In a sea of roguelite video games, its turning into more and more arduous to seek out video games that really differentiate themselves. Shared mechanics are frequent throughout the style and even when new subgenres seem, akin to deck-building roguelites, they’re usually fast to be copied. It comes right down to how nicely a recreation manages to undertake and implement these mechanics, whereas managing to maintain issues feeling and searching good.
That’s the reason it’s so spectacular to see Rogue Spirit adopting a mechanic that I actually haven’t seen in roguelites earlier than. The core gameplay loop is constructed round the truth that your character is a spirit with the flexibility to posses the our bodies of warriors which have been vanquished.
The sport begins with you being summoned to combat brokers of chaos. You’re given a physique, and the fundamentals are defined to you. There are forces of evil to combat. You’re the just one outfitted for the job. You recognize, the usual speech all new heroes get.
What’s distinctive is that the physique you obtain is just not the one you’re compelled to occupy. Every enemy you defeat could be possessed. There are a selection of various enemies too, every with their very own play type. Earlier than possessing them you will note a small pop-up that shows their stats relative to your present ones.
This can be a actually neat idea, however sadly the execution leaves a bit to be desired. The fight simply doesn’t really feel good. Only a few of the characters have movesets that I personally loved, and the pool of characters I preferred enjoying as solely consisted of melee characters.
The ranged fight doesn’t have a satisfying option to goal. It primarily includes robotically locking on to an enemy after which holding the assault button till it’s correct sufficient to hit them. It feels extra tedious than something and it makes it arduous to ever need to possess a ranged attacker.
The variability between melee attackers isn’t significantly better. A lot of them have gradual assaults and dodging solely actually works the way in which you’re going through; it feels clunky to assault after which attempt to dodge. There’s a parry mechanic, however it will be extra correct to name it a block because it doesn’t create any type of opening like a conventional parry mechanic would. It negates injury when correctly timed with regular assaults, after which can cut back or eradicate injury from charged assaults relying on how nicely timed it’s.
It’s not a forgiving system and the fight isn’t the smoothest to start with. It’s made worse by the truth that the one actual option to heal in Rogue Spirit throughout a run is by accumulating spirit from defeating enemies or discovering spirit wells, after which possessing a brand new physique. It hasn’t been unusual for me to get an excellent character early on in a stage, just for each enemy I encountered afterwards to have decrease stats.
There are elite enemies that are a lot stronger than normal enemies, however even their stats are sometimes decrease than the character already in play. It makes it arduous to need to have interaction in fight since there’s usually no reward for taking the chance.
In the course of the runs you possibly can swap between your bodily and spirit kind, which lets you sneak previous enemies to keep away from that difficulty. Enemies all have a reasonably slim cone of imaginative and prescient which turns into seen within the ghost kind. Coming into that cone slowly fills their consciousness and when you keep in it for too lengthy, then you’re compelled again into your bodily kind and should combat. That is once more one other distinctive selection, however it’s a pretty fundamental stealth system.
That’s my most recurring gripe with Rogue Spirit – there are many cool mechanics however all the pieces feels a bit simplistic. Issues start feeling redundant rapidly and even after progressing by some unlocks and getting new skills, it by no means fairly develops right into a passable gameplay loop.
There are few different bitter notes the sport hits, together with the music. Every stage’s tune is redundant and relentless, which makes every session really feel for much longer than it’s. And never in a great way.
Rogue Spirit is a recreation that I nearly loved, going backwards and forwards on how I felt all through the sport. There are a variety of cool concepts included and it’s definitely a singular roguelite that provides one thing that hasn’t actually been seen in different video games. Whereas there are a number of complaints, lots of them are forgivable, however the fight system is what I actually battle with.
Too lots of the characters are simply not enjoyable to play as, and even those which can be first rate, nonetheless by no means really feel nice. The possession system is cool, however it could put you able the place you’re feeling the necessity to play the sport in another way than the way you need. It’s an excellent problem, however not one I personally loved.
That being mentioned, if you’re a fan of roguelites then don’t rule out Rogue Spirit. It’s not a recreation for style newbies, however when you want one thing totally different, Rogue Spirit could also be for you.
