Hecaton Reviews

A charming rouge lite, plays very similar to Risk of Rain 1.

[i]This rogue-lite is pretty good as far as the items and upgrades go. The gameplay is not bad, it has multiple characters with unique skills, many different enemies with unique attacks, and you can even rebind the controller. The reason I won't play it is the level design, the stages are just way too repetitive and frankly, the only challenge here is being patient enough so I don't even want to play past the first stage. For reference, any rogue-lite made by 'Caiysware' is something that I think the developer should strive for when it comes to level design. As someone who owns over 100 rogue-lites, my philosophy on the game loop is that stages always need a level of 'uncertainty' - there needs to be a threat to your life at any moment, not just long flat grounds where I can safely farm enemies for experience. So my main feedback would be to make the RNG layout tighter with less walking and backtracking, focus more on difficult platforming and find a way to have some sudden death for those that don't pay attention, such as death pits or powerful timed explosions. You don't want the rogue-lite loop to be a thing where you play until you get tired, you have too many sections where it feels like you just covering a lot of space with the same boring spawn points. I think if you would put the characters and mechanics from this game into one with better level design, it would work very well. It's not a bad game, but this is a very competitive genre and I have games that have a lot more to offer.[/i]

It's a fun game with a lot of hidden depth. I think the best part of the game is having 8 different characters to play. You start with 2 and have to unlock the rest. A lot of them are familiar archetypes but are fun to play. For example, my favorite is Maverick, a cowboy that can use Fan the Hammer then roll to Fan the Hammer again. Feels like McCree from Overwatch but there's also a whole RPG element to it. You can use a Diablo-like piece to loot every game that will change your stats around but also has a negative to it. You can tell that the developer plays a lot of games and has put their influence here. My biggest bummer is that honestly its a Roguelike and you lose everything when you die. You unlock new Items and characters to try to change things up. It sounds like there will be more permanent progression coming in a later patch so I think that will help a lot. Overall I would recommend this if you're looking for a game with a lot of depth.

A good game, a hidden gem. I can see the similarities between this game and Risk of Rain 1. You start with 1 of 8 unlock-able characters and proceed through different platforming maps. Each map places you at the "start" and you need to activate your compass to see where the beacon is. Destroy the beacon and the end-level fight unlocks. Then proceed as quickly as you can to the end-level fight where you beat a swarm of spawning enemies, and after a certain time frame is over, you phase to the boss battle. Beat the boss and you proceed to the next map. Scattered through the maps are large and small chests, shrines and pop-up stores that sell items and mystery items. The different items can give different boosts such as blinding/staggering foes, giving you satellites that attack enemies, armor increases, etc. As you fight foes you gain XP and on each level-up you get to pick different "fates" which are modifiers that can slightly change your build. A few examples are "primary attack goes 75% farther", "gain 1-500 credits", "+5% Critical Chance", "+10% Health but -5 Armor". Like RoR you need to move as fast as possible through the maps because the difficulty brutally increases as the timer goes up. It can be a balance trying to gather resources optimally and quickly figuring out what to leave behind. The maps are not procedurally generated and come from a pool of pre-defined levels. One big frustration for me is playing the same maps over and over - it is literally impossible to complete the game on your first run because you need to get permanent stat boosts by playing over and over again. Each time you die a "proficiency" meter goes up and for each level you get to permanently boost one of your stats [b]for that character only[/b] (armor, health, attack speed, cooldowns, etc). I'm so sick of playing the same maps over and again to the point that once I beat the main game with the 1st unlockable character (The Patriot), there's absolutely no way I will subject myself to the insane grind required to get the proficiency levels up for the other characters. This feeling would drastically change if the levels were procedural... but no. I can already play the maps blindfolded and I'm angry that I can't finish the stupid game yet. At the time of writing this review I have about 17 hours in the game so I definitely got my money's worth! I wouldn't feel bad if I paid full price for this, honestly. It's quite fun even though there are some annoyances with the grind and repetitive maps.