Ziggurat

Идешь, побеждаешь всех направо и налево, проблем не знаешь. И вдруг игра решает: "а хватит тебе. Я же рогалик, куда ты несешься? Ты не должен пройти меня сразу, ты должен погибнуть и пробовать снова." Поэтому игра выбирает рандомного врага и делает его раз в пять сильнее и живучее. Вот так, просто. Уважение к скиллу игрока? Уважение его времени? Не, разрабы о таком не слышали.

A pretty by the books FPS Roguelite. Not great, not terrible it just is. Ziggurat is a FPS Roguelite developed by Milkstone Studios. It follows the story of conquering the wizard's greatest rite of passage, the ever changing and titular Ziggurat. This randomly generated mega dungeon includes combat trials, traps, treasures, and much more as you fight through 5 levels to complete a run. It's a pretty standard formula for a Roguelite and what is here is pretty solid, but nothing insanely mind-blowing in comparison to it's other FPS Roguelite peers. Gameplay wise as the brief synopsis suggests, has the player complete 5 floors of the Ziggurat, which typically consist of rooms stitched together that contain challenges and/or sometimes loot, ending with a boss fight before gaining access to the next floor. Combat rooms generally have enemies spawning in Serious Sam style or might have a mini challenge stacked on top of it. There are also rooms featuring items like weapons or oaths that can greatly modify your player's stats. This is all wrapped around the level up system, as you kill monsters and loot their exp crystals, you gain levels that all you to boost all aspects of your runs, from your mana pools for weapons, to character stats, to more unique standalone abilities. The weapons themselves are broken up into 3 main categories. You have a wand depending on your character that generally does weak damage but does regenerate mana, but the main stars of the show are the Spell, Staff, and Alchemy weapons. These require mana that'll drop from enemies or props in the environment and come plenty of varieties. With spells generally having more projectiles, Staffs more rapid fire attacks, and Alchemy being the oddball ones, however this isn't a static label for each category which is great when you're assembling your loadout during your run. Now as a roguelite I do think there's some areas the game falls flat in. I think it has to do with the character building, as very rarely do you get that feeling of sheer unpredictable power trip that you often can get when playing roguelikes and lites. Where you get that one insanely overpowered run that feels so gratifying after multiple struggled or failed runs. Another thing that feels kind off is the fact you can only unlock new items, weapons, characters, etc. only by either beating a run or dying, meaning you can't discovering new stuff while you're playing normally. The only technical exception is the Oaths which have their own problem. These fountains will provide the player with a powerful buff or a punishing debuff and that's exactly what the problem is. You'd want take these Oaths as the positive buffs are worth it but you practically no choice once you commit to it, unlike the level ups where you can decide and plan out if a powerful perk that will debuff you is worth it. These issues actually have been addressed in the sequel but that's another review. Stylewise is quite interesting as it seems to be a mix of cartoon-y and realism. As the texture work and designs seem to go into both of those directions. Which, considering the Ziggurat in-universe is supposed to be a giant holding cell where enemies get teleported to is somewhat fitting. It makes fighting evil carrots, while running away from weird flamingo like creatures make more sense. Other aspects like the lighting and the weapon models are pretty nice, especially for a indie game from 2014. It's nothing mind blowing, but it's unique enough to stand out, at least from other FPS games of the time. Overall, Nowadays you can still have fun with Ziggurat and for being a extremely early entry in the revival of Retro-styled FPS games it's quite solid. However, due to the nature of both FPS games in this style and Roguelike/lites evolving since 2014, it does feel somewhat bare bones compared to games that have come out since then. Even it's own sequel, has managed to really iron out the kinks and made the gameplay loop introduced here flow much better. As such I would advise nabbing the game on sale or discount if you really are curious about the mysterious Ziggurat