Haque Reviews

Been playing this a while offline and just a little bit more now (enough to be able to write a review, it seems). I love the visuals! It's like old Commodore 64 graphics and colors, but with modern style effects and etc like sprite rotation and screen shake. The maps are randomized and fun, though to survive very long I highly recommend you pick a character who has the "regen mana on melee attack" power, whatever it's called. Without that power, killing things with weapon skills will quickly drain your mana / MP and you'll be toast quick. You can play with either a gamepad or mouse, however I haven't been able to "Look" at anything past 1 tile away from my guy using a gamepad (which is LB, if I remember correctly). So that means you have to get within striking range of an enemy in order to view its stats, and that means the thing has to hit you first. That kind of sucks. To this end, I ended up playing mostly using my mouse and the experience was very enjoyable. One last thing: Though everyone seems to really love the music- and being a guitarist of sorts myself I recognize the guy has skills- it just didn't do it for me. It kind of sounded like he was just off recording in his bathroom, jamming away for hours, and they culled the best of it and spliced it into a soundtrack. I had to mute the music and just rely on the beeps and boops, which honestly suits a game that looks like this much better anyway.

The game has no leveling mechanics, only level completion bonuses. Killing enemies is not rewarded 95+% of the time as a result, and some are quite dangerous even at range. As such, you'll be a lot more successful avoiding combat with them and dancing with the not dangerous ones using ranged skills. It's actually rather frustrating mechanically to feel like I'm avoiding gameplay, if that makes sense. Many of my buttons only go off on bosses. Also, at the initial difficulty I never died before killing (as far as I can tell) the last boss (check my achievements - I didn't stop early on the character). I dunno, I'd just rather go play Caves of Qud or DCSS or something like those. It's not a bad game by any means, just not sure who I'd ever tell to play this instead of other options.

It is often apparent within a few minutes of booting up a game if that game truly had any love or care put into it. The menus, the sound, the initial presentation. How much thought was put into and even more importantly, are the people who made the game in control of their vision? Is the game communicating to the player what the developers want it to? This is more important than anything else when it comes to how a game plays. Fun is tied to this communication. Engagement, too. How well is the story conveyed? What are the menus like? Do the sound effects the graphics the mechanics all mesh in a way that builds upon itself to make something that is stronger together than the individual pieces? When you play a game that is well made there is also often a feeling. A sense of deja vu. That the game already existed. It plays like some of your favorites without simply being a retread. The menus are so intuitive after but a few minutes you find yourself clicking with the deeper mechanics of the game. You are delighted to see that the narrative is developing in a way that while it may not be surprising, it almost always endearing and entertaining. A game that does not only feel comfortable, but that it is strange to think that it did not always exist. Unlike any other popular medium video games are a conversation. They are not static and the give and take between the player and the game is what creates that ethereal bubble of imagination that creates what we often call immersion or verisimilitude or whatever other buzz word that just means 'feels gud ta play, man. I lost track of time,' we've decided to use today. All of this is just a description of the elements that often go into describing a 'good' piece of media. "Was it good?" Asks your friend. "Oh, yes It was..." And then phrases like 'fine' 'ehhh' 'It was ok' 'fine...?' floating up. More offensive things for those that felt like something stole your time. Praise, and excitement for those that left a lasting emotional impression on your soft gamer brain. Then there are games like Haque... See, it can be very hard to recommend some things to people. The product feels odd. Niche, even. Personal and lovingly crafted and yet still jagged and odd with the sharp weird corners of someone trying out experimental things or exploring some fun ideas from this or that. "I put 400 hours into this game, but I'm not sure I can recommend it." Things that feel like they might only resonate with you and you personally and thus you don't want to waste someone else's time. Thankfully, your time is worthless. I think these are the kind of things we should spread, we need to spread, and are most splinderferous when spread. Something with a clear voice and an interesting take that pushes and pulls at what exists and tries to squeeze it into odd little new shapes. I am going to recommend Haque to you now. I just wanted you to have full context before I did. You're caught up. Okay. Let's go! Haque is a fairly classic 'Simplified' Rogue-Like. Rogue (If you've somehow missed the memo that has been passed around any time anyone talks about the Rogue-Like genre) was a top down turn based dungeon crawling adventure game in which death was permanent and character progression very Dungeons and Dragons style with levels, equipment, magic and HP. On top of this there were also survival and sim elements, such as hunger management, non combat equipment uses, and a surprising amount of interactions. Haque is part of the Rogue-Like school that decides to throw out a lot of the more complex elements. There are no sim elements in rogue. No level ups based on xp earned. No hunger or thirst to manage. You don't build your character or spend stat points. You pick one of three randomly generated characters, each with a pet (The pets are adorable) and you move around and use your abilities to kill monsters while trying to find better gear and use that better gear to kill monsters better. None of this is new. Rogue-Likes have been doing this dance since before games had graphics and the player was jut a @ sign. Games out of japan especially always seemed very eager to use some of the 'rogue like' ideas while always trying to make things more narrative driven or slightly more progression and player friendly. Haque follows along with this style of thinking. It does it with a colorful panache. While the characters you choose are random, the assortment of abilities, pets, equipment, and spells, you might start out with, get, earn, steal, buy, or find are surprisingly plentiful and unique. You might play anything from a Cactus (Yes, as in... just a cactus. Adventuring cactus, cactusing it up) to a Werewolf or a Wizard or a Wizard Cactus. You get abilities from backgrounds, races, equipment, and every time you beat a level you get to pick a new trait to add to your character to grow their power and abilities. You bash, smash, fireball, ninja vanish, and such, your enemies in turn based combat. Raise corpses from the grave as zombie slaves. Throw pocket sand into a demon's eyes. Eat the corpses of your enemies, feed the corpses of your enemies to your pet, pet the ghost pet of your pet after it dies. There's a lot to do in the game despite it being 'simplified'. The interactions are not on the level of a classic TDTOET (The Devs Think Of Every Thing) style rogue-lite, rather than a sandbox it's a chess board. Each combat is a small puzzle with randomized abilities you're witting down to an ever more effective point. For this kind of game, it actually starts out fairly easy, however it continues to push itself and the player. Forcing the player to learn how to play the simple yet oddly complex series of mechanics at play, or die over and over. There is some level of progression protection, in that you can reach certain boxes where you can store gear that can be picked up by future characters (A classic example of sideways/strength growth in rogue likes) and there are ways to take two pieces of equipment you don't like and either turn them into something better, or something random. This is all working on exactly the level it should be. Boss creatures are powerful tests of the player's ability to adapt. Monsters continue to push and hound the player in varied ways never allowing them to get comfortable. Each run is an exploration of nuance that give the player valuable experience for the next one. The look, is also, as well crafted. As classic. With the that large pixel, low pallet, it feels like some version of this game could run on DOS with VGA graphics. The greens are green, the blacks are grey, and the scan lines (at least in the default settings, there are many so you can adjust the overall look to be less fuzzy if you don't have nostalgia for that era) vibrantly obscuring. There is a comfy familiarity to the look of the game for those who have played computer games for the last 30 years. It does not perfectly replicate any one era but it lovingly hugs a few of them close. It pays homage to older styles of games, but it does not play favorites either. Mouse, keyboard, controller, it plays smoothly on all of them. The narrative pulls this all together. It starts out meta, and it never looks back. There's no massive twist, no mind bending surprise. The game shows you its cards in the opening screen and asks you to play along. It acknowledges that everything going on is a charade, a dance, a conversation with the player. It isn't trying to change the way the player thinks about gaming. It is trying to use the medium of gaming to tell its own story to the best of its ability. It does this well. Weaving the plot into the gameplay, difficulty, and even graphic together into a s cohesive whole that works. Each element is so solid, that together what it builds is one of the best the Rogue-Like genre has to offer. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, yaknow, if you are feeling like a pretty okay sorta game, you should try Haque out.

[h1] Haque is Less Roguelike and More Akin to Playing a Tightly-Curated Game of D&D w/ Close Friends (using Pre-Made Characters) [/h1] [u] It's a Bit Different, and in a Really Good Way [/u] The brilliance of [b] Haque [/b] will probably forever remain overlooked, unfortunately. While it certainly takes its time, waiting for the story to kick in, I could definitely see the stylistic choices (especially the cute-sy format) being a turnoff for some folks. What appears to be just another roguelike at first, eventually turns into something actually interesting and different (in terms of the story-telling and world-building). The game really does a disservice to itself by not mentioning the avant-garde aspects on reserve, instead, pretending that this is just another run-of-the-mill roguelike. The neat thing about this is if you actually go all in and spend some time with this game, it's very rewarding. The presentation is excellent, imo, but I will say that some of the dialog is really cringe-y (tho others might argue that this is intentional; I am not so sure). In any case, if you are able to look past all of this, [b] Haque [/b] truly is a brilliant experience that actually attempts to do something different, within a genre that, at this point (and let's be totally honest) is completely over-saturated with options. We are literally to a point where you have to ask yourself, "Why should I dedicate any of my time to this game, when there are probably better options out there?" [u] Eighteen Reasons Why Haque is Worth Your Time [/u] [list] [*]The majority of the soundtrack is acoustic/classical guitar-centric. It sort of reminded me of Diablo 1 and it was also nice to hear something that wasn't purely synths and other electronic sounds. [*]The final boss music is a dramatic shift. If you are a fan of Godspeed! You Black Emperor, there's this weird thing that happens that sounds a lot like the band. In my mind: the composer took some fantastic artistic liberties with the OST in this game and it pays off, in spades. [spoiler] (The OST is actually available on [url=https://supertrystudios.bandcamp.com/album/haque-the-soundtrack] Bandcamp [/url], if you want to give it a spin.) [/spoiler] [*]I know this is standard in most roguelikes but for whatever reason, I didn't expect it in this game. Brush (plants, etc.) will burn if you use fire spells. [*]In the same vein, water will freeze if you use ice magic. (With this, you can skid across the ice to the other side of any body of water that has been frozen, instantly.) Neat little details like this are always amazing to me. [*]There's these prison guard characters that appear on a certain level and they have a key. If you are able to kill them, you can go to the prison cell section of that level and you have the option of unlocking one of two cells. I don't want to ruin the surprise but this is a very cool game moment. [*]Much like in Torchlight, you have a companion in each run, and they vary in animal-type. You are able to change their AI type/behavior to be more aggressive, defensive or a little in-between. [*]Yes, there are other companions in the wild that you can find and recruit to work with you. Some come with really cool weapons and armour! [*]Each time you start a new game, you are automatically presented with three random characters to choose from. You cannot change their names or any of their stats. If you don't like any of them, you have to re-roll. If you want to keep one but re-roll the other two (or more than just one) the option is there too. I like that it's like these are characters that already exist in this world and we cannot change them; we have to take them for who they are. [*]It is a weird world (tho not too weird) but just the different races is kind of interesting (tho it is more cute-sy than say, hardcore RPG, which is fine). [*]The game breaks the 4th wall. If you are not into that, beware. [*]The game doesn't do a lot of hand-holding. The tutorial shows you maybe 60% of what's really going on. The rest, you sort of have to figure out, by dying and hovering over icons and reading to see what everything does... almost like old-school RPGs. I liked this. (There are some excellent guides on here tho, that sort of reveal everything, if you feel like you are missing out.) [*]You do not gain XP for killing enemies or doing anything else. Everything is developed around the idea of making it to the end of the level and leaving via the portal. This means you can run away from enemies you don't feel like killing. Other than removing them as a threat, there is no real benefit to fighting anyone. [*]In-between each level, you are given three options RE: boosts. Think of these as this game's version of leveling up. A neat alternative approach. [*]Shops do not use gold and there is no gold or currency to pick up. You barter with the owners and a percentage is shown, based on what you are offering. [*]Going back to the idea that fire burns plants. When you are walking through fields of tall grass or wheat, your visibility goes down and enemies also are sort of invisible. When you burn all of this down, everything becomes visible again! [*]There are a lot of enemies and weapons and armour to discover. [*]The New Game+ allows you to increase the monster difficulty as well as equip your companion with literal weapons (as well as a few other changes you can make). Some thought was actually put into making this game replay-able. [*]The game works extremely well with a controller, if that is what you are into. [/list] [u] Final Thoughts [/u] While levels are randomly-generated, as expected (in the sense that trees and objects are always randomly scattered about, in each area) what's different with [b] Haque [/b] is that each level is split out into squared-off sections. When you refer to the map, it makes it easy to see where you have already navigated and where you need to go next. In this sense, [b] Haque [/b] is more of a catered experience with a set number of levels (for each run) and an actual story/plot. I want to mention this because it is not your standard open-world roguelike, in that sense. You will always begin in the same area, and traverse through each level in the same order (tho each run will randomly generate the layout). The point is to try and see how far you can get with each new build the game throws at you. It's really like you are jumping into this already-existing world and discovering what's around each corner. [u] TL;DR [/u] I highly recommend this game, just for the unique experience. Playing through the entire thing at least once is my suggestion. After that, you can decide if this is something you feel you want to keep coming back to.

Perfect for dads who need an occasional RPG fix without having to consecrate his life to a JRPG or enter a blood pact with roving 20-something-year-olds online.

Okay, I'd been watching a small time youtuber (Inkeyes, because he deserves the credit for introducing me to this game) play this, and the game managed to charm me into a purchase within a few weeks. So, Haque is a light-hearted roguelike oozing with (you guessed it) charm. The music, sprite art, UI, and mechanics are incredibly well-put together, and complement each other extremely well. It's hard to pick one of those to focus on, the whole team did amazing work. Sure, I died a bunch of times (less often than I expected, but I got real lucky with a starting character within a dozen attempts). I kept coming back because everything about this game is a super pleasant experience. Mechanically, Haque is simple to understand while maintaining a good level of depth. First off, you don't create your character. The game randomly rolls three choices for you to choose from, with their equipment, species, class, pet, and a bonus trait all picked out for you. While I love character creation in roleplaying games, this isn't what Haque is built around - it's all about the combat and its incredibly cute story (stay tuned). Your character only has four moves on their ability slot: one from their species, one from their class, and the last two being determined by whatever you have equipped in your handslots. Every time you complete a level, you get to choose from three different and, yup, random upgrades to your character. These upgrades can effect abilities (which can encourage you to stick with a particular type of weapon for the rest of run), add traits, cause item generation, upgrade your familiar, or a number of other neat little effects. There's also a turn timer that you'll definitely want to get to hang of (press SHIFT) that will help you plan out your next move. Very useful for casters. Now, as excellent as everything is, the story deserves a special and vague mention. It's cute, funny, and full of heart. I even detected a bit of a personal aspect to it. Whether or not it's personal to the author, it still managed to make me tear up a bit. No, it's not some grandiose tale of high fantasy, and I'm glad it isn't. It fits with the overall tone of the game, manage your expectations accordingly. Side note: very LGBTQIA (or whatever alphabet soup you use) friendly. I'm a, uh, reliable source on that sort of thing.

This is a great game. Let me repeat that, this is a great game. Very cool nostalgic art style, great soundtrack, decent, although nonintuitive, mechanics. But I just feel that the amount of content it includes is not worth the current sticker price. I took my first run of the game all the way to the end and the 'special' ending. It took about 3.5 hours. I'd definitely like more content with this game, I could see it becoming something very special. But in the end, I don't feel like it was worth the $14.99 I paid for it. So because of that, only because of the lack of content, I hit the do not recommend button.

[h1]You can play as an Eagle that is also a Werewolf. So that’s cool.[/h1] Haque is a ‘glitch fantasy’ rogue-like game developed by SuperTry Studios. You may be wondering what glitch fantasy is, to which I’ll say you’re not the only one. I picked Haque up on a whim last time it went on sale because I’ve heard good things about it in the past. I was initially quite impressed by it and I've certainly enjoyed it, but it didn't take too long for me to find a couple of frustrations with it. That being said, it's definitely pretty fresh and I reckon it's worth a try if you're a rogue-like fan. Gameplay Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdghB_ex3mk [h1]Positives:[/h1] [list][*]With only one exception (more on that later), I think the visuals here are absolutely great. It’s a great low-fi style to it that I think really suits the game. I also think that the colour choices here are really strong, this can be a tough game to look at, but the colours do a good job of helping things stand out (for the most part). [*]The music is absolutely fantastic. There’s not too much more I can say about this, but I think Haque has one of the best soundtracks in a game I’ve ever played. [*]Character and enemy variety is great. There are a bunch of different races you can play as, with varied starting loadouts (more on loadouts later) and the variety really helps to make the runs feel unique. As for enemy variety, you’re definitely going to become familiar with different enemy types, but there’s enough variation here that it always feels like you’re facing a different challenge. You’ll fight things ranging from mosquitos to androids. The bosses are well varied too. [*]At the end of each level you get an upgrade for you character. I saw quite a lot of variety here, with many of the options being tied to your specific class or abilities. I didn’t always like all of the options in front of me, but for the most part there was at least one that actually benefited me in a way that I was pleased with. [*]I found the combat to be pretty enjoyable. Each character has four abilities, in my experience these are more often than not combat related. So, you have basic attacks with whatever weapon you have equipped, as well as cool stuff like boulder throwing, or dash attacks. This helps offset some of the challenge presented by the turn-based nature of the game, at least that’s what it seemed like to me. Being able to throw a giant boulder and kill an enemy is super helpful when there are three things coming at you. Plus throwing a giant boulder is really fun. [*]Speaking of abilities, I thought they were well balanced. For the most part, abilities consume MP when you use them, with more powerful abilities requiring more MP. For example, the Werewolf ability requires MP up front, drains MP each turn, and attacks drain more MP too. It’s still a great ability, but it can’t be abused to make the game super-duper easy. Simpler abilities have much lower costs, and there are plenty of items that restore MP, you also get some back every time you kill an enemy. [*]You always start with a familiar of varying species. I’m not sure how much the different species vary, but they’re nice to have a long anyway. They’re actually pretty helpful, either going off to attack enemies or prioritizing keeping themselves safe. They can die but they always respawn at the start of a new level. [*]The writing here is good for the most part, it’s a fairly amusing game in some places, with the narrator being one of the main sources of the game’s humor. I actually would have liked to see more of the writing, perhaps taunts from enemies would have been nice.[/list] [h1]Negatives:[/h1] [list][*]My first big issue with Haque is how closely tied success is with your starting loadout. I’d say close to 80 or 90% of the runs I’ve played so far have ended with me dying with the same equipment I started with. On the rare occasions that I’ve seen weapon or armour drops, it’s usually worse than what I started with, and while consumable drops are helpful, they don’t exactly make you stronger. I’ve never played a rogue-like before where my success really depended on what I started out with. Half the fun in something like Cogmind is picking up new equipment and making yourself stronger, it’s also the only way you can progress! It feels like Haque is completely missing this element, and while there’s definitely a lot of variety with starting loadouts, I don’t want to be limited to whatever I got to begin with. Maybe it’s just me, but I found this to be a frustrating part of the game. [*]My second big issue is with the font. Even with all of the glitchy screen effects turned off, I found the font incredibly difficult to read. I get that this is a very stylized game and you need stylized font to go with it, but it kind of saps the fun out of a game when it’s a real struggle to read any of the text in the game. Haque is full of different abilities and items, each with its own description, there’s a lot of reading here to fully understand what’s going on, and it’s just too difficult to read. To use the example of Cogmind again, that game is significantly easier to read than Haque, and there’s a lot more going on there. [*]The Skeletitan boss seemed overpowered compared to the other 1st Area bosses. I’m not sure if it has more health, but it’s definitely much better at blocking and dealing damage than the other two. [*]Some items have obscure descriptions that aren’t at all helpful. For example, Horn Blast just says “Cause Chaos” but the status effect is causes is called Hotfoot and isn’t explained. For the most part, the descriptions are good, but there are certainly some exceptions.[/list] [h1]Verdict:[/h1] I’ve had fun with Haque, and it definitely does a lot right, but it does have a couple of big issues that hold it back in my opinion. The art and the music are incredible, and the gameplay is quite fun, but the font and the loadout issue make it a lesser game than it could have been. Nonetheless, if you’re a fan of rogue-likes, this one is worth a shot. If you found this review helpful, please check out my other reviews over at [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/33633486/]Kemo's Corner.[/url]

My favourite roguelike out there and one of my favourite games of all time. The team at Supertry studios have crafted a world I could quite happily play in for many more hundreds of hours to come. Haque is a ready-made dungeon crawler that's been spirited away and appropriated by a mystery host. Gameplay consists on navigating your way through dungeon levels and surviving what the host has left in waiting for you. Combat and movement is turn based with each turn having enough heft that one wrong move could get you killed. It can be incredibly unforgiving but incredibly rewarding when you learn how to escape making the same mistakes. The initial difficulty is easier than most roguelikes and so the game is a great entry point if you're new to the genre. For Veterans though there is a plethora of options for you to dial in the right amount of masochism! Honestly you can go from hurt me plenty through to new game+ to why-Kevin-why-? to california reaper spice+ at the touch of a slider. Levels can be made longer, enemies tougher and heroes weaker. Despite all this when you die it still feels like it's due to a decision you've made rather than the game being “unfair”. With all of these options included it's the hardest roguelike I've played. Needless to say the game is incredibly charming. The tone ranges from squishy-cute-pinata-whirlwind-of-death to slow, dark, step-by-step, creak of the crypt, am I going to die? I can't let Grandpa the Cat die like this! The atmosphere generated as the game progresses makes me nostalgic for horror games I grew up playing like Silent Hill and Diablo 1. This game is a masterclass for how music / story / gameplay fuse to create a tempo for the player to dance to and how fast that can change. I should mention here that the OST by Joe Kenneally is wonderful. The animations and sprites are terrifyingly cute too. No sprite has ever made my heart sink quite as much when I edge out of the fog to find a manticore in wait. On the engine: if you like theory crafting and min/maxing then this is the game for you. Yes you can complete the game on its base difficulty with anything that's handed to you but when you crank up the difficulty or you start trying to speedrun using the ingame timer tier lists start to emerge. You're then rewarded for your game knowledge, planning ahead, making the most of drops and knowing how to maximise your chances of the right drops. Interestingly the game is an RPG without experience as a mechanic so you don't have to kill indiscriminately. All monsters drop corpses that can be used to upgrade for stats or abilities and so as a player you have to decide what's worth your time/health. The closest to “leveling up” you get is by completing a stage you're given a chance to choose from 3 passives that are influenced by the gear you have equipped. Influencing and planning for these passives in the right way is key for an optimal run. These passives however don't give you an unkillable godlike character you expect from a lot of endgame RPGs. Every decision you make still matters and I've managed to die many times from being over confident towards the end of the game > _ <. It's refreshing that the game gives you that feeling of power but respects you and your creativity as a player by punishing you for executing poorly. Hotdog water, however, has no respect for you or anything you stand for. Be warned! I won't spoil the story for you but I will say that I love the way it uses devices like the narrator to make you reflect on being a player playing a game that isn't just something that has washed up on a beach or appeared out of a vacuum... the game is a place out there, somewhere, that people have lived in and are living in still. It's a a wonderful meditation on the glitch/mistake as well as escapism and in my opinion what it means to be a games host or developer. This is a game about a game about cute things in peril which may or may not be Supertry studios. For me it's a celebration on being human and hope. If the developer could improve on anything it'd be on steam as a platform rewarding you for completing difficult modes. So perhaps have ready made combinations of the sliders and having achievements for completing these to show off to your friends. One change I would really like is to have your score card at the end make a note of what difficulty options were in play. Anyway, if you're waiting for this to go on sale before you buy please don't wait. Do yourself a favour and pick it up now, experience it and support some really great up and coming devs. It is well worth your money and time. EDIT: Spelling ^^

[b][i]Haque[/i] is a fantastic addition to the modern roguelike pool (yes, I said [i]like[/i]).[/b] Dear lord in heaven thank you for the wonderful controller support. While this title has many high points, the music is easily my favorite part. [b]Absolutely fantastic score.[/b] As far as roguelikes go, this may have the best soundtrack I have heard (with [i]Caves of Qud[/i] close by; yes, very different). [i]Essentially, this roguelike takes a tactical angle; it's all about choosing your battles wisely, and using your abilities to walk away with as few battle scars as possible.[/i] Because there is no traditional level up system, there is no real reason to fight if you can avoid it. Interestingly, some will say this has no meta-progression, but I disagree. You don't get stronger or have unlockables necessarily, but the story does progress even after you lose a run, if you get far enough. I'm still figuring it all out, but it's well written and certainly interesting. There is a whole 'glitch' theme going on that I think works well. [b]Pros:[/b] +Look, if you are a fan of roguelikes, you need this. Period. +The musical score is as good as it gets. It's perfect. +Controller support is beyond great here. +The artwork is right up my alley. I love it. +There is meat-on-the-bone here. I read someone got their first win after 22 hours. Okay we have a rogulike proper here ladies and gentlemen. +The tactical angle this title takes is certainly fresh, and works well. +The story is intriguing and is definitely wayyyyy better than the ho-hum forumula of simply randomized dungeons. That's beat. Good to hear devs know this too. [b]Cons:[/b] -If you hate the old bump-to-fight aspect, you may want to watch a few LetsPlay videos because that mechanic is strong in this one. -I'm not sure how long a successful run is (you can save), but in my more successful runs it was getting quite lengthy. [b]Easily worth full price.[/b] I was so pleasantly surprised with this one.