I’m back to backlog-ass-kicking! Managed to decrease my addiction to CODM so I can tackle my backlog on steam. Losing job also helped as it gave me more free time, albeit that’s not necessarily a good thing for me, but hey; gotta stay positive :3
These two were pretty decent; well Dungeonmans was a decent casual roguelike at least. Chronicon was a lot more than decent, it was great! Might even beat it again with another class once the developer rebalances the campaign to make it more challenging (and therefore more fun) as I’m not really into the post-game anomalies (maps).
Pretty decent roguelike. It’s relatively simple and easy to get into and its made in a way where if you know what you’re doing you’re probably going to win the game. It doesn’t suffer from bullshit RNG like most roguelikes; sometimes you’ll get yourself in a nasty situation but again once you get the hang of the game you will probably always have a way to get out of bad situations or to turn them around.
That being said while the game game has some depth and interesting mechanics it feels pretty casual, well fit for people who are into this genre and want a break from bad RNG and the high difficulty most other roguelikes have. Also good for someone who’s just getting into the genre.
I prefer something more complex and challenging like Tales of Maj’Eyal though. I found Tangledeep more enjoyable as well.
Interesting bit of info: The developer of Tangledeep was originally a video game music composer and made a soundtrack for Dungeonmans. Dungeonmans developer was somewhat of his mentor once he started working on his game and he eventually even joined the team as a programmer to help with Tangledeep.
After ~5 years of early access the game is finally out and it was definitely worth the wait. I started playing it on the same day it launched as full release and it was the only game I played until I’ve beaten it and since I usually jump between several games that says a lot.
I have to say when I saw the game has only 4 classes I was worried it will have weak variety in builds, but boy was I wrong. Each class has 4 skill trees each focusing on a different element. Each active skill node in the tree will usually have between 2-3 skills you can choose between for that slot. You can change the skill in that slot whenever you want and since you level the slot all skills available in that slot will be same level. Furthermore there are decent amount of gear sets and individual items that impact (often drastically) some of your skills. So the game has fair amount of variety in how you build your character but at the same time manages to be relatively simple and easy to get into unlike some games with high complexity like Path of Exile and Grim Dawn in which new players are just going to scratch their head wondering how to approach building their character.
You can also reset your skill and mastery trees with an NPC for free whenever you want and the game is pretty generous with loot drops on higher difficulties (you can switch between difficulties when loading your character) so you won’t have to stress over messing your build up and you won’t have to grind in order to get viable gear. Grinding comes after campaign when you start going post-game anomalies.
Aside from all that the game has some nice quality of life features like customizable loot filter, scalable UI and much more to mess around with in the settings. Very impressive for an indie game primarily done by a single person.
Anyway, gameplay wise the game was enjoyable. When it comes to the story there isn’t all that much. It’s not dialogue heavy and what is there isn’t going to amaze you, however every now and then it might amuse you with something silly.
That’s alright though because this game is clearly focused on the gameplay and that part was done well.
Overall I would definitely recommend this game and at a full price at that. The full release is cheaper than I expected and it's definitely worth the price.
I am going through Bioshock 2 Remaster next, which unfortunately crashes a lot more than the first -_-“
I should also probably finish Lords of the Fallen, forgot why I stopped playing but I’ve put almost 20 hours into it so I might as well go through it.
Sorry to hear about your job. I hope you find a new one quickly!
Thank you for both reviews, I’ne never heard of either game before. Dungeonmans – a casual roguelike sounds like a contradiction :D But that’s actually interesting to hear, because I always struggle with the genre…So I’ll keep Dungeonmans in mind!
I played a bit of Path of Exile once and as you say, I was completely overwhelmed with building my character. On the other hand Chronicon seems much more hectic, judging from the short trailer I watched on its store page. Great to hear you enjoyed playing it!
Dungeonmans was built to reduce deaths due to RNG to minimum. You get and can buy scrolls that let you teleport away, pin enemies, deal damage and other stuff. You can “craft” good gear by using enchant scrolls on items you find to add more effects on them, so you don’t need to rely too much on RNG to get good gear, all you need to do is get items with good base stats then if needed wipe their effects if they’re bad with one type of scroll and then keep enchanting them. Elite enemies don’t get random skills like in ToME, so once you see what they do you always know what to expect and how to deal with them.
There is also progression between characters in the main mode through academy so your new characters can get better starting items, more stats, identification on scrolls and potions and other stuff.
Chronicon is less dangerous than PoE so once you get good gear you’re pretty much OP even on hardest difficulty (more so because hardest difficulty gives you highest magic find so you get more legendaries) so it kinda turns into mindless annihilation of several hundred enemies per area lol. I prefer more challenging games but this one manages to be a lot of fun anyway. Once you beat the campaign you unlock anomalies and those have 15 more difficulties with the last one giving enemies: +230,000,000% to monster health, +60,000% damage and 90% resistances. You also get a way to scale up your gear to ridiculous power as well but it requires a lot of grinding.
I did complain on forum about the campaign getting too easy around act 3 onwards and the developer said he’s going to adjust some numbers to make it more challenging so I am looking forward to that. Might roll another class to go through campaign once that happens.
Thank you for the detailed reply! The academy progression in Dungeonmans sounds like an interesting concept. That way even a botched run has some value I guess. I guess it depends on the philosophy if someone likes such a feature.
230,000,000% plus damage?? That sounds pretty unbeatable :D I guess it holds a lot of replay value, being able to scale the enemies that much. I hope you have a lot of fun, if you replay the rebalanced campaign!