Lethal Honor - Order of the Apocalypse

This game has no right to be this good coming from a brand new studio. It combines really crisp combat mechanics*, game-play loop and a solid meta-progression which makes the normal pace of the game feel challenging while ensuring that, if stuck, farming meta-currency for permanent upgrades is a totally viable strategy that will make your characters strong enough to surpass whatever wall you encountered, not like some other roguelikes where you spend the meta currency from a 2h run for a 5% fire damage increase or what have you; here you will feel significantly more powerful for fully completing a node. The Story and Worldbuilding are not revolutionary but there are enough mysteries to keep you hooked from beginning to end. The art style though, is really top notch; the comic-like style is really unique and reminds me a bit of Darkest Dungeon, which is also a game on a league of its own, so being comparable to that is no small feat. * The combat mechanics are very fluid except for some active skills which slow you down dramatically while casting/aiming. Some are absolutely worth using even with that penalty; 1 or 2 not so much. But being a roguelike at heart, some skills being better than others is to be expected, can't have a S-tier run every time.

What at first appears to be a skill based and fun hack and slash game with a promising story quickly turns into a meta progression grind with zero interesting events. Spoilers ahead, if you care. You start off playing as a former police officer who got dealt a rough hand in life. His wife left, took the child, it's all doom and gloom. Interesting. Well, right after the tutorial boss (who you are not meant to defeat, but I did), your character dies. I mean, gets his head swiped right off dies. But let's back up. Before he dies, he meets a character who has no voice actress. He, however, has a voice actor. Not so interesting. After you get an achievement for finishing his story, the game then proceeds to not have any voice acting whatsoever as it casually explains to you that you are now, in fact, a clone. You have no personality, you just listen to the nice lady with no voice actress tell you what to do as she, and another scientist (who you have to rescues by doing a room full of traps within a time limit.... lol) try to rebuild a facility that would help them escape from a demon invasion. The good doctor is all morals and empathy, while the other guy is just like "screw it, I want to live". So much so, that he let the demons through, and may have helped one of them hijack a giant construction robot that is a boss fight. Yes. A demonic invasion that involves demons piloting human made factory machinery. Nice story. And then there's the gameplay. So, there's meta progression... sometimes. When you die, you don't automatically bring resources back with you. In order to bring them back, you need to go to a health recovery room (you select which area you go after clearing one). But wait, there's more. In the recovery room, after defeating enemy waves (lol), you are presented with 3 options. One option lets you heal fully, one lets you recover a charge on your healing syringe, and the last option lets you send your acquired resources (meta progression) to base. But! Each of these machines cost one "energy" to operate. How do you get more energy? You spend... 15 (or 25) meta progression points. So in other words, HAVE FUN sending 3-5 pieces of currency back and then dying, until you can fully upgrade that particular resource and use the healing room (after the enemy wave... lol) fully. Amazing. The other meta progression, which is accessed in the main hub by talking to the lady scientist, or a console (because we really need 2 interactable for the same menu), includes things like HP boosts, damage boosts, something about a 3% chance to get chests.... yeah. Then there's combat. You have a dash, but it's on cooldown. Is it an i-frame? I.... don't know. Sometimes the game says I "perfect dash", invulnerable", other times it doesn't and I still take no damage. What's the benefit of the perfect dash? *shug* But here's where the refund request came, right, and bear with me here. The bosses have SUPER HIGH HP pools, and I chose to go to a "commander" room. Now, this commander is a mini boss. So this creature, by itself, is easy. Just dodge a bit, do no damage, dodge some more. But then, then this thing spawned 3 extremely tanky blobs. After a few seconds, he did an AOE that you can't dodge. It one shots you. So, how does this AOE work? Simple. With your no damage character, you must somehow kill at least one blob, which then turns into a pillar that you hide behind during the AOE. Keep in mind that you can get three shot in this game. So, 3 blobs, a giant mini boss, and your limited dodge. You can, of course, get more dash charged by grinding the meta. In an alternate universe, you could just, you know, let me play the game.... question mark? No, okay, my bad. Anyways, grind meta for centuries to beat an extremely easy mini boss with a mechanic meant to keep you playing. Well, for me, it had the opposite affect. I don't mind a fun grind. Curse of The Dead Gods, fun. I can win without grinding, but unlocking things is fun and rewarding because they are all unique. Here, I'm just unlocking +3% chest drops with some damage sprinkled in so I can... what... kill an otherwise no design mini boss? Please. I like the art. I like the introduction story (the one with voice acting, and an actual point other than two bobbleheads spewing meaningless text at me)... but everything else is the worst kind of grind. I'm sure something more interesting probably happens once you get past the initial grind, but.... why? There are many things in life that I have patience for. Entertainment media is not one of those things. I didn't pay 20 dollars to repeat the same 6 rooms in a game that's supposedly random to see something that may or may not be there later. Slow burn in video games requires engaging gameplay, and this game, well, it doesn't have it for me due to being completely jank without grinding for hours. Check my profile if you wish, I love roguelites. The best ones know where to let the player play the best way they can while offering help. The worst of them handicap the player and call it replay value. Take a guess at what this one does. With better design choices, or at least ones that don't spit in my face for bothering to play this game, I would've loved it. As is, I'll just move along.

It was okay, but definitely not worth the price as is. I beat it in about 8 hours, with the story seemingly not finished yet. The "endgame" is just playing the same maps over again, with no boss variation or changes. If it were 10 bucks, it would be more appropriate.

For me this is Redacted with better gameplay. I'm not sure about the story to be honest but the gameplay loop is fun. 8/10 gameplay running on the Steam Deck attached to review. https://youtu.be/-jug2-Rv524?si=wLtQgamyoN0-NhML

[b]Lethal Honor: Order of the Apocalypse – a must-play for roguelike fans![/b] The game shines with its unique comic-style visuals, gripping story, fast-paced and challenging combat system, and a well-designed reward loop. The beginning can feel a bit unfamiliar, but once you master the controls and understand the bosses, the game turns into endless fun. The combat mechanics are intuitive yet demand tactical thinking and require much more than mere button-mashing. It's a real highlight of the genre, especially thanks to its stark visual style. Lethal Honor is a hidden gem that’s incredibly fun and will definitely stay in your memory.

A magnificent dark tale about where is the limits of the humanity and a great lessont about demon based butchery. I would recommend this game to everyone.

[h1] アメコミ味×見下ろし型ローグライクアクション [/h1] たぶんHadesとかそういう見下ろし系でボスの攻撃をよけながら攻撃していくスタイルのゲームが好きならきっとハマる。 ストーリーやらキャラにちょっとツッコミどころはあるものの、ゲーム自体は面白い 最初はなかなか勝てなくても周回して強化素材を集めていけば戦えるようになる 避けるのが苦手でも、わりかしゴリ押して勝てるようになるのでご安心を ただ、自分は10時間くらいプレイしてやりきったかな？って感じなので、値段相応かは好みによるかなって感じでした！

As my first impressions I have to say I like a lot what I've just played. On the one hand I want to highlight the wonderfulness of the artistic style, some kind of USA comic with those absolute shadows and saturated colours give to this game a great identity. On the other hand the combat system feels so good, it's fluid and dinamic and it seems to give you lot of possibilities and finally, I have to say that I really like how the story is told by comic panels. Definitely I'll spend many hours when I have the time to do it. Español: Como primeras impresiones tengo que decir que me ha gustado mucho lo que acabo de jugar. Por un lado quiero destacar lo maravilloso del estilo artístico del juego, algo en plan cómic estadounidense con esas sombras absolutas y esos colores saturados que le dan una gran identidad al juego. Por otro lado el sistema de combate se siente muy bien, es muy fluido y dinámico además de tener pinta de ser bastante variado y finalmente, tengo que decir que me gusta mucho el formato en el que se cuenta la historia, con esas viñetas de cómic. Definitivamente cuando tenga más tiempo le dedicaré bastantes horas.

Love the art style. Combat is fast and fun too

I definitely recommend this game! I've been playing for a couple of hours but haven't finished it yet. I hope to do it soon! It reminded me to Hades a lot in terms of the mechanics and I really enjoyed the comic-inspired style. Whenever I played with agents that had a unique personality I had a really good time, it's a part of the game that I liked the most. If there's ever an expansion I hope they exploit this idea (: The dubbing is excellent as well!