Final Winter

Final Winter

A fast paced rogue-like where combat is more about the amount of time lost for the xp gained. You have 10 minutes to get as deep as you can before the curse takes your life. This takes my usual approach to rouge-likes of careful, deliberate precision and tosses it out the window. The game compels you to take each floor faster than the run before to get deeper and grants you powers that help you traverse the floors with greater speed and yet the cave isn’t exactly the same as the runs before.

Enjoyable, challenging and leaves me feeling accomplished after a good run, and yet still feeling like if I could only run it faster than ______ wouldn’t have died. Who is next and how many can I save I wonder?

Real player with 7.0 hrs in game


Read More: Best Action Roguelike Snow Games.


Monster Fighting? Check. Puzzles? Check. Well made characters? Check. Good story? Check. This game has everything you need to keep you entertained for many hours. I have played through once (and lost) and it was very fun. I will be playing again. That being said I don’t know the replayability of the game. But it is for sure worth the cost for the hours of enjoyment.

Real player with 6.7 hrs in game

Final Winter on Steam

Looking for Heals

Looking for Heals

I have very mixed feelings about this game. I’ve enjoyed it a lot, so I’m going to recommend it, but it is not at all what I had been hoping for.

It has various issues due to development not being completed (balance issues, lack of endgame, lack of tooltips, and similar), but I’m not going to dwell on those. Hopefully they’ll all be addressed in coming updates.

My biggest issue with the game is that it doesn’t really feel much like MMO dungeon raid healing. It’s 85% commanding party members, 15% healing. The healing itself is FAR too simple. You choose a SINGLE healing ability at the start of each run, and that’s all you get for the rest of the run. Generally, healing is simply pointing your cursor at whoever happens to be hurt and spamming whichever Heal spell you have.

Real player with 25.3 hrs in game


Read More: Best Action Roguelike Roguelite Games.


As someone who is both an avid Roguelite player as well as an experienced MMO healer (2000+ hours in FFXIV) this game immediately caught my eye, and I figure I’m somewhat qualified to give a review after a little time with it. My overall impression of the game is that it has a fun gameplay loop, and captures the excitement (and frustration) of playing a dungeon in an MMO as a healer in a single player experience. However, there are certain issues with the game that leave me wanting more, and I almost feel that this game is more of an amazing proof of concept that is begging to be more fleshed out.

Real player with 8.9 hrs in game

Looking for Heals on Steam

Molecoole

Molecoole

Molecoole is an action shooter roguelike, where you get upgrades by attaching different atoms to your character!

Gameplay:

Move through randomly generated levels and build an ever growing Molecoole. Every atom you find in your playthrough is different. You can make better and better combinations as you collect more atoms.

Key features:

  • 70+ different atoms you get randomly through the game

  • 10+ boss levels

  • 4+ biomes that are procedurally generated

  • Tons of combinatons of upgrades


Read More: Best Action Roguelike 2D Games.


Molecoole on Steam

Pit of Ascension

Pit of Ascension

Simple, charming, clever. Fight on Crow boy.

Real player with 14.0 hrs in game

Very fun little boss rush game.

Real player with 2.1 hrs in game

Pit of Ascension on Steam

Void Bastards

Void Bastards

Introduction

Void Bastards (VB) is a FPS rogue-lite game in which players collect parts to repair the Void Arc, a prison spaceship. Stranded in the Sargasso Nebula, you, the WCG Client, are tasked with fixing the ship while avoiding the many threats found throughout the nebula.

✔The Good✔

  • Lots of replay value

  • Challenging and fair runs

  • Fantastic art direction

❌The Bad❌

  • Enemy awareness can be wonky at times

Real player with 153.7 hrs in game

This is both a review and a word of advice to players before they begin, regarding how to play it.

Advice:

Play the game on Hard or Hard Bastard difficulty, not Normal difficulty.

Explanation and review:

I was this close to writing a negative review of Void Bastards, after finishing it on Normal difficulty. I enjoyed it, but the amount of content was mismatched with the price, and I’d purchased it - despite reading other reviews to that effect - hoping the game would continue to be expanded.

Real player with 41.3 hrs in game

Void Bastards on Steam

City of Brass

City of Brass

I thought long and hard on whether I should recommend City of Brass or not and ultimately decide to recommend it despite all its flaws. Make sure you pick it up during a sale because the game has certain features that you will either love or hate.

The Good

Lets start with what City of Brass gets right. It’s a good looking game that runs well on low spec computers. I could consistently get 60 fps on my PC which is older than the earth itself. During my 17 or so hours with the game I’ve only encountered one bug which was more comedic than annoying.

Real player with 31.0 hrs in game

I don’t like to use the word “promising” very much. Plenty of Early Access-titles can be described as “promising”, as in “The concept is solid, but plenty of things are missing, and when / if those things are put in, it might be fun”.

This game, however, is different. You can tell a lot of content is missing, yes, but what’s already in the game feels really rewarding. The artstyle is charming, the gameplay is solid and already feels really satisfying.

The gameplay can be summed up rather quickly. You’re an adventurer raiding a mythical city brimming with treasures and the undead citizens and guards that used to populate the place. Because things can never be as simple as “A couple of skeletons chase you”, however, the nice people that lived in the titular City of Brass have kindly left enough traps to make Jigsaw jealous.

Real player with 26.3 hrs in game

City of Brass on Steam

Crypt of the Serpent King

Crypt of the Serpent King

I must say never in all my years as a gamer have I experienced a game quite like this. I originally saw the comedic goblin character and decided I would like to combat the green fella. So I purchased this game and BOY HOWDY did I underestimate what I was getting into.

This level of the game has your character (who I shall refer to as Grub for the remainder of this review) wandering a labyrinth full of rat-kin. And when you first meet these things. OMG you are not prepared. They swing quickly at you with their pics and on your first few attempts; you will perish, and you will suffer. For you see this game is difficult, as Grub will quickly die to just about anything that tries to touch him so I must say before you read any further that this game is NOT for the faint of heart.

Real player with 5.0 hrs in game

Preface:

I accidentally ended up on this game’s page while searching for something else. I believe it was a misclick after an error in typing. There were a lot of mistakes involved that allowed me to find this game.

When the video autoplayed on the landing page, I was intrigued by the way the game looks. Mind you, while the game looks very simple, that’s what I liked about it. At a price point of $2, you can’t ask for much.

At first glance this game looked like a walking simulator with combat sort of… jammed into it. But it reminded me of a simpler time when everyone was using dial-up connections to American Online using Compaq computers and pc games looked pretty much like this but in much less fps. When I was younger, if I saw this, I’d be dying to play it because at the time, I didn’t have my own computer. I would only get such chances at school or at a friends house.

Real player with 4.6 hrs in game

Crypt of the Serpent King on Steam

Gods Will Fall

Gods Will Fall

I will say this right off the bat this game is definitely not for everyone. This is not diablo don’t play if you cannot stand losing or think this is a simple button masher. (WARNING: This game was designed for a controller, although it is not impossible to play with a keyboard it will take practice, dont hesitate to reconfigure the keys to something you are comfortable with)

The basic premise is you have 8 randomly generated warriors and 10 gods to kill, to kill one you must choose one warrior to control and traverse the dungeon of said god and then face him in combat, be warned once inside there are only three endings. Victory, capture or death. The catch however is that on each playthrough the strength of the boss will vary each time, the boss that was super easy in your first playthrough might be the strongest in the next one, worst of all you have no way of knowing until you send someone inside and once inside there is no backing out.

Real player with 40.7 hrs in game

A challenging game full of charm and atmosphere. Note: I bought this on special with 40% off.

I finished Gods Will Fall last night and was pleasantly surprised at the fun journey I had just had. I bought this game despite the mixed reviews because I saw something in the trailers that just clicked with me and I think a lot of the negative reviews are there because the game isn’t what most gamers were expecting.

Yes the game has rogue-like elements and dare I say it, is a little souls like, but over all I think the game sets out to do it’s own thing in a way that put some players off because again, they weren’t expecting it.

Real player with 26.8 hrs in game

Gods Will Fall on Steam

HighFleet

HighFleet

Great game that combines strategic gameplay similar to submarine simulations with tactical air battles between flying tanks.

You command a fleet with the aim of capturing the enemy capital city, while fighting off enemy fleets searching for you. Fleet movement is a game of cat and mouse using a very well realised radar system, aircraft carriers, cruise missiles, intercepting enemy radio signals and much more. When two fleets meet, the game switches to tactical battle in which you directly pilot a ship and fight against the enemy. You can design individual ships in your fleet from the groundup and then use them.

Real player with 233.4 hrs in game

The all-time best ever flying submarines in the sky game ever made. Although I have spent most of my time obsessing over ship design, “submarine airship game” is the best description for this FTL-like rogue-like UNFORGIVINGLY Difficult game I can come up with; in campaign, you spend a lot of your time trying to manage 15 different simple things (signals analysis, threat tracking, resources and fleet management, navigation, combat, landing, and then the global story/factions/political overlay of story driven decisions). The ship editor will drive you on the express train to crazytown; every. single. decision. carries huge implications for your campaigns when you start running custom ships, and this gets into the infinitely complex fleet design (what roles do you want your ships to play is critical, and the game lets you figure out your own ways to fail). This is one of my favorite games of 2021.

Real player with 84.1 hrs in game

HighFleet on Steam

Overhaul

Overhaul

Overhaul is a puzzle rogue-like dungeon crawler that combines fast-paced action, quick logical thinking and rich systemic gameplay.

As Ikalee, venture deep into the abandoned Power Plant to bring the power back to your village. A place that has now been taken over by hostile and mysterious life forms.

#### Game Rules

Each room of the Power Plant is built around a grid puzzle similar to Sudoku. The puzzle is solved when the grid is filled with numbers and the same number can only be placed once on the same row and column. But unlike Sudoku, some cells indicate superiority over another cell, which acts as a clue to help solve the grid faster.

Solving the puzzle is your objective, it will grant you power ups, resources and unlockables. But the Power Plant’s new hosts will challenge your ability to think fast. You’ll have to get rid of hostile entities, dodge incoming attacks and use your items' abilities to get to the Core!

#### Game Features

  • Logic-based Sudoku-like puzzles mixed with fast-paced top down action for a unique experience.

  • Pick up enemies, carry objects and outsmart the most vicious of situations!

  • A hand-crafted rogue-like experience. Hundreds of rooms, each tailor-made to bring new challenges!

  • A rich cast of mysterious entities. Experiment and learn how they can interact with one another and take advantage of it! Some will try to take you down, others hide powerful secrets.

  • Carve your own path through the Power Plant. Each room is different, pick a difficult one for better rewards or an easier one if you want a smoother ride.

  • Each completed room will generate power. Use it to unlock new content and grow permanently stronger or save it to open up alternate paths and supports.

  • Track down secrets and breath life back into the Hub. The more you engage with the game, the more beautiful the Hub becomes! (You may even get some company who knows)

  • A carefully composed score that matches with your progression. From moody melancholic ambiance to blood-pumping melodies!

Overhaul on Steam