Recent reviews by Faust

There are many flaws. A tad overpriced, a bit light on content, boss fights are rather rudimentary, movements are a wee janky, balance and progression are under-designed, some mechanics are downright vestigial and don't capitalize on their great potential (bug mounts are great but you'll barely get to use them outside of their designated quests)...

But I still begrudgingly recommend it. Its art style is distinct and pleasant to behold, its music does a reasonably fine job at complementing the visuals, the overall atmosphere is comfy and immersive, the baseline gameplay is sufficiently fun, the quests and underground puzzles are pretty solid (baring an occasional scavenger hunt being excessively generous with hints), it's been a nice experience overall. It's a wee gem. Very rough, and maybe the pawn shop's owner is trying to swindle you just a tiny bit, but it still has a lovely shine to it.

In addition to that the last thing I wanna mention (without spoiling anything) is the main antagonist who, although a goofball and not particularly complex much like everyone else in the game, seems to have a rather compelling motivation for his actions. In some parallel universe and with a bit of extra worldbuilding I could even see him as an equally compelling facet of the conflict to your own. Maybe even someone to side with.

I found a forearm-sized magic crystal lodged inside the pelvis of a skeleton. I didn't even need to finish the demo at that point to find out whether to wishlist it.

The visuals are good and well styled, the controls are intuitive+lightweight+smooth, the sound design is sufficiently punchy, it's quite atmospheric and feels rather cozy despite the dreary vibe. The only 2 things I didn't quite like were:
-The lack of a "melee combo" (you only do one strike with a normal attack, there's no backswing)
-The melee combat being perhaps a just a smidge easy (the supposedly incredibly dangerous in close quarters werewolves were rather trivial to dispatch in a 1 on 1 fight with basic melee, just take a swing and dodge back and then repeat).

But those are basically nitpicks. The bottom line is I had fun and want the full thing now.

Let's just pretend like that EA roadmap never existed and I'm looking at a complete 15 dollar experience and judging it on its own merits. What I have in front of me is:

Atrocious artstyle. I don't mind asset packs on principle, but this thing is cobbled together from what appears to be THREE SEPARATE asset packs - the low poly one (cynty, presumably) for environments and weapons, the cartoony WoW-like one for most enemies, and some kind of detailed one for orcs themselves. The armor is the absolute worst offender because it kitbashes ALL THREE of them into one abominable chimera.

Nonexistent variety, by which I mean:
- 3 biomes which do admittedly differ mechanically but not in a particularly meaningful way.
- 5 bosses, one of which is a tweaked version of a regular enemy.
- 4 classes where 3 of them are just slightly tweaked variations of "guy with a melee weapon and a ranged weapon".
- 1 primary and 1 secondary weapon for each. Technically each class had an extra primary which is just a remodel with higher stats.

Unsatisfying gameplay. Boss monsters have no weight to them, their animations look very janky and unnatural, I don't feel any meaningful weapon feedback, the tracking process feels like busywork if it even works, the high vertical mobility (mega jump + wall jump lets you get high enough to bump into the invisible walls on the maps) makes the uneven terrain feel trivial to navigate, etc.

It's visually incoherent, it's floaty, it's short, it's not very good.

One of the character customization updates has an unintended interaction. Replacing sexes with body types also replaced my purchase confirmation with a refund request.

It's like Nuclear Throne except you're in a flying car, not locked to 45 FPS, and aren't taking blood pressure medication just to make it through the 3rd level. Fast, punchy, smooth, yet also well paced. It's too cheap and fun to be stuck with only 20 reviews, that's for sure.

It's a relatively simple and humble game, but it does the things it sets out to do rather well.

There's a decent potential for buildcrafting, a good amount of checkboxes to tick for completionists, a pleasant soundtrack, and the artstyle is very cute to behold, from the weapons and armors that are reflected on your player model to the lovely looking portraits of the various shopkeepers and everything inbetween. There's a kind of a... "warm" vibe to it. Makes me exhale with relief when I look at it.

You can really tell this game was made by Chinese developers because:

1) The boss fights in this one are a quintessential child of asian parents experience - you almost never feel like you're fighting for your life in an epic battle against an overhwelming opponent, but rather like you're studying for an exam knowing you might as well not come back home if it's anything less than a straight A.

2) The true ending is defeatist 'accepting-your-fate'slop because a lot of the game's world and story is apparently based on chinese religion and philosphy and if there's anything asians LOVE - it's not being alive anymore.



And with a pricetag above 20, something done either by penny-pinching misers or artsy-fartsy wannabe visionaries, the fact that I still extremely enthusiastically recommend it (on sale for below 20, never pay more than 20 for a game) is a testament to the ultra high effort execution and the sheer style and flair on display.

The characters, the atmosphere, the 10.5/10 soundtrack, the artstyle, it pulled me in and kept my attention prisoner while waterboarding it with all manner of colorful emotions all the way through the stroke-inducing bosses and up to the true ending that I didn't even like and I still felt like I straight up went on a journey instead of playing a videogame. Few games are able to make me forget all the nits I want to pick like the miserable ever unsatisfied husk that I am and all the peeves I have because I'm just so enthralled with the adventure I'm going through.

Holy s##t, man. I need a smoke after this one, and I've never even smoked in my life.

This was a metric ton of fun. Admittedly, for 25 bucks I wouldn't buy it because never pay more than 20 dollars for a videogame, but the 15 I spent on it were definitely worth it.

The core of the battle system is "autobattle" but it's actually very involved and engaging, with you not only needing to decide your team's composition and starting positions, but also getting to influence the battle with active skills, to the point where a split second usage of a skill can turn the tide of the entire battle. It does not at all feel like some braindead idle mobile slop.

Even the usually awful bog-standard rock-paper-scissors feature of the creature collectors is well done and highly organic in this one, because counters and synergies work off actual dynamic robbit behavior and skill usage rather than "Red thing deal 100% more damage to green thing and take 100% more damage from blue thing" trash that so many others go for.

It got just a tad grindy towards the end, but it was otherwise very smooth and well paced. I never felt like I was booting up my second job. Makes me wish every single good mobile game on the market had a premium one-time purchase singleplayer version for me to enjoy.

TL;DR: In a way, it's sort of like a serial sex offender. It's really good at what it sets out to do, but maybe you don't always want it to be.





Difficulty. It's not actually unfair, but the severity with which it punishes mistakes is akin to blood-eagle'ing a 3rd grader for failing a math problem. Something I like to say is that this game requires at least some combination of mental illnesses and/or personality disorders to earnestly enjoy its challenge aspect.


Another thing that "jimmies certain rustles" is the semi-modest number of ideologically charged anti-pozzed jokes (or as some would call them - acts of thought terrorism) peppered throughout the game. They... don't land consistently. But for what it's worth, they also don't suck consistently. Overall, while I don't think they add much, those are nonetheless *my* side's jokes and therefore that makes it okay. No, I'm not kidding.





Visuals are good. They're not impressive, but that's not important. What's important is they are coherent. The maps are very clean and easy to navigate. The monsters are all approximately as dangerous as they look. UI only shows what it needs. Compared to its competition Rogue's Tale feels downright IMMERSIVE, and that's one hell of a rare boast for a trad roguelike.


Controls are great. They're lightweight and work wonderfully with mouse if you're one of those heretics like myself who plays trad roguelikes with only one hand on the keyboard. Everything is but a couple keystrokes or clicks away, like a normal videogame, and there's no need to commit more keybinds to memory than you could find on an airplane control pannel.


Mechanics are intuitive. Rogue's Tale has standardized mechanics, rigid boundaries, impactful and coherent effects, it's comfortable to get into without requiring a PHD in advanced autism while still being deep enough to allow for some outlandish theorycrafting. Downright artist level of game design, don't see this kind of competence every day.


One of the absurdly few rogue-adjacent games to get meta-progression right. Purists need not apply, and can go back to huffing the expulsions of their digestive systems until they lose all brain functions from critical methane poisoning. In this game meta rewards feel:

- Meaningful. No +1.5% damage that you need to buy 500 times. You get noticable benefits and/or unique effects for each unlock.

- Earned. You're not gonna be dying in the first dungeon until you gather enough s##tcoins to buy +1.5% damage 500 times and oneshot everyone. In here you need to do achievements before you're allowed to get meta-unlocks. And you won't complete those achievements until you learn how to play. This game operates under the "You don't get it until you prove you don't need it" philosophy. No cheap hollow victories, by the time you're a demigod - you will feel like you deserved every single ounce of power you fought tooth, nail, hair, and dingleberry for.





Well I love it. 520+ hours, 100% in all 552 achievements (although to be honest, it's more like 352 because around 200 of the cheevos are dedicated to each individual collectible card so that doesn't really count), endless steam forum posts with feedback... It just overall feels like a videogame that's fun to play (which is quite ironic for one of, if not the most psychotically cruel roguelikes on the market). Rogue's Tale is in my top 10 favorite games, probably top 5. If you're anything like myself... Well first of all, you have my condolences just in general, but other than that, if you don't mind a game that HATES you, do give it a chance.

TL;DR: Sometimes you just gotta kiss the toad before you get to marry the prince.

It starts off feeling like one of *those* deckbuilders where the developers made a card game because them spry hip disposable income possessing youngsters love cards these days and they don't quite understand what makes a card game fun to play. Worse yet, that's most likely the impression you're gonna be getting from playing the demo. You know, that thing that is supposed to entice a player to buy the game rather than discourage from doing so.

However, if you make it past that somewhat unsatisfying and synergy-devoid beginning - your perspective is likely to change as the pace starts to ramp up, showering you with new cards, new passives, and new boss phase mechanics to experiment with and combine into ludicrous combinations that feel meaningful and satisfying to build for. It does still need a smidge of polish, admittedly, what with the typos and some (thankfully so far minor) bugs, but I nonetheless found it a worthwhile investment of both money and time.

It's also so ridiculously nice looking (despite the occasional stiff animation) that I can't help but respect the effort put in. Sends shivers down my spine when I think how much money and time must have gone into those beautiful sprites. Partially why I'm writing this review, since no matter how pathetic a contribution to the game's sales it may be, I'd still prefer to do what little I can to help reward that effort with positive publicity.