This actually seems like a good time to ask–obviously after criticising that Polygon list–what everyone’s favourite action roguelikes are? I’ve got to dash for work but will give this some thought and reply later.
Does this count?
You know, I have less than 2 hours in that. Perhaps I should revisit.
1st Dead Cells
2nd Gunfire Reborn
3rd Hades
here’s a few games in the VS style (or action roguelike) ;) . 0 Minutes Till Dawn, Army of Ruin, Brotato, Forced Showdown, Nordic Ashes, Nova Drift, Rogue: Genesia, Sidestep Legends,Scarlet Tower, Soulstone Survivors, HoloCure, Jianghu Survivor, Spellbook Demonslayers,Freedom Drive, Bounty of One, Sidestep Legend, Luck Be A Landlord, Bio-Prototype, Defcon: Xenos, Vampire Survivors
Which of the bullet heaven games is your favorite?
Been really enjoying this one recently.
Amazing high score chaser. Very much it’s own thing that’s been around longer than the recent arena survival/bullet heaven trend. Still in EA, but very polished and full of run possibilities.
Harkonis hasn’t had his coffee yet, lol
Prey Mooncrash, Spelunky series, Risk of Rain 2, Gunfire Reborn, Atomicrops, Towerclimb, Gonner, Streets of Rogue.
No, Chronicon is a traditional ARPG.
Nova Drift is good, but I tend to skip games in EA when making lists.
Risk of Rain 2 is another good one.
Streets of Rogue is very good, but my brain classify it as another genre, it has more ImSim spirit than pure action. It would be like calling Prey a FPS.
LBAL is on the list because I just copy pasted my streaming list ;) However the metagame structure is actually very much the same as VS fwiw. It plays like an abstract version of it to me.
I will be revisiting all of these over the next couple weeks since they have almost all had really big updates since I last played them, but I was gravitating the most towards Bio-Prototype and Spellbook Demon Slayers as top. I think overall potential Rogue: Genesia and Scarlet Tower are definitely up there as well. Bounty of One was one of the easiest to find the fun so to speak and I quite enjoyed it also.
So many of them it can be a bit much though at times. I want to like Nordic Ashes but something about the movement and the way enemies track bugs me. Similar feel to Army of Ruin in that regard and that aspect bugs me there as well. Also Nordic Ashes has the worst targeting of all of them IMO. So many abilities are random and it feels sloppy to me.
Oh yeah, I remember your Streets of Rogue thread now. That’s a terrible name for that game. I just watched the trailer on their steam page, it looks incredible.
Okay, I’ll bite. Polygon’s list fails by not including one 2-D turn-based roguelike. Tales of Maj’Eyal and Zorbus are released, while Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, Cogmind, and Caves of Qud are complete without being finished.
Yeah, I actually like the list quite a bit, but also thought it was surprising not a single traditional roguelike showed up on that list.
- Crypt of the Necrodancer: unique and best design IMO
- Spelunky: good design, unfortunately 2 disappointed me
- Streets of Rogue: not so challenging but pure fun.
- Immortal Redneck: the only FPS roguelite I like so far
- Enter the Gungeon: takes a lot of skill but quickly rising in my list
- Binding of Isaac Rebirth (only with all DLC)
- Nuclear Throne: super challenging
Lol, at this point that fight is lost already. For most people ‘roguelike’ means games with ‘random runs’ and ‘metapgrogression’, nothing related to being a turn based dungeon crawler. I try to make the distinction between roguelike and roguelite (hence the title) but I’m in the minority.
Rogue Spirit is out
It’s an third person action game with roguelite structure that uses a Ghibli inspired style, however the action itself doesn’t seem to be very thrilling or well done. It’s 77% positive on Steam.
That’s the spirit! But, oh man, for some reason I read the Polygon list as an action roguelike list so didn’t bat an eye at the lack of traditional roguelikes in there. What a shame.
So my favourite action roguelikes are:
- Atomicrops - At least when I played it at launch; it’s changed a fair bit since then. A whacky and intense mix of pressure cooker time/resource management, farming, defence and bullet hell.
- Going Under - As a package this is one of my favourites. Its chaotic combat has a lot of personality like its environments (a crypto mining dungeon with chomp chomp-like blocks on chains?), characters, story and visuals/music, and it doesn’t outstay its welcome either.
- Hades - I can’t not put this here but I found the last 10 runs or so to roll the credits more of a slog than I’d liked.
- Risk of Rain 1 and 2 - On the ascent it’s a race against time, on the descent it’s about looping till you break the game. Both great co-op too.
- Abyss Odyssey - ACE Team’s weird Chilean folklore Smash Bros-guelike. I’m the rare fan!
- Nuclear Throne - I’m shite at it but I still love the look, sound and feel of this chaotic thing.
- Returnal - Only just stalled on this thanks to an unfortuante run-ending bug but otherwise I’ve been having a blast with it.
Oooooh, nice! This one is in my backlog.
Remembered some more
- Children of Morta is delightful and has a fairly strong narrative, like Hades.
- Hand of Fate 1 and 2 are great (I personally prefer 1 for now).
I know it’s a lost battle at this point, but as _aaron points out, it’s crazy that there’s not a single actual roguelike on that list when there are just so many amazing modern examples. (Cogmind! Jupiter Hell! Shattered Pixel Dungeon!) Most aren’t even roguelites, even! I love Inscryption, but you might as well call Doom a roguelike.
Yeah, at first I was hesitant to post that list in this thread, but by the time I actually made it to the end of the list, I was thinking, oh, no problem, this list is actually perfect for the action roguelite thread. It’s just a misnamed list.