Rotwood Reviews

Local coop roguelite that actually wants you to play with a friend is all I needed to hear. There are plenty of better singleplayer roguelites out there but this isn't meant to be played singleplayer. I can only really recommend this game if you have a friend to play it with; which is easy because its local coop and you can use steam remote play. You can revive your teammates during battles which helps with people not feeling left out. There are plenty of perks that help you support your pals mostly through healing. The armor you can unlock opens up a variety of play styles. 10/10 with friend

Really fun multiplayer, Hades-adjacent rogue-lite. Great polish to it and there's surprising depth to it - they do a great job pacing new mechanics.

Hard to decide whether to recommend or not to recommend tbh but ultimately had to say no. I got this game for the local coop to play with my son and we are in fact really enjoying ourselves with it but there are so many issues currently that make for an infuriating experience that cant be ignored. The UI in local coop is arguably the worst I've ever seen in my life and it's probably best just listed out: - Both players share a single UI. This means things like; mousing over armour to read stats can be interrupted by the other player simply moving. All armour and weapons have to be equipped or viewed separately but done while sharing a UI. Which is "hey buddy don't touch anything I'm going to change my armour." and then "alright Dad now it's my turn." Every time you want to do anything. - Buying items in a shop uses the age-old method of walking up to an item and then seeing its stats floating above the item in a window but if the other player approaches an item in the shop their window overlaps yours making both unreadable... So again, you've got to ask them to just stand there and wait while you shop and then you stand there and wait while they shop. - There's a cute little base decorating system in the game that gives you much needed cores for upgrades but we've completely given up on placing the items we build in our base because it requires us to again, do it separately and one by one. So, you open the menu, craft the item, walk around and place it. If they go to a vendor? Build cancelled. They go to their inventory to change weapons? Build Cancelled. Effectively, only one player can do anything at a time while the other watches because if they dont, then nobody can do anything. - The NPCs talk a lot. Or rather, they want you to read a lot. and I really do mean a lot. After every run every single NPC will have something to say to you and... you guessed it. You have to sit through each dialogue once for every player. So you go through this long spiel from an NPC explaining something and then you have to do it again with the person sitting right next to you on the couch otherwise it won't count the progression for them. Let's say you just finish a run, get back to town and start doing your housekeeping. Here's what it looks like. Talk to the trainer and collect your rewards. Wait for your partner to do the same thing. Go through any new dialogue options with the trainer. Wait for your partner to do the same thing. Upgrade your weapon. Wait for your partner to upgrade their weapon. Build any base cosmetics for bonus cores. Wait for your partner to build their base cosmetics. Talk to the weaponsmith for any upgrades. Wait for your partner to do the same. And so on. There are 4 NPCs with dialogue. That's not even with changing your weapons, or trying to decide on which armour to take. It's. All. Done. Separately. On the same screen. It's gruelling. All that said the gameplay is actually really fun. There's a good amount of meta-progression and it feels very impactful. The game isn't too punishing and you can absolutely break it with godtier drops on your runs. Combat feels great and even some of the systems in the game are unique and innovative. Runs well, easy to pickup and play and doesn't feel awkward or janky in game. If the UI experience wasn't so jarring this game would be an easy recommend but I would absolutely feel disingenuous recommending this game to somebody looking for a local coop game to play in its current state. We will keep playing and hopefully this review can flip the thumb up because it's so close.

Rotwood is yet another example of Klei's dedication to their players. The game has gone through some shake-y iterations - hence the now out-dated negative reviews - but now Klei have truly nailed the gameplay loop and added enough challenge and variety to keep you hunting, and hunting, and hunting. Even better, they're continuing to improve the game - with player submitted feedback actively shaping the game. There is a huge range of customisation available to keep your playstyle fresh - weapons, armour, and boosters (not to mention cosmetics). But then each run has a great rogue-like feel with different power-ups and paths making each run different, rewarding and challenging. The control and animations are tight and make each success or failure feel fair. The art style is gorgeous and vibrant, and oh GOD - just wait until you hit the nightmare rots modifier.

Absolute blast with friends. very easy to get into and very fun to grind your way up with its systems. the rogue-like aspect feels very meaningful in what you choose in each run.

Estou esperançosa com os updates seguintes, mas atualmente os controles ja me agradam muito, o que me faz querer ver a evoluçao deste game

klei be cooking once again 0_0 a co-op roguelike with incredibly thoughtful and creative combat - can't wait to see what they keep adding in early access.

EDIT2: Apparently there ARE perks tied to skills! I love this game. EDIT1: After playing for a good time, I still think the same! Just one thing though: There aren't many random perks to choose from in a run (the pool overall), and most of them feel really bad (like 1% crit on hit and it resets when you crit... meanwhile you have 50% crit chance on low health enemies that evolves to 100% crit chance), or just straight up increased damage with mild conditions. Still, most runs are composed of at least 2 or 3 perks on repeat and that boils down to a good amount of dullness . I mean, who wouldn't take 50% (that can evolve to 100%) increased damage in favor of 1% crit chance? Additionally, it would be amazing if we had even more perks, specially crazy ones, like maybe: "Whenever you are hit, teleport to a random location. Increase your focus damage by X%" Also add perks that may only appear for the current weapon you have like: - "Whenever you use a [Weapon Type] skill, switch to a random skill between each [Weapon Type] you have unlocked. Skills deal 50% more damage and are 30% faster/charge 30% faster/30% more effective". Also, maybe change the "healing" puff plant? It can easily lead to a huge amount of healing through a run and turn areas into a joke with no punishment. Maybe changing them to heal the same amount but cause a DoT poison that you must "pass" onto enemies? Or the contrary, you receive a "bloodthirst" poison that deals DoT but your hits can heal a little bit (say, 2 to 5%) for a couple of seconds? Just some food for thought. ORIGINAL: Deliciously well polished. This is insane for EA, but it's Klei so its k.

Game is good! Promising RPG beat 'em up, great with friends! Seems to take some cues from monster hunter, but gives me warm feelings of playing river city ransom with buddies. Also, very niche appeal here, but if you've ever wanted to play a bokoblin as like, a cool non-cannon fodder unique character, the ogre player character option is basically that! the ogres are really cool, can even be kinda cute or fancy, and really feel fresh and unique. the other player options so far are a feline/vulpine/canine kinda mix, and an aquatic/amphibian, both very charming and cute as well!

Was a little underwhelmed with the May 2024 release. Playing in Feb 2025, the game loop and coop feels fantastic. Great roguelike. - Beat'em up ala castlecrashers but done in a rogue-branched pathway quests that take about 15 minutes each. Rewards include currencies for weapon and armor meta progressions.