9/10 – A surprisingly great roguelike!
Pros:
Cute pixel art style.
Huge pool of items and weapons.
Lots of different enemies, mini-bosses, and bosses.
Interesting inventory management mechanics.
But:
A bit lacking in achievements compared to how many features and possibilities the game has.
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I honestly stumbled upon Sephiria completely by chance and decided to give it a try mainly because I'm a huge pixel art enjoyer. Somehow, I ended up glued to my screen for about 20 hours...
Like many roguelikes, the game has a story that progresses alongside your runs and the world around you. It's enjoyable: definitely not the strongest part of the game or one of the best stories I've ever experienced, but it's charming and fits the game's style and atmosphere really well.
One of the mechanics I enjoyed the most is the inventory management. If you're into this kind of thing like I am, it's incredibly easy to get obsessed with it. Depending on the items you find, you'll constantly be rearranging your inventory, moving and combining things in the right way to upgrade them, modify their effects, and get the most out of them.
The item pool is surprisingly large and varied. It's pretty easy to find a playstyle that works for you, while at the same time the game lets you mix and match a huge number of builds and mechanics, giving you plenty of room to experiment.
As for the difficulty, I personally didn't find the game particularly hard. Overall, I'd say it's roughly comparable to The Binding of Isaac in terms of difficulty. Even completing the final achievement tied to Difficulty 30 wasn't nearly as challenging as I expected it to be.
My only real complaint, at least for players like me, is the lack of long-term goals. I love experimenting and trying new things, but I enjoy doing so much more when there's actually something to work towards. Personally, I'd love to see a lot more Steam achievements. There's a ton of stuff to do in the game, but as much as I enjoy playing it, once you've completed the current achievements, I find it difficult to come up with a real reason to keep going.
I think it would take surprisingly little to fix this: achievements for discovering or using different combos, completing the wardrobe, finishing runs with specific weapons or builds, and generally more objectives that encourage you to experiment with everything the game has to offer. It would also be a great way to make even better use of the huge variety of content that's already there.
Overall, I absolutely loved it. Highly recommended!
