UnderMine

Undermine might look like a typical roguelike at a first glance, but there is more behind it. It might even be disliked by roguelike fans. Undermine’s approach is more suitable for RPG fans. The game emphasises stats, potions, earning money, buying meaningful upgrades, having helpers with their own skills and the progression is done in a satisfying way. The game might be perceived as too grindy for roguelike players but it doesn’t really register as such for RPG players. Undermine doesn’t just encourage learning by experience, its meta progression will definitely make you a powerhouse. This ensures you will get something out of every run and you will definitely ‘finish’ the game because it’s very well balanced. I find this far more appealing compared to roguelikes that lack meta progression, make things ridiculously hard/punishing and you need to be incredibly lucky with the right combination to get anywhere. But that’s not all, the game is incredibly polished and made with care. The graphical style is very reminiscent of Super Nintendo RPG, the music is pretty catchy, the character designs of NPC are memorable, many builds/combinations are different yet viable, some of the achievements are very rewarding, unlocking new artifacts/blessings/curses/etc is fun, you have choice whether you want to add certain artifacts/etc to the pool and the game’s extra mode (othermine) is also a good addition. I find it hard to come up with many flaws but if I must, I will mention two. The game crashed a couple of times when I closed the game after reaching the main menu. You don’t lose any progress out of it but it is weird when it happens. One achievement is too grindy, it requires the player to increase the challenge 30 times after completing a run. 15-20 would have been fairer even though it would have still been quite the challenge. I absolutely adore Undermine. I didn’t expect much from it initially, I was worried it would be like the other roguelike games that I tend to dislike. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say this might be my favourite roguelike. I highly recommend the game to players who want meta progression and enjoy grinding with a good structure. I got the game when it was on deep sale once but it’s one of those games I can confidently say it’s worth the normal price of around €17. I’ve played it for more than 110 hours and got all achievements except for the one that is too grindy. The sequel is currently in early access, I hope it will be as good as Undermine and I hope it will keep the same approach with progression. I’m definitely following that one!

As other comments pointed out, the Undermine seems to feature a lot of hazards for the sake of adding as many upgrades to counter them. There's also a shop to buy permanent stats increase. This is more common in games, but adds to the weight of "upgrades to counter annoyances rather than granting new ways to play" There's an important lack of polish in the mechanics themselves, which I don't find OK considering the studio already has a second game in early access. - Some misleading item descriptions (at least in french) - Rats freeze in place when you're jumping - The game seemingly uses an actual 3d engine to manage height, so you can jump on top of various objects like crates, or even monsters like big rats. When standing on some of these, you will awkwardly slide off, as if they had a hidden inclined hitbox. - When you step in fire, you only get burnt for a few seconds, then the status expires, even if you're still standing in flames. - Some things make no sense to dodge. If a slime falls on you from the sky, you take no damage if you jump right before he lands. Also, standing on some furniture considers you high enough to dodge enemy projectiles, even though these same projectiles seem to pass above the object you stand on, and would hit you if you were on the ground. - Any unexplored room next to those that you explored is revealed on the minimap, along with its type of content (you can know what kind of event is in a locked room without unlocking it). - If you spam the "interact" key (E) at a NPC, it acts as a queue. Once their dialogue is closed, it will open again for the amount of times that you spammed the key at them. - The level transition freezes you in place (and in the air if you were jumping) while moving your character to the next room.

Phew, I did my best to enjoy this one but after the last run abruptly ended - after which I said, "no" to myself - I'm coming here to recommend against this one unless you're a fan of the combat sequence from Stardew Valley, because that's basically what it is here. But if that was just it then I'd be OK with it, really. But the frustration lies in the inevitable grind, aka die-a-lot-to-get-incremental-improvements. Again, while that's not itself terrible, the base loadout is always the same - a melee attack that does good damage but makes you suseptible to mobs, or a boomerang-style thrown attack which does less damage and requires the axe to return to you before you throw again. There's gold to get, which is good, and which I think is the point of the story? The nuggets you grab are on constant attack from pillaging snotballs so you have to be quick. When you die, and you will, you'll lose a lot of that gold and retain some of it to spend in the shop, which will improve (incrementally) your damage, your thrown distance, your life bar, and some other stuff. So you'll die, spend some money - if you're smart, you'll spend in on the thing that lets you retain money when you die, then battle again to see if you get any deeper. When a boss arrives, chances are that you don't have a lot of experience battling them so you'll die. When you do, you can get more incremental bonuses to your stats. There's no like, super-magic item that will come to your rescue to make you a lot better, nor is there alternative builds to try (well, maybe there is, after some more grinding which I'm not interested in doing), you just have to grind the same thing over and over again. I'm not going to give this game a thumbs up just because some things are good - like the art, the pixel art is very good. The overall art direction is quite impressive. And the gameplay is alright, too. It's just monotomous and I have way better games to play in my time. Is Undermine 2 any better? I don't know, I'll be off playing something else.

[h1] Good Zelda like game, very addictive! Now move along peasant![/h1] I first played this on Game Pass and loved it, the looks and controls are real good. It kind of plays like the old Zelda games. You got a weapon to swat stuff with and throw in some bombs to blow stuff up, then throw in some rouge-lite stuff and you have a winner lol I couldn't swing it at the retail price and my sub ran out on Game Pass so it sat on my wish list for awhile, so big thanks to the Devs putting it on sale for $1.99 made this purchase a no brainer and an auto buy for me! lol

对以撒拙劣的模仿，我可以列出无数个“非常差劲”的点。 1.受伤没有无敌帧 2.满血时依旧可以捡起恢复品，导致恢复浪费 3.偷偷怪设计意义不明，如果是10%几率出现还能接受，但却是100%出现 4.圣物联动差，就连最基础的三发+弹射都不允许你拿 5.对于炸弹的特殊强化也只能拿一个，比如拿了分裂雷就拿不了十字雷 6.穷局相对较多，经常可以遇到缺雷缺钥匙的毒种 7.圣物设定恶意极大，例如游戏中有一个叫“黑曜石之刃”的圣物，对标以撒蓝皇冠，增加极大地伤害，但是该圣物受到一次伤害后，竟然是“永久”消失。 8.圣物或药水给的数值或设定非常“抠搜”，似乎制作组非常不愿看到爽局无敌的情况发生。 9.陷阱+敌人的房间，清理完敌人后，陷阱一定不会停止运转。 10.看过无数遍的BOSS进场动画也不能跳过 （此游戏含有部分错过就必须开新档的成就）

玩的憋屈死了, 一个矿坑元素的地图里边塞一堆坑我是真不理解, 本来每个房间就没多大, 房间里基本都要塞深坑, 每次在躲伤害的时候都要掉坑里, 现在都给我整出ptsd了, 房间里塞一堆坑还有塞一堆召唤怪或者远程怪, 塞什么怪都无所谓, 我可以躲, 但是房间又有坑, 我还要躲着坑, 到现在还没通关, 越到后期越憋屈, 大部分都是到坑里扣血

What can I say? The graphics and animation are top-notch. It plays very smoothly and is quite challenging at times, keeping you entertained for 5-10 hours without any issues. I played through it in one sitting with a controller. No agonizingly long story, just straight-up dungeon slaughter with items, buffs, and debuffs, just how it should be! It's currently on sale, and it feels like stealing, haha.

很多年前玩的， 糊里糊涂的就开坑了，莫名其妙的就弃坑了， 或者说"战略性完结"。 我看了下成就，应该是肝了，但没肝完， 现在也完全想不起来缘故了。 或许这个游戏它就是好， 好到你可以兴致勃勃的开坑， 但是又没好到让你肝完， 特别是有一库存的妖艳贱货与其宫斗的时候， 长跑的游戏像极了爱情， 不是那么容易平稳落地的...

Suffers from the same cheapo, artificially induced difficulty and meta-progression mechanics a lot of other roguelites been using these days. It’s clearly there to stretch playtime and force you to rely on meta upgrades instead of well designed mechanics and proper balance. It's the same story here, the game leans hard on meta-progression to slow you down. Early runs feel intentionally weak and unfair so you grind upgrades instead of actually learning the game or use your skills to progress.