[h1] Review - Rogues Like Us [/h1]
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[h1] RATING: 8.0 / 10 - An Hero's Path [/h1]
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[h1] Overview [/h1]
Rogues Like Us is a roguelike dungeon crawler with top-down view. The technologically advanced kingdom of Arventous suddenly attacks all neighboring countires using mighty constructs and machines, bringing devastation to the world. But the outer kingdoms forge an alliance, and finally succeed in pushing back and defeating Arventian forces. Once arrived at the Capital, they already find it in ruins, reasons unknown. Since the end of the war, the town of Recluse, near the borders of the now dforbidden Arventian Empire, has been home to rogues and outcasts, and you head there one day because you hear about great riches offered to those brave enough to venture in the mysterious Arventian kingdom once again...
Rogues Like us is a traditional roguelike game focusing on skill, finding equipment and upgrading your character through a run, only to then win (or die) and lose it all again, unlock new things to discover in the following sessions, and go into thefray once again. Thanks to good progression mechanics and combat, and also co-op (only local, a shame!) Rogues like Us is definitely a very good roguelike.
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[h1] Gameplay Analysis [/h1]
[b] General Gameplay [/b]
In Rogues Like Us you will start at the main city of Recluse, where you will find various facilities at your disposal with different functions. here is the Armor Shop, where you actually cannot buy armor, but only change the one you have equipped. There are many sets of armor you can unlock, and every two pieces of the same set you wear, your character will be granted a bonus, depending on the armor type: some may give you more health, others more damage, while others unique effects. There are five pieces of armor total on your character, so you can have two level 1 bonuses from two sets, or onw level 2 bonus from 4 pieces of the same set. The next facility is the Armory, where you will be able to see all the weapons you unlocked, but not equip them, as you must find them in each run and cannot equip them from the start. Other facilities are the Library where you can read lore about the world, the enemies, bosses, and all the diaries you found in the dungeons, and infally the Dye SHop to recolor your armors with dyes you found while playing.
To unlock weapons, armors and so on you need chests, and they are obtained by defeating bosses, fullfilling special events in dungeons such as arena fights, or purchased with Ultra Cores, obtained aswell, mainly, from bosses or rarely from quests. Once you get crates you can open the at Recluse once you finish your current session, and they will unlock new armor you can equip right away, new weapons to find in the next sessions, enchantments randomly applied to those weapons each time, and dyes to color your gear.
Each weapon has different classes, such as polearms, light swords, heavy swords... and also diverse attack patterns, time to attack, range, and statistics applied to the damage and cooldown of your special abilities. Some armor sets give special bonuses that work with a specific weapon class, so having a good idea of what you are aiming to in a particular session is important. It's not guaranteed that you will find what you look for, though!
Dungeons are divided in a series of mini-arenas that will each spawn enemies, while others will have weapons, altars and supplies in them and sometimes be free of enemies completely. As in any roguelike, resource management is important and deciding if it's worth exploring more of the dungeon, or instad go straight for the boss if you know the location, will be choices you make all the time considering risks and rewards. Each enemy you kill in dungeons will reward Cores, used as money with traders. Traders are found at the Camp, present in each dungeon, and will be of different types: Healer, will give you 2 health for a price, Cartographer, will reveal the whole map for cores, Armorer, will give you 1 armor for a price, and Alchemist, will give you a random permanent buff for a price. Prices are higher the higher is the dungeon level, in the first dungeons they will cost a few cores, while 3-4 dungeons away they will cost much more.
Some NPCs in dungeons will give quests asking for something, like Cores, Health or Shields, and give random rewards that can be health, armor, buffs, or even Ultra Cores. Deciding if it's worth to gamble it depends on you.
[b] Combat System [/b]
Combat in Rogues Like Us is fast-paced, mostly melee-focused, and based on dodging as many hits as you can, as health is very limited (4 Base Health) and any hit will take out one. Enemies are not very varied, there are actually 6 maybe 7 enemy types, but they all come in three different variants, Green, the weakest, Blue, intermediate, and Red, elite variant. The variants will have different attack types and strenghts. Enemies can also have random buffs attached to them such as electric bullets, or spawn slimes upon death.
The abilities at your disposal other than the basic melee will be Blast, a beam of energy passing through all enemies in the path and dealing significant damage, Slam, a circular AoE power that deletes bullets and knocks enemies back, and Dash, invaluable to dodge attacks. While you perform Slam and Dash you are briefly invulnerable. Slam and Blast have cooldowns, that can be reduced with buffs or weapon statistics, while Dash hasvey little cooldown and can be used often. You also have a Teleport Mark you can place anywhere and go back to that place instantly, useful if you need to go to a trader fast.
Bosses in this game will always be the same for each dungeon. There are something like 10-12 bosses overall, and learning the attack patterns and weaknesses of each is paramount for success: While many are fair enough, some of them are incredibly difficult and will require great items and trinkets to be defeated. When you defeat a boss it will reward a random Crate, some Ultra Cores and a Trinket, a special item with unique effects, you can carry only one so choose wisely. Perfecting a boss, aka not being damaged even once, will reward better stuff.
[b] Content [/b]
If you want to gett all armors, weapons etc the game can last a good 15 hours for sure. It depends on skill anyway.
[b] Balancing [/b]
Balance is good enough.
[b] Challenge [/b]
Later stages with many elite enemies are tough, generally this game becomes challenging but fair.
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[h1] Technical Analysis [/h1]
[b] Graphics [/b]
Minimalistic, low-poly art style has its charm, models and overall quality is good, and I personally really loved all the flying pieces of debris you see around when killing enemies.
[b] Sound [/b]
Average soundtrack and effects.
[b] Performance [/b]
Nothing to report.
[b] Stability [/b]
Nothing to report.
[b] AI [/b]
Enemy AI is a follow-and-attack AI type for normal enemies, and an attack-pattern based AI for bosses. Nothing special.
[b] Quality of Life [/b]
Effect descriptions of special armor set abilities should be detailed, as many of them you dont even know what they do unless you wear them.
[b] Bugs / Issues [/b]
Nothing to report.
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[h1] Conclusion [/h1]
Rogues Like Us is a solid roguelike game that would be fantastic with online co-op, but for some reason the feature is absent, and that is the only baad thing i can really say about an otherwise great title.
