Tactics Rogue

[quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]Follow our curator page: [b]IndieGems[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote] [i]Tactics Rogue[/i] is a roguelite dungeon-crawler with turn-based combat and randomized floor layouts. The game is currently in Early Access, so we have more to look forward to. It is completely playable in its current stage, and it's rather fun. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Each run you start out in the first floor of a dungeon. The first floor is always small and usually just a couple of easy enemies before you descend to floor two. After that, you will see plenty of random spawns, such as different enemies/monsters, treasure chests (with different tiers), shops, etc. There are stairs to go down only, you cannot revisit a previous floor. In the Early game, as your party is not complete yet, you can also find new individuals who are different from your own character in a cage and you can unlock this character to gain a new party member for the run. In turn this also unlocks the character for use for future runs. You can have up to 4 characters in your party at once. As you wander around the dungeon, you have freedom of movement. If you have multiple characters, you will see under their icons on the left side of the screen to be locked or unlocked. This is regarding their movements. You can toggle between moving them separately or have them all follow your lead. You can click on the character on-screen to choose which character to lead. When you encounter a monster, the game does not allow you to freely move any longer. You start turn-based movements and actions. Green squares show you how far you can walk. If an enemy is within strike range and you click on the enemy, your character will automatically walk to and strike. Or you can click where you want your character to move, then click a square within strike range to attack. When you make your move, and you are unable to or choose not to attack, you can select the orientation of your character by turning. This is important because side and back attacks results in more damage. Dungeons floor maps are generated through some form of randomization. There are special areas that are shown by different colored tiles at their entrance. If you enter these areas, you will taken to a new zone, with new types of enemies, different kinds of strategy for fights and expectations, etc. Each run ends when your characters all perish. There is little to no opportunity to heal in each run. I found a fountain that healed everyone in one of those special areas. But then I couldn't get past an enemy and got my whole party demolished. I cannot find a way to flee from a battle. It seems that once you are in, only one party can come out alive. Every secret section has a set number of floors and a boss. There is also an end boss. I haven't managed to complete a run at any point yet. (The lack of healing makes it quite tough to go far enough.) After each run, when you start the next, you will have all of the money that you accumulated in the previous run available to purchase upgrades. If you do not use the money, you will lose it. For each character, you will have different attribute and skill nodes that you can learn or upgrade, as long as you have the money for it. After upgrading one attribute, all of the others increase in price as well. This is heavily similar to the upgrade system in [i]Rogue Legacy[/i], including the one time possible use for your money bit. The game saves automatically, so you can choose to step away at any time and continue exactly where you left off. It has a good tutorial that you can use to learn the basics of the game. You can learn from the perspective of someone who has no knowledge of turn-based combat, or you can learn only the things unique to this game. In addition, you can choose to turn off the tutorial altogether. [h1]Controls[/h1] Game is played entirely with a mouse. I do not see any way to change camera angles, but you can zoom in and out with the scroll wheel. It would be lovely to see some ability to pan around and look, either with WASD or mousing over the edge of the screen. If different camera angles are set up for visuals, that would be lovely as well. [h1]Graphics and Music[/h1] Graphics are nice. the characters and objects are 3D, and the lines are smooth. The game looks like it came out of a Nintendo DS collection. You play in a 3/4 top-down view without camera controls, only zoom in and out. The music sounds like it came out of a 8-bit game. It is only semi-appropriate I think. [h1]Audience[/h1] This game is easy to learn and has very short runs. It can be played by anyone. [h1]Pricing[/h1] Game is in Early Access at 9.99 USD, and the price will stay the same after coming out of EA. This is really nice. [h1]Issues So Far[/h1] 1. The lack of healing, I know I mentioned this before, makes it really difficult to progress far enough to see an end result, at least in the limited amount of time I have played. 2. Everywhere on the screen seems to be set to trigger character movement. I was trying to click on the left-hand side character icons, and my party leader walked right into a battle. There needs to be some areas set as off-limits I think. 3. The envelope in the top left part of the screen seems to want to bring up an enemy list, of creatures you have faced before, but it is always empty. I imagine that this will be fixed with further developement though. This is not a game breaker. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] [i]Tactics Rogue[/i] is a fun rogue-lite dungeon crawler that is in Early Access, it has a reasonable amount of content and a lot of replay value. It's not a true roguelike because of the permanent upgrade system in place. Runs are short-ish, so it's easy to go in and experiment. A few things need touch-ups but that's the nature of an EA game. See the following video for a very brief look into the internal mechanics of the game: https://youtu.be/u3vX888tydQ [quote]I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.[/quote]

Should I write a review after 27 minutes? Maybe not, but I have no intention of playing the game any longer, so here it is. I think Rogue Tactics is supposed to be a roguelite / tactical game (as the name would imply), but it seems to be neither. It is incredibly easy and requires no strategy at all. I was at floor 12 within 8 minutes my third (and last) run. I simply ran through, killing enemies very easily if needed and heading to the stairs down if not. The only reason my first two runs ended was because the game crashed. The graphics look like they belong on the Nintendo DS, as another reviewer stated. This is not a good thing in my opinion. The blocky characters have no definition and are similar to sprites we might have seen 25 years ago. Similarly, the enemies look like ... nothing. I came across enemies in green robes (I think they were robes) that were somehow skeletons according to the descriptions. After I hit floor 12 and realized it is just like every other floor (in the dev's defense, there are special areas, but I only got seconds into one of them before the game crashed), I decided there are other things I would rather do with my time. This might be good for a child, but otherwise I simply cannot recommend it. It is just not fun. Update: I removed the part about a spelling error, since things happen, even on AAA games, and it wasn't reflective of the game itself.

Tactic Rouge is a fresh indie spin on turn-based tactics, and even in early access it already shows a lot of promise. The core gameplay is fun, smart, and rewards careful planning. Each encounter feels meaningful, with enough challenge to keep you thinking without becoming frustrating. What stands out most is the creativity—the mechanics don’t feel like just another clone, but something with its own personality. The art and presentation have that indie charm while still feeling polished enough to be enjoyable. Since it’s early access, there are still some rough edges (balance tweaks, a bit more content, and some UI improvements would go a long way), but that’s to be expected. What matters is that the foundation is solid, and the potential for growth is huge. If you enjoy turn-based strategy and want to support a game that’s already fun to play while watching it evolve into something even better, Tactic Rouge is well worth picking up in early access. 10/10 early access title. Can't wait for the 1.0 release!