 16 new arcana (2 for each base element, 6 chaos)
- 12 new signatures (2 for each base element, 2 chaos)
- UI markers for arcana and relic types
- Doubled loadout slots with Cammy
- 11 new relics with new grouping system
- 2 new combine relics
- 7 new cursed relics
- Readjustment and balancing of relics and arcana
And Gunfire too (put in its own thead)
EGS gave for free this week Mothergunship. And in Gamepass, we have Atomicrops added, and Hades will be included on 8/13.
New Humble Bundle, includes roguelites like Everspace, Synthetik and Dungreed (which seems to be a game in the vein of Rogue Legacy)
Dreamscaper is out.
That looks REALLY good.
Kind of refreshing to see a trailer in this thread that’s not pixelart. Doesn’t happen often enough! :)
That trailer was pretty awesome.
And now for something different, the music of Unexplored 2 is pretty good
I’ve been enjoying my time with Dreamscaper, but wow is it a Hades-like. It’s the first of what I assume will be many games that directly lift the meta-progression structure from that game. It’s not my favorite roguelite, but a relaxing change of pace in the genre.
After playing 4.5 hours and seeing the first 3 areas…
TLDR Dreamscaper is a decent action roguelite, with good graphics, decent variety of skills and what in theory is a good combat system… but I think the lack of experience of the team is noticeable. Alas, the competition in the market is too strong.
Let’s see. Graphics can be very nice, although they tend to have bloom and over-bright style that on ocassions makes a bit hard to see some parts.
https://i.imgur.com/UoZ6Tek.jpeg
(the first shop area is lovely!)
Combat seems deep enough :
You have always a melee weapon and a ranged weapon (which use a regenerating energy bar). Both starting ones are random.
You have two magical powers/skill slots (with a simple cooldown) and a special magical ability that can be used every 4 rooms.
You have the roll to avoid attack, and a shield to block or even reflect damage (the latter if you tap the key just at the right moment, Dead Cells style).
You can get extra damage attacking at the right moment (perfect attack), when your character has a flash. I think Curse of Dead Gods also used this system.
Melee weapons have an alternate attack key to break guard of enemies.
Weapon have a mastery level (to upgrade them as part of the metaprogression), level (hammer lvl 1, lvl 2…) and random attributes.
The dodge roll appear in your inventory as any other weapon or ability, so it can be replaced or upgraded. There are other varieties like teleport dash or jump roll. Taken from Dandy Ace, now that I think about it.
In fact there is a decent variety in implement of death: from unarmed kungfu, to hammers, katana, dual energy swords, tornado summoning, black holes, lightspeed dashing, bows, water pistol, rockets, yo-yos, and more.
Level Progression is pretty mediocre, once you look beyond the pretty graphics. Just a random group of linked rooms, with both keys and bombs to unlock new areas or get chests. You also have ‘sand’ as your ingame currency.
The map allows quick travel to any previously visited room, which is always nice. It’s also clearly indicated when you have an object not picked in a room, etc. Example
https://i.imgur.com/H37a4gJ.jpeg
I like you can dismount any dropped item/perk, when you replace an ability with a better one. But you can’t drop a item in the groun, dismount it to get money, then buy something in the shop, so sometimes you see a new item you only need 10 sand more and you can’t buy it, even if you know that by recycling the item it will replace would be enough.
For metaprogression, you have other 4 currencies, one for player progression, another for level progression (you can add new rooms to the levels, including challenges or puzzles), another for the gift system (it’s kind of hilarious that the story is about a lonely woman that gift homemade coasters to people until someone takes pity of her) and another to unlock new items.
The Hades ‘inspiration’ is also in several mechanics that they have lifted: the whole friends/gift system, the journal with long term objectives that give you rewards, and the custom difficulty system (although not as fully featured, just pick normal/hard/nightmare in 4categories)
I can’t say anything of the story, for now it’s implied there is one, the MC is clearly depressed (the bosses are creatures called Fear or Loneliness) , she starts the game looking at a tomb… but for now it hasn’t revealed anything meaningful.
This all sounds good, but now it’s time for the criticizing:
-After you get the low hanging fruit of the first hours in the metapgrogression, you start to notice how it sucks. It’s very slowly incremental. There is one thing to literally get +1% gold. or 5% to the time window to parry, things like that. Also, they don’t seem to be capped, they just cost more and more resources.
https://i.imgur.com/GpD3ylP.png
-The friends and their conversations feel much more different than in Hades. Instead of larger than life interesting mythological characters they have… a waitress, a coworker, some old dude in the park, a history teacher, etc. You have mundane conversations with them after getting their friend level up enough. Add too the lack of voiceovers and yeah, I think how they invited to be compared to Hades was actually a bad idea. One thing that irks me is how you can use the ‘talk’ option with them, but you don’t really talk, a text window appears saying ‘it seems Fernando likes to travel’. Just a hint for the gift system. It would have been better having a conversation about traveling with him.
-The enemy variety is lacking. I think there is a total of 3 enemies in the first level (melee dude, javelin dude, blob) and two more in the second level (hat dude who teleports sometimes, small melee dude with horns which is basically a new skin of the blob enemy). There is 2-3 variants to turrets, in addition to them.
-Weapon variety is less impressive than it seems at first, once you use them. With this I mean, several (not all, let’s say 1/3) feel like the smallest variation of another weapon. From melee weapon with medium range and 3 hit combo to… melee weapon with medium range and 3 hit combo. Same with ranged weapons, you have the bow that fires and arrow… and there 3 or 4 more that are basically the same with another skin, a projectile shooter with low RoF.
-The combat pace could be a bit better. I think the game would benefit of a increased enemy count per room, so there is more active dodging, more awareness of things around you, and in exchange lower a bit their damage/hp, making it brisker.
-And now my biggest complain, which I’ve saving up for last
The combat trends more on the slow and unresponsive side. I don’t know why, but they have disregarded what other action games have been doing for the last 30 years, and they have made:
-Main character attack animations with realistic speeds. You see your character raise then arm and slowly doing an amateur punch. Seriously, the oldest trick in the world is to speed them up, to both give them a more visceral powerful feel, and to make the combat more responsive, having less disconnect between your button presses and the screen.
Funnily enough, this doesn’t apply to some enemies, with can attack lightning fast.
-Attack skills with long animations (I mean, ‘long’ in comparison with what they should be) whose effect won’t apply until the final frame. And yes, you can be interrupted. In some cases you see the animation, the particle f/x around… and the effect won’t happen. Which feels bollocks.
-You cannot chain smoothly ranged shots together your melee attacks, the ranged weapon needs a 0.5 sec charge at least, so it never feels smooth.
-The game won’t buffer inputs, you can be attacking an enemy with normal attacks, you press skill 1 and… nothing happens. At first I thought I hadn’t pressed the button right, but no, because my character was busy with another (long winded) animation, my command was ignored. And it isn’t like I was smashing my buttons, but really, it seems action need ‘space’ in time to be registered. Now, I think the normal in games like this is to do a partial buffer, so if you click skill 2 while skill 1 animation is being done, that should be ignored, but if you do it when skill 1 have only a few frames remaining, you cheat a big and accept and buffer the input.
It’s… dunno, maybe they were going for a more ‘deliberate’ combat? I don’t know.
It isn’t unplayable, I don’t want to overstate things, but it doesn’t feel as good as Dead Cells, Hades, Enter the Gungeon, Curse of Dead Gods, Risk of Rain 2 or Skul.
After a few more hours, I agree with everything in your summary. The game is easy enough that I’ll probably do a single very-careful run to see it through to the end just to see what happens.
This game’s bomb/key trade room reminded me that I hadn’t done a Binding of Isaac run in a while, and since it was still installed on my Switch I ended up doing a handful of BoI runs without much of a plan and had a blast. I don’t foresee Dreamscaper ever drawing me back in in the same way.
More people should get less comfortable with being loud, imo.
I have been playing Skul. At first, I didn’t like it. But then, after a few weeks I played it again, and this time I liked it! The different skull powers are fun and interesting, and after two and a half hours I finally beat the first boss, something apparently only two thirds of players have done.
That’s great. Now get back to Wizard of Legend :)
Maaaybe. That one left me a little cold after three or four hours of play.
I just started Hades. Better late than never.
It is definately an action roguelite designed with multiple runs in mind/required, since you gain in power, unlock things, open new backstory tidbits, lore, etc in-between runs. It’s kind of got the ultimate…just one more run iche.
Skul is hard! There is a big spike at the second “world,” and I don’t know how many the game even has.
Every boss is hard but the difficulty is initially gated by Skul more than anything else. For the second boss, I suggest slowing down (maybe not even attacking) and try to understand the pattern.
No action game have tops Hades for me yet. It is the ultimate action Roguelike game for me. I can’t think of one thing truly wrong with the game.
Yeah, Hades is wonderful, but I have 50 hours in the game and only a small inclination to go back and finish out the storyline(s?). Maybe someday.
Skul I just made it to the act 3 boss and if previous bosses are any guide got about 25% of the way through it, all thanks to:
