I think that’s just referring to the normal roguelike combat where all turns happen essentially simultaneously after you put in input. On the controller, it feels similar to Shiren the Wanderer or ZHP where you point your character in a direction and then attack. The notable differences from the get-go: You have an AI companion and the game hints you’ll be getting more; You have a ranged attack (gun) that you can pick up ammo for throughout the dungeon; You get bombs which you can throw out into combat and explode after X turns, or you can manually explode them (I think by shooting them). But I didn’t notice anything outside normal roguelike conventions that was “superfluid”.
Steam reviews for Dragon Fin Soup are brutal. I’m going to hold off for a bit.
I watch a guy play for about an hour on Twitch, and he didn’t appear to enjoy the game. It wasn’t even enjoyable to watch. The animations are ugly and stilted. It was difficult to understand what was going on. He would randomly take a step and instantly die either from an enemy that appeared out of nowhere or some invisible trap (which there are a lot of). I understand that is part of the fun of a roguelike, but there didn’t appear to be any “learned lessons” or something that was clearly the user’s fault. The streamer was clearly frustrated by the random deaths, and looked like he was having difficulty with the controls.
Haha, yeah. I had hopes for this one, but it’s just so damn terrible. Oh, so many reasons why:
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On PS4, UI is too small and parts of it are chopped off on my TV screen. Health bars and damage numbers are truly microscopic, so you often have to stop and look at the log to figure out what just happened;
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You can zoom the map and the choices are: a bit too far, waaaay too far and way too close;
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Icons are too small when looking at the map… pretty hard to figure out what is what;
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Maps are full of obstacles obscuring everything from view and you have to tediously cut down every tree in sight just to get your bearings
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Considering all the above… why the hell did they add so much fog in the game???
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It’s really easy to make too many steps without wanting to and hard to walk in a diagonal consistently (add a lock diagonal walking button!);
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Story mode is so far completely insipid, get quest from tavern, kill stuff, get useless reward, repeat;
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Main town in story mode is randomly generated and mine is annoying and hard to navigate;
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Stores in story mode don’t seem to update in a long time (if at all?), not much worth buying;
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Pet NPCs cannot be controlled and uh, can they actually do anything except attack?;
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Items all have nice illustrations, but there doesn’t seem to be any special effects except attack and defense going up;
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SHITLOADS of recipes and crafting items clogging up inventory, but the interface is thouroughly terrible on console: placing and removing items has to be done one by one, recipes are hard to navigate as one potentially 574 items long list (no categories) and you cannot “auto-create” an item just by pressing a button on the recipe… gotta do it manually every time;
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Crafting can fail, making you lose some items… so you probably have to grind “crafting levels” not to waste rare materials or something;
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Many things are poorly explained… what are those crystals you can hit? How do you boost weapons with item crystals? Where do I find which fish? What’s that frenzy bar supposed to do? What are my chances to hit a target?
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By the way, fishing mini-game seems to be bugged. I complete the “success” bar and nothing happens. Wha?
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So far, the dialogue falls pretty flat and up close the characters look more “grotesquely ugly” rather than “super-deformed charming”;
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The credits smugly state that the game was made by “veterans” of the industry… once again, considering the above… really?
So uh… good thing it’s free on PS4? I think they could (and really SHOULD) sort out some of the worst problems with a patch, but I’m not sure it has what it takes to become a really great game. It reminds me of One Way Heroics, which was made by one person and has much more modest visuals, but “gets” the nuts and bolts of a roguelike much better: ease of movement, especially diagonal, being able to display complex information legibly, having tons of items that have weird, but potentially useful effects, etc. The developers should definitely look at One Way Heroics to see what they could improve.
So glad I didn’t listen to Rubin. Thanks for the warnings.
shrug
I played Dragon Fin Soup for a half hour last night on the Vita, and every single problems listed up-thread exists on this version too.
- There is no tinier font than the one used EVERYWHERE in DFS.
- Icon colors used in mini-map doesn’t match those used in the zoomed-in mini map.
- Pets/companions will buff themselves as well as attack. Not sure if they buff you, though.
I’m gonna drop it, I still have ZHP and Jeanne D’arc on the Vita to go through. And I’d rather go back and play Dreadmor or The Pit.
Pretty much everything Woodlance said. It just wasn’t fun to play. Chop the wood, chop the plants, try to move around. Bleh. At least it was free (for a reason I guess.)
EDIT - didn’t realize the town was random. Mine is absolutely dreadful too. And there are trees blocking paths so I lost cash just clearing my way.
Well that was $18 saved. It’s not free on Steam! Thanks for all the detailed feedback. Looks like this is a pass.
I’m kind of in the mood for a TOME like game, something with nice visuals but still a meaty roguelike experience that’s not crazy hardcore, but has depth. What are some of the better ones out there people dig? I know that’s the point of this entire thread, but 33 pages is kind of a lot to go through…
I wonder if I shouldn’t just play some more TOME… I’ve never gotten super far in it, actually. I do love it though.
Do you want something faster paced or something a bit slower and more methodical. If fast paced, I’d say Dungeon Souls or Runers. Slower paced could be Dungeonmanns or Tallowmere.
Or you could just get Cogmind.
This. I knew there was a roguelike on my mind I wanted to look into, it was this. Man this looks fun. Though you’ve given me 4 great options, so I’ll look into them all and see what grabs me the most. Just need a little time killer while I wait for Fallout 4 this weekend and in-between Divinity sessions. :)
Cogmind is the most expensive of all the options I’ve mentioned, but oh my god is it amazing.
Dungeonmans is quite good, clearly very TOME inspired for its combat but with a nice visual style. It’s quite a bit simpler, also easier, but builds are still fun to experiment with and there’s still a bunch of interesting toys to play with.
I assume you’ve played Sword of the Stars: The Pit or Dungeons of Dredmore?
The Pit in particular is amazing.
Cogmind is indeed awesome but I’ve avoided playing it until it’s “done”. I only played a few games so far.
I’d be inclined to just say keep at TOME. It’s probably the best one I’ve played of the “Meaty but not crazy hardcore” variety. DoomRL actually kinda falls under that category too, as long as you aren’t playing one of the challenges. TOME’s got more depth but if you’re looking for one to play in bursts to fill in the gaps DoomRL may work better since it’s generally faster paced and easier to quit and resume later, since you aren’t juggling lots of character abilities or quests or anything.
What’s good roguelike with lots of character customization (preferably not just at stat, but also at level-up or otherwise throughout the game)? I.e., not just pick a class, but depending on other choices, able to take the class in many different directions and come up with workable concepts of your own goofball ideas for ways to play.
In the days when Tome was Tolkien based, I had a Yavanna-worshipping dwarf vampire druid, or something like that, because one of the spells you got from Yavanna worked excellently with axes, but as just a druid, you had no skill at all with axes - therefore the dwarf part. Don’t remember what being a vampire brought to the table. Early on, it was quite tough going, as with most goofball concepts, but once he was able to cast his spells regularly, he gotquite powerful.
Somehow, I’ve never gotten around to looking at the newer Tomes… but I bet 2.3.x about half a dozen times with different characters.
Dungeon Crawl has a ton of different gods that you pick roughly 1/3 of the way in (and can change, albeit usually at some cost) that pretty materially affect how you play, as well as skills you choose to level. So you can start thinking you will be a Vampire Assassin and change to be a hex using spell caster if, say, you find a cool spell book part way through the game.
What’s the current best rogue like with the best graphics?