Voidsayer

Now way to full heal after returning from a mission. You have to farm gold on multiple runs to afford 1 weak a** health potion. Upgrade materials are locked to one time completion of missions so its easy to softlock yourself almost immediately upon playing. Sound effects are terrible. Some attacks sound like someone knocking on a door. Creature designs suck. Specifically the bugs. Multiple look the exact same just different colors that match their Type of damage.

[h1] This game is painful at times and a joy at others. Recommended with a big ol' buyer beware strapped to it. [/h1] [h3] A promising start [/h3] So where to begin? This game has an aesthetic that is simply gorgeous in the best grim-dark (glory to the emperor) sort of way. The creatures look fantastic, the animation is serviceable, and the branching rougelike - turn based fusion is an immediately appealing core mechanic. Mash that together with a fitting (if forgettable) sound track and you have a sure-fire hit on your hands... right? [h3] A house built on sand [/h3] While the core concepts of this game are strong, the core execution becomes tiresome quickly. Battles at the beginning feel like they will open up to a range of mechanics by the end game. While this is true, in a sense, it leaves much to be desired and ends up often becoming a simple slug fest with big numbers go [b] brrr [/b] being the deciding factor. Traits play an interesting role in concept (I never played the earlier build where the mechanics were significantly different from what I gather), but ultimately break down to: This trait usually works best on hyper offense so I'll use it on the thing that hits the fastest and hardest, and the same concept for tanky defense (o7 for my boy Mimic, this guy saved my runs with mixed offense/defense many a time). With a core battle mechanic that gets old fast, surely the rougelike adventure of it all is the appeal... right? [h3] No good deed [/h3] Holy-moly, I get it is grim-dark out here but does every blade of grass have to try and [b] Kick My Teeth In. [/b] Hey this place looks beat up, lets fix it! (Gets face mangled horribly from a freak incident involving a rusty wrench and a menagerie of inconveniently placed rakes). Ok, lets try talking to this doctor! (Gets face mangled by a comically large syringe and a surprisingly refreshing splash of industrial grade cleaners). [b] *Barely limping at this point* [/b] Well... at least there is a feast up ahead! (Gets face mangled by a pot roast that thinks you looked at him funny). [b] Everything in this game hurts! [/b] Even things that seem like they shouldn't hurt, leaving positive or meaningful events sorely missed in every run. Most steps are a resource check (and not nearly as fun as I have made them sound) and aim to drain you before an inevitable big fight. Rather than testing your team building and understanding of game mechanics, it more tests your luck and ability to avoid anything that looks remotely interesting. But hey, there's always the story... right?... no?... yeah, should've figured. [h3] In a grim-dark world of grim-darkness, there once was someone grim-dark [/h3] The story is very much a linear jog from A to B with very little flavor to its flavor text. You beat baddie 1 to get to baddie 2, rinse and repeat until all baddies have met with a grim-dark fate. Admittedly the ending is quite an interesting twist which might set up a sequel, much as the [b] Siralim [/b] games did, but it is otherwise dry. The occasional reference in a item description or character name will be a welcome knowing nod to some players, but these details don't create engagement, and while adding personality to the game, do nothing to build the world or the lore. Rougelikes are rarely known for their story but when gameplay ends up this repetitive... well... like the events, it just hurts. [h3] Fun to be had, if you look [/h3] All of this said, I did enjoy much of my time in [b] Voidsayer, [/b] but I didn't love any of it. Evolving monsters was nice, but the in game bestiary completes whether you catch the beast or not (which is actually welcome as it means one less thing to grind). The in game grind wasn't too horrible and, at moments, was even quite fun (but grinding building materials in this game needs to be abolished by the UN as a war crime). The only time the game became truly tedium over fun was the last three or four missions; while up to that point I had a fairly even split of fun and mind numbing tedium, the last missions tip it way into the "overstayed welcome" category. When most, if not all your monsters are max level, all buildings are upgraded, and the shop-keep is actively slapping you with a broom to get you out of the door so you don't try to buy the wood flooring and the pictures of his family since you emptied the place of everything else, every gold coin you gain from every overly long expedition feels more like an insult than a resource. [h3] Overall rating [/h3] This one is super hard for me. I wanted to like it, often did, and really enjoyed the aesthetic. That said, the world and story are dry despite the abundance of swamps, the gameplay ranges from "meh" to vapid, and the in-game events justify you changing all of your creatures to have the "masochistic" personality just to be lore accurate. I was compelled to finish the game and for the price it wasn't terrible, but when i compare it to gems like [b] Bloomtown [/b] and [b] Mirrored soul [/b] for monster raising RPG's, especially with price in mind, I can't really justify buying this over those. [h1] Final verdict: 5/10 [/h1] This ends up being a barely recommended game with a hope that a sequel may one day make the world more engaging and the mechanics deeper. I see potential but what is here doesn't stand out at the price point and has no replay-ability whatsoever. This game gets a grim-dark shrug of indifference from me.

I don't want to be harsh because this is clearly an indie title with a lot of love an care put together to make a unique monster training game, but it frustratingly falls short in ways that I find basic. Let me get the things I like out of the way. I like the monsters, they look fun and distinct, and have a unifying art direction that makes them feel like they belong in the same universe. The story, while not groundbreaking, is a fun little journey, albeit I never saw it to the end because I put 9 hours into the game and hit my limit. Now the criticisms. Fundamentally, this game is boring. There is this facade of choice the game presents you at every step, and while determining your routes through each of your runs will determine your ability to survive it, the consequences of your decisions are muted. Most points on the maps you visit either hurts your HP pool a bit, or takes you to a combat encounter. There are a few events, and while some give you small bonuses, they aren't impactful, and many just lead to more encounters. The glut of combat encounters makes and breaks this game, and unfortunately they're kind of a dud. The majority of the time you are going to be clicking an attack button, whichever one has a higher number. There are no support tools that I've been able to find with the creatures I've caught, and no way to assign or learn new moves, so the combat has this kind of Rock 'em Sock 'em Robot feel to it. There are things you should consider, like type match ups, but the game poorly communicates this information through its tool tips. The nuance the game attempts to insert is unintuitive, and the lack of moment to moment decision making turns the whole experience into a grind. The way to succeed is to just manage your HP pools, and that's just not a engaging way to handle an entry in this genre. I was pretty disappointed with Voidsayer. I think it just needed some more time to cook, but ultimately I cannot recommend it.

As a big fan of [i]Pokémon[/i] games, I was optimistic about [i]Voidsayer[/i], since taking those concepts in a darker, more challenging direction seemed to be a fun twist on the formula. To its credit, it does do some interesting things, such as making creature stats more readily accessible in combat so you can make informed decisions on each of your turns. Additionally, while it received a lot of flak from players for completely overhauling the mechanisms of the game when it hadn't even been out for long, I think the new traits system offers a lot of opportunities for enhanced strategic depth. Unfortunately, the roguelite structure of [i]Voidsayer[/i] really causes it to bog down, especially since failing a mission reloads your last save from before you left town, causing you to lose all progress, including XP gained by your party. This makes level grinding a massive chore, as if you choose to grind on a mission that's too challenging and can't see it through to the end, all the time you've spent goes completely to waste. Plus, maintaining an inventory of healing items to make things easier isn't even an option, due to the tight gold economy and punishing item purchase limits. It all combines to make an experience that I quickly burnt out on once I started getting new Entities I wanted to level up and add to my party rotation, which should arguably be one of the most exciting parts of this type of game! It's got some neat ideas, but [i]Voidsayer[/i] needs a lot more fine-tuning before it's something I would feel good recommending. Full review [url=https://olivigarden.ca/2025/07/11/voidsayer-review/]here[/url]

Darkest Dungeon/Dark Souls meets Pokemon, with the slay the spire map for runs.. Brutally difficult, but greatly satisfying. NOTE - IF YOU DO NOT LIKE PAYING ATTENTION TO TYPE ADVANTAGES/STATUS EFFECTS/STATS, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. THE MID/LATE GAME MAKES THIS MATTER, WHICH IS SOMETHING THE DEMO DIDN'T SHOW YOU. I played the demo when it originally came out, and after nearly 100%ing the game (can't figure out the last achievement), I can say I've loved it in its entirety. Was there BS RNG? Of course, but that's literally any rogue like game, and that's where the fun happens (especially when I benefit from it). Did I have to learn the hard way why you need to pay attention to move sets, types, and combinations? Yep, and maybe this has opened my mind to playing dark souls. Let's address the elephant in the room - grinding. Look, to be fully honest, I didn't really mind the grind, because something about the game just clicked with me. I knew which dendronities (monsters) I wanted to level up and use for my team and why (mostly because they're cool). There was never a point where I thought "wow, progress is so slow"... it just felt natural. Maybe it's because my schedule is random, so I only have pockets of time to play a map. Maybe it's because I liked the style and setting of the game. Maybe it's because DD beat me down so much that this was a reprieve in comparison. In terms of gold - well, most of the gold you should be getting through completing new stages. Just like how DD starts with almost nothing, and you're scrapping yourself together for basic adventures, you'll eventually get to a point where money is abundant. The benefit is that the majority of your costs are permanent progression (tools/equipment for your team), and if done right, most maps will give you the cost of your consumables and then some. You'll have to take a few risks, here and there, but that's no different than early game darkest dungeon. I will note, your early game focus should be getting new equipment and items, not collecting monsters. You *can* buy scrolls (pokeballs) here and there, but if you're trying to 100% collect everything from the start, you're not going to have a good time. As for XP grinding - I didn't really mind that either... once you get certain town upgrades, it's really not all that bad. Is it frustrating at times? Yes, but so is grinding in darkest dungeon, or grinding for souls in dark souls, or grinding in hollow knight or silksong. There's many ways to abuse the XP system, and you can bring low level dendronities into a map with higher level ones to carry you through. It is incredibly easy to just go to a higher level area and catch a higher level version to grind from there but even if I had to grind out every level with them, I don't really think that would've made me hate the game What about building materials? The honest answer here is to not grind them. Doing this is like counting grains of sand in an hourglass. Can you do it? Yes. Should you? No. Part of the difficulty is built into the game with the assumption that you're personal choices for buildings come with the consequence of not being able to enjoy the benefits of the other buildings until you upgrade them too. What about 100% collection? For the achievement, you just need to *see* and *survive* an encounter with every monster (and by survive, I mean complete the adventure). Some of them are rarer, so it's easier to evolve them, but I only had to do that for 3 of them (and ironically, I saw all 3 of them after I got the achievement, just my luck). Heck, you can even get the starters from the first 5 maps if you really wanted to. They're rarer, but honestly it's not that difficult to get them (though the fire one I've noticed is harder to find than the other two). Stats, status effects, items, and move sets- Look, just like how DD has its combinations that are just significantly better than others, some dendronities are better stat wise, move set wise, etc. Does that mean you *have* to use them to win, or even to 100% the game? No, absolutely not. There are many play styles that I have not tried that I know work (mostly because bosses use them and crushed me with them). Why is this game difficult? MOST of the difficulty is understanding mechanics. Once you understand what types counter others, what status effects do, what stats do, and how to create teams that can answer a mix of situations, you're golden. The little bit that isn't mechanics is the risks you take. Unlike DD, your dendronities don't have perma-death. Healing is scarce, but that's the grim dark setting. Bosses are never difficult because they're cheating, but because they put you on the back foot with difficult situations. Can you win with one less dendronity (ie: 3v4)? Can you win when your levels are even (ie: you usually have a 5-10 level advantage)? Can you win when the map has more elite monsters? Just like DD, bosses are static, but random encounters are not, so building your team with multiple scenarios in mind matters. I honestly wish there was more... there's a huge void I'll have to fill now that I've completed everything. I don't think a multiplayer addition would be a good idea for this for the same reason why I hate the butcher's circus in darkest dungeon. It'd be the same exact teams with the same items and setup... but for a single player game at this price, this is more than worth it IMO. This is clearly a labor of love. Some rough edges, sure, but a labor of love nonetheless. Again, it really needs to be said: IF YOU DON'T LIKE DIFFICULTY OR READING STATUS EFFECTS OR EVEN READING WHAT STATS DO, DON'T BUY IT. The mid-late game makes all of these things matter A LOT. You can get away with not paying attention in the early game, but after boss 2/3, the game doesn't let you get away with ignoring them. Stats are semi-RNG with consumable re-rolls that make IVs and EVs from pokemon look like a joke with how much easier and better this system is. It's something you won't notice in the demo when it was available, so please, please, please take this into consideration. That all being said... I genuinely love this game. I can't wait to see what changes come to it, if any more do come, or what other games these guys make. Thank you, dev team for your hard work on this.

Maybe I come from a different world, but I don't really see a lot of the complaints that people have about this game. Here is the core game play loop / flow. Story > Prep to go out in the world > Go to open world map > Click on next level (like Super Mario World or other rogues), defeat the map > next map > next story, etc. It's got pokemon esque elements in terms of creature colleciton/evolutions, etc. You can go back to prior maps and complete them to farm for rare encounters/items and rare creatures to catch. Each map has zone tags like "Forest" "Mountains" and those will provide those types of creatures. The format is simple and I'd say that the complexity of the system gets better the more abilities / items you get. For example one creature may seem weak, but evolves into a power house. Or you may have one that deals out a lot of CC. The game is 'challenging' in the sense that the further you unlock the higher the level monsters, but you can always take a break and farm older levels to grind until you can compete. I wouldn't say the game is particularly hard. You more or less progress till you hit a wall then grind till you can beat it. I think where people get tripped up is that they don't take the time to understand the Abyss mechanic and how it can impact maps. Maps have a 'threat' escalation mechanic that, based on random encounters and other mechanics it gets tougher to heal or makes the end 'trainers' more difficult. The maps are more 'challenging' because of the attrition to your HP. The earlier you recognize that the more simple the game becomes. I think people just hop in to the game thinking they're gonna roll over the top of it, have super complex fights at the beginning and then give up 3 hours in. Pokemon is dead ♥♥♥♥ boring / easy to the point of nausea, this at least makes you take a step back and assess the guys you bring to the table or that you need to grind. The game is not perfect by any means, I think the map system could be a lot better. There could be a lot more random events, a lot more side stories, and side stories unlocked on the map itself. The constant approach to the same 'map' feels like the primary deterrent here, but again - its a roguelite and this is a comfort recipe.

Im gonna start off saying i like this game. up to the 3rd boss I was addictive. but after that it started feeling like a slog and i kept just trying to push myself through until eventaully at the end of the game i kept asking "do i really want to do this?" but there are things that i feel can vastly improve that: 1: dont make any stage longer than 15 or even 17. its too long and makes me personally get bored. it also sucks when you hit bad RNG towards the end and have to go through all of it over again 2: make stamina potions fully restore all moves instead of partially restoring random moves. you can fail a run easily by hitting an enemy that can wall themselves with defense or auto dodge and it ruins your run draining all your moves 3: don let buffs and debuffs stack with themselves. 3 turns on a lot of these is just fine, and the fact the enemy doesnt drain their moves and can repeat them, making buffs override with use could go a long way 4: making you lose almost all healing between fight stacked with an automatic 15% drop after the 3rd boss from the start is diabolical. at least increase the affect of healing areas or decrease the amount you get punished 5: mutants are too strong when you are forced to face multiple then a boss making you rely on good rng. maybe tweak them a bit 6: maybe take away the wood resource and make upgrades based on gold. gold became useless around the 3rd boss for me and it would be more fun to save up the meager money i made farming to upgrade the town now i cant recommend this game sadly as it is now but, its not for a lack of enjoying the game. it does a lot right. the genetics and characteristic are fun since you can change them up. the items let you make fun builds. the rings add a nice extra buff. the combat and moves arent to shabby. and the game and creatures can be goofy but enjoyable. so ill still check in on this game to see if the dev makes any changes to make the game flow better. maybe ill revisit the game and beat it as it it now. but its just wearing on me with all the reloading when something goes so bad its not worth moving on.

Released game, then completely overhauled it to change the combat system. That's all well and good, but don't release the game then immediately change it. That's not smart. If it hadn't already been two weeks I would have refunded this game. I can't stand when games just change completely over and over fundamentally making it not fun to learn and relearn how to play.

i backed this on Kickstarter because i liked the idea of Darkest Dungeon meets Pokemon. Bad sadly i am not gonna recommend it, but it was a close one. The vibes and the estetics are there, all is dark and grimmy and the world is miserable, i like that. Also the feel of catching eldrich entitys and putting together a team and fighting the horros element is there but it pros are mostly in the estetics and not in the mechanics. wich brings me to the main downside - Mechanics. You are often grinding for gold that you need to spend on supplies to even at least make your runs. Combat promises a lot of the old pokemon style "find the right rock, paper, siccors combination" and even tries to get deeper with some mechanics but most of the time you run out of things to do due to the limitat uses of your attacks. Also what is in my opinon the greatest flaw is that failer runs set you back to your last save and not giving you at least limited gradual growth, like it is with most other rougelite games. also there is not a lot of customisation on you entities and often choices are actually non choises. Like in encounters where you choose your destinations but often you don not know what is coming your way and it felles a lot that RNG hits hard. also there is no real option to opt out of loosing life, which contradicts the passive regeneration a bit. To give the game the benefit of the doubt it might get better and tactically depper later on i honestly did not come to that stage, but if the start is grindy, hard and mostly comprised of repetative boring runs, i doubt that this will chane later on. Maybe some updates in the future will deal with this issues but other than a great rework of the mechanics i do not see a recommendation here.

раз игра не в раннем доступе - хрень полнейшая, не стоит и 30 потраченных минут и денег, оставил бы если бы стоила 50р.