Has-Been Heroes

I liked this a lot.

Has-Been Heroes is probably one of the best and most underrated roguelikes that I know of. This game is great and you should try it out.
In Has-Been Heroes you play a team of legendary heroes who are however past their prime time and all they do nowadays are simple errands for the king. In this game their job is to bring the two princesses to their school. But at the same time an evil ghoul enslaves the souls of the dead to create an army of undead monsters that he unleashes on the world. Since the heroes cross paths with the ghouls army, they have no other choice to cut them down and defeat the ghoul. The story is pretty silly but the gameplay is top notch in return.

The game is divided into two sections, the map and the actual battles. When not in battle you go around the map, which is designed like a maze of multiple crossroads and nodes. Each node represents a point of interest and can be either a small one or a big one. Small nodes may contain battles while big nodes contain shops, chests, gamble mini games and shrines.
If you walk into a battle node that's where the main gameplay starts. Your three heroes each walk down a lane while enemies come in from the other side and run towards them. If an enemy reaches a hero he will attack him and the hero will push the enemy back at the end of the lane. You usually want to avoid this because your heroes cannot take much damage and heal very slowly and only during battles.
You can send each hero out to attack the front enemy in their lane and each hero has a number attacs depending of their class. The rogue class attacks three times, the mage class two times and the warrior class one time. You always have to take these three classes in your runs even if you switch out characters. The reason for this is because both enemies and player characters have something called Stamina. Stamina is a form of shield that protects against a single attack. As long as you have enough Stamina, you don't take damage but the same applies to enemies. Your goal is to deplete the enemy stamina before you can kill them. It is important that you hit the exact number of stamina points with your attacks because if you do, the enemy gets stunned and the next attack will send it back to the end of the lane and also permanently remove a single stamina point. That way you can whittle down at the enemy until he dies. Enemies with large Stamina points usually have less HP and vice versa. Additionally you also have a small chance to crit an enemy and crit attacks will pierce stamina. Heroes that have been send out can also be swapped into other lanes (and only then), which is important to get the right attack numbers.
Playing around the stamina system is the most important aspect of the game and gives Has-Been Heroes a puzzle-like nature which makes the game so much fun.
However, heroes have an attack cooldown and you will eventually notice that attacks are not enough anymore to keep the sheer number of enemies away from your team. This is where spells come in. Each hero starts with a spell and has a limited amount of slots for more spells that you can purchase during your run. Spells are divided into different magic elements or may have no element at all but the ones with elements are more interesting. Spells can do various things, buff your heroes, deal damage to single or multiple enemies but depending on the lement they all may have special effects. Fire and toxic deal damage over time effects which spread on contact, water soaks enemies and removes fire and poison, ice freezes enemies solid which allows for direct damage to the HP, lightning chains to nearby enemies and wind knocks enemies back. There is also darkness which is a variation of normal spells and changed the usual sppell cooldown to HP costs which makes those spells spamable for a price.
What makes the spell system so damn interesting is that each element interacts with another. This needs a bit of experimentation first because the game does not explain this to you but once you figured this out or consulted a guide you can create absurd combinations. Here are some examples: Fire and water creates steam which does remove the DoT effect but slows down enemies in the steam cloud massively. Soaked enemies also take extra lightning damage and increases the chain length. Wind spreads fire and poison to nemies behind them, even in other lanes or you can slide a frozen enemy backwards until he hits another, dealing massive damage to both.
There are even more combinations and it is fun to play around them. It is clear the developers put a lot of effort into this system to give players many different ways how to approach fights so no matter what type of spells you get, you always will have some synergies.
The spell system gets even better if you make good use of the characters spell slots. Each character has some spell slots that buff spells that you put into them. These usually ract to specific spell types, so they are not as flexible as the rest of the game but can make a big difference if used right. The slots can apply buffs to the entire team, hit enemies multiple times with the same spell, icnrease the AoE effect or even buff the effects of the spell elements.

But this isn't the end of things the game offers. Your characters can get passive items during the run, each passive item will increase ther max HP of that character but also have an effect. Effects can be anything and going over all of them would take too much time. Some typical effects are more spell damage, faster cooldowns or adding elemental effects to normal attacks.
And of course there are new unlocks to discover and there are a lot of them. You unlock new stuff in two ways, by killing enemies and by winning runs. Enemies killed release souls that your characters collect. At the end of your run these souls will add up until they unlock a chest with new items, spells and other stuff. Souls can also be used during your run to instantly cast a spell, even if it is still on cooldown. Those souls used are not removed from your meta count, they are just another gameplay mechanic.
By winning runs you unlock new zones (the game gets overall longer) and a new magic element. Once you have unlocked all elements and the game has reached its final size (8 zones in total) you start unlocking new characters. These characters start with their own passive abilites and a different spell and will replace one of your other characters during your run.
But the content does not stop here. You can also play special challnges which are brutaly hard and have special rules but if you beat them you unlock the young version of a specific hero. These are from the time when the heroes were in their best shape and this reflects in their powers and spells. You might have wondered for example why the mage character, who deals more spell damage, starts with a spell that does no damage. Well, it's because he is old and has lost much of his former glory but his younger version comes with a super powerful spell that deals a lot of damage.
And once you start using younger heroes, you can unlock ALTERNATE heroes. Those are heroes from other timelines which are also completely different.

It is sheer mindblowing how much stuff you can unlock in this game and how much time you will spend with it. Truly a masterpiece in my book.
I had a lot of fun with this game and every now and then I pick it up again because it is so much fun to play.

See...I am not sure what to make of this...I was excited for this, and I figured it would be rouge like but it also felt like there would be more of a story and more character. It says I played for 2 hours but it felt like 6 hours. You die a lot, and got to restart you got three characters but if 1 dies YOU LOSE. That really bothers me given that the concept was to protect the princesses...which honestly...are useless...they hold these orbs to gather the enemy souls and if you get 20 in one orb you get a free spell...which almost NEVER happens...even during boss fights despite my best efforts I never seemed to get enough kills in that one battle.
The game relies a LOT on RNG...and not in a good way I never feel like I am getting stronger, and when you beat the big boss, your only thing is YAY YOU UNLOCKED A NEW CHARACTER! and no contuniation of the original story, now it could be I got to unlock...what all 80 heroes to see that? but it took 2 hours to unlock 1 guy, and after I got him the game got HARDER I felt like I was being punished for winning, it wasn't a "oh now to the next level" no it was a reset the campaign and start a new game where you MAY use the new guy, hell idk if its random but my new guy wasn't even that helpful and the fact that all my abilities that were VERY useful before were all gone just disapointed me.
I REALLY want to like this game, but it just feels wrong...too much RNG, each session feels too long for a rogue like, it feels really slow when progressing in campaign and the battles can be a bit overwhelming quickly...It just hard to feel like you are winning or progressing with this game, and other rouge-like games i've played do.
This game was really disapointing and I am glad i got it on sale, it feels way too unfair for a twenty dollar game

This a duo review of sorts as when I originally bought this game on release I ended up refunding it, I just couldn't get into it. The games tutorial is pretty much non existent, lots of things are unexplained and many useful mechanics that can be used to make fights easier are not unlocked yet. It was very frustrating, I saw the potential which is why I bought it in the first place but at the same time it felt like a cobelled mess where I was at the mercy of the RNG spawns as to how much progress I made.

Fast forward to the first sale this game in back in june, I decided to pick it up again, give it a second shot after finding some footage explaining the mechanics, how certain synergies work but more importantly, I experienced the tutorial this game lacks and unfortunately still lacks. After finally understanding the main mechnics and how fights work, everything suddenly clicked. I have since completed the game and are on the endgame grind to unlock all the alternate characters and rest of the games items/spells of which there are loads. This game surpasses Binding of Isaac in terms of loot that can and will be acquired.

This game is a mix of many ideas and mechanics and combines elements from many genres old and new and the result is very overwhelming.... and then you unlock the rest of it. Similar to binding of issac you beat a level and then you go onto the next one from a choice of two and once you beat the final area, your next run is now one area longer, unlocks another new school of magic and new room types that can spawn in each area. Every time you kill enemies in a run you get souls and souls will unlock new items at the end of your run for the next run regardless of win/loss.

How you progress through each area is similar to Darkest Dungeon. The map of the area is randomly generated and the objective is to get from the left to the right to the boss room onto the next area without going back the way you came, similar to the classic game Snake. Every time you go back down a path you went, you need a candle, go back without a candle is instant death so you need to plan your route to maximise hitting as many rooms as possible with as little backtracking as possible, in order to win fights for gold, buy items/magics at shops, etc. If you try and make a mad dash for the boss you will likely hit a wall either then or later due to being underpowered, the mistake I made when I originally bought this game.

The meat of the game outside of that is the combat which is a mix of early era Final Fantasy such as Final Fantasy VI, The old 80's arcade beer sliding game Tapper, the Roguelite crazyness of something like Binding of Isaac and magic combos like in Divinity Original Sin.

It is as overwhelming as it sounds but put simply - You have a party of 3 heroes - The Rogue who hits 3 times with medium attacks, the support who hits twice with weak attacks and a heavy hitter who hits once strongly. Enemies will slowly walk towards you down each lane, similar to Tapper each with a Stamina bar corrosponding to the number of hits they will block before their HP bar can be lowered. The idea of the combat is to hit them equal to their total stamina to stun them, then beat the crap out of them to either kill them or knock them back down the lane. You can pause/speed up the combat at will and Combat is like a puzzle where you need to work out what enemies need to be prioritised first in order for them not to get hit.

After you attack a lane you can swap lanes with another hero (what the game calls the 1 in 1 out system) in order to achieve the above and you'll need to manage your attack cooldowns and positions of your heroes to chain stamina breaks to kill enemies and stay alive. Sometimes your hero is in the wrong lane and you'll be forced to make a bad attack to switch or tank a hit but that's part of what makes the combat so engaging. In addition to this elemental damage bypasses stamina and allows you to take out enemies directly which can come from item effects or from one of the many spells you can find in the game.

Each of your heroes starts with a spell and has 4 addiotional spell slots which you can use in combat to turn the tide of battle and you can combine their effects for devistating results, it is almost identical to Divinity original sin in that regard. Fire + water makes steam puddles to greatly slow anything in it which can greatly delay a lane, wind spells knock enimes back down the lane, Ice freezes enemies stopping them in their tracks and letting you attack their health directly. Wind on a frozen enemy slides then into the next enemy in the lane, stunning both on impact. You won't start with all the elements unlocked but you'll unlock one each time you beat the game. In that regard the game has an excellent learning curve as each run introduces new rooms, enemies and an element until you have the complete set.

I could go on but there is a ton of depth to this game, too much. If you are into your Roguelites, want a challenge and like turn based strategy RPGs of old this game is for you. If you like Roguelites in general and are a completionist sort this game is also for you. This is one of the most interesting games and innovative games I have played in a long time.

The game is enjoyable when RNG doesn't interfere. Unfortunately, RNG interferes too often. The negative things that occur because the maps and encounters are random:
- Not enough enemy battles to actually earn money to buy upgrades.
- Not gaining candles at all so you can't go backwards on the map, ever.
- Never getting a key for locked chests.
- Battles where there are very few enemies and then battles where you get absolutely overrun.
- On a difficult battle your heroes lose stamina only to never encounter a stamina camp to recover it again.

It isn't that the game is too hard. It can be difficult at times but when RNG interferes it isn't hard, it is impossible, and that takes the fun out it when no matter what you do there is no way to win the battle.

Has-Been Heroes is a roguelike game with strategy elements.
Its story is barebones but that doesn't matter as its main selling point is its gameplay. You control 3 Heroes with different characteristics and you kill enemies that come in 3 lanes with attacks and spells, as seen on the screenshots in the store page. This may seem simplistic but it isn't. On the way to the final boss you navigate the map where you can go to several locations and meet various merchants (Spell and Items and buy what they sell), Treasure Chests, Altars etc, strengthening your Heroes.

As far as difficulty is concerned, other reviews vastly overstate the effects that RNG plays. Roguelikes need to balance RNG with deterministic outcomes and this game does it sufficiently well. While at first i thought the game was poorly designed after understanding the game mechanics i realised that it is actually very well designed. RNG dictates which items and spells will be sold to you, what kind of enemies will appear in combat stages and to a constrained degree the amount of damage your Heroes deal. This manages to keep the game fresh as each playthrough feels different from the last. I played about 50 hours before i felt saturation. That is more than AAA games manage to achieve.

Progression wise, when a game is over, either Victory or Defeat, new items and spells are unlocked. At Victory a new Hero is unlocked and after you unlock all the basic Heroes you can try to unlock their other skins by beating the game and opening the final chest with that Hero. The new Hero skins usually have more powerfull stats than the previous ones and a different starting spell. That gives each subsequent playthrough greater variety.

The strategic element appears in the positioning of you Heroes (you can switch them around every time one finishes a melee combo), the timing of your spell usage, which Hero picks which item, which Hero attacks which enemy and so on.

For achievement Hunters: This game will take about 100+ hours for 100% completion.

Some hints for the game:
Give the +% increased critical hit chance items to the Rogue, the +% increased melee damage to the Warrior and the +% decreased spell cooldown items to the Mage. The +10 melee damage items go for a case by case choice.
Try to at least get Fire Immunity to all 3 of your Heroes (the Pill items do that, like Red Pill and Blue Pill). If you can get Fire and Poison Immunity you will usually be set to win.
Don't swap the Heroes with drag and drop like the tutorial suggests. Instead use the mouse wheel. Trust me it is far far better that way and less strenuous for the fingers.
When 1 of the Orbs fills with souls of defeated enemies, use it immediately so the Orb empties and new souls can refill it (I mean immediately, like pause with right click and cast a spell even while souls are flying towards the Orb. If the Orb is full the souls trying to enter it will go to waste. DON'T let that happen)

I fully recommend this game but advise you to check the guide section to see some mechanics because the tutorial is a little thin on info.

I was nervous to buy this game because the reviews were good, not great. It seemed like people thought it was unfairly hard. It's become one of my favorite all-time PC games.

If you like and are decent at turn-based/pause-time strategy games, like I do, this is a game for you.

The game is not unfair, at least 40-50 hours in. It's challenging, but is easier and more fair than, say, Xcom or Darkest Dungeon.

Pros: Dozens of powerful amd enjoyable spells and items. Unique characters. Fair combat that packs a punch (think Darkest Dungeon). Good, persistent rogue-lite elements that reward you through character unlocks and spell/item discoveries.

Cons: Don't play for the story. The desert map music is terrible, but overall the music is decent.

Takes notes from games like Darkest Dungeon in terms of combat, Binding of Isaac in terms of sheer number of items/spells, and FTL in terms of map traversal. The unique element is the lane swapping, which is fair and cool once you get the hang of it. (After every attack you can move every character into whichever lane you choose.)

9/10

Like every game, this game has some good and some bad points.

Let's start with the things, it does right:
#1 combat system: So much fun. It feels fresh to beat down the enemies' stamina.
#2 characters: A lot of different characters. Right now I have unlocked 11 different characters and they really feel different. There are 3 classes: rogue, mage and tank. You have to choose one of every class. With every sucessful run you unlock a new character. Although it is sort of stupid that you only unlock new rogues after the 7th successful round.
#3 graphics: I like the comic style.

Flaws:
#1 randomness: As it is a rogue-like game every walkthrough is sort of randomly generated. The maps are always a bit different. There a different spells, different way points and different enemies. (edit) Which is not a bad thing. But buying spells is something I really hate. You can not really choose the spell you get. You pay and then you get any spell whether it really helps you or not. You only know the element of the spell before buying. (edit end)
#2 repetition: Although it is rogue-like the enemies stay more or less the same and certain areas have certain bosses. The enemies are mostly skeletons mixed with a few ghosts and zombies (and others).
#3 difficulty: In some runs you really have bad luck, with spell vendors, spell gamblers and enemies which freeze you an entire battle. You can be really skillful and still die because of a bad luck streak. You will repeatedly see the game over screen. I won 7 games and lost 39 games. And a game can last up to 3.5h. Extremely frustrating, when you loose at the very last boss , which btw summons other bosses.
At the beginning you will have troubles with the combat systems as it is sort of new. When you know how to fight this game will get a bit easier, just to become harder and harder after every successful run (more enemies, more areas).


Although it has its flaws, I really like this game. The difficulty is ok for me, but it might be too hard for the non-hard core gamers. Even dying after a few hours did not stop me from coming back again and again.

Buy it, if you like hard games.

What a frustratingly fantastic game.

So, you control a party consisting of three classic heroic archetypes: a rogue, a wizard, and a warrior. Of course, as usual, they have a quest to complete, but the game's token story is of little interest.

The core of the game and its main strength is a very robust combat system. The battlefield is divided into three horizontal lanes, which can only be occupied by one hero at a time. One hero and however many opponents are there, that is. Your heroes aren't chained to these lanes, though, and after one of the them finishes attacking, you'll be given a chance to rearrange the formation as you see fit.

Here's the catch: before you can damage the majority of your opponents with physical attacks, you'll have to break through their defenses which are represented by a number of "stamina blocks", which, from what I've seen so far, can vary from 0 to 50. Rogue is able to strike three times per attack, wizards strikes twice, and warriors are only capable of delivering one strike. Note that "overkills" (such as striking three times when your opponent only has two points of defenses left) create very underwhelming outcomes. Now have fun juggling your heroes. No, seriously; it's surprisingly fun.

Then you have a bunch of other factors to consider. Each hero comes with their HP and damage stats (for instance, wizards tend to inflict varying, but always pitiful amounts of damage in melee, although there is one notable exception), certain traits (faster spell recharge, lowered melee cooldown...), and a predetermined spell, which is an ability you can activate whenever you need it, assuming it's not cooling down. And between battles, as you explore each level, your heroes will be gaining items that provide passive effects, as well as new spells, which at the very least provide some additional firepower and/or utility and at most drastically change the way you play.

So, as I've said: a very robust combat system. For me it's an undeniable strength of the game, its core component that makes the whole thing enjoyable. Sadly, it comes bundled with a pretty frustrating drawback: when you start playing the game, you have absolutely no idea at all what the RNG is going to throw your away.

Maybe you'll be able to get a powerful spell without having to fight a single battle beforehand, which will make the first level a breeze and turn the first boss into a pushover, paving the way for a prosperous playthrough. Maybe you'll find a trio of unlocked chests, which will provide a fair gold boost, some candles (a resource you have to spend if you wish to backtrack while traversing the map, which may sometimes be a very desirable move), keys (another resource; you use them to unlock chests, although not all of them require unlocking), and maybe even an item or two if you're particularly fortunate. Or maybe nothing of the sort is going to happen. Maybe there are locked chests all around without any keys in sight. Maybe you got a level that is very tough to traverse without missing a number of points of interest which may easily be vital, and the list of possible misfortunes goes on and on.

Maybe it's going to be smooth sailing for quite a while. Or maybe everything is terrible, and the game just got harder for no good reason.

I suppose it helps that whether you win or lose you make some progress: you get new spells and items for next playthroughs. Sounds nice, but there's a problem here: all items and spells that you haven't seen so far start out unidentified. Yes, it's possible to predict their purpose by looking at them. Sometimes. It's sensible to assume that a wizard probably isn't going to benefit from getting what seems to be a warrior's helmet, and the same can be said about that hefty hammer. Chances are that an executioner's mask is going to be most efficient if given to the rogue. But what, pray tell, am I supposed to think if the item in question is a frozen piece of toast or what seems to be a leech made of wood? And how is that spell different from the other spell? How was I supposed to get that a spell which grants a complete immunity to damage for a bit of time is represented with a fist icon? In the end what we have is a dubious mechanism that creates a needless complication, one that only goes away after you bump into it.

So far I've played Has-Been Heroes for 30 hours. During the first 3-4 hours I've rapidly descended from being impressed by the game's design to being incredibly frustrated with it. That was partially my fault, I suppose: should've taken a break and returned later instead of getting more and more tilted with every unsuccessful attempt, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that. After I finally managed to pass this hurdle, the game became way more enjoyable: I became better at it, a bunch of additional and helpful content was thrown my way, I got a new hero to play with, and so on. There's still at least one milestone I haven't reached, so I'm pretty sure I'll be continuing playing the game. Even if the process is not unlike hugging a cactus. One that you really, really love or at least want to love, even despite the fact that no amount of affection can dispel its pointy spikes.

I strongly suspect that if there were numerous levels of difficulty offered within the game (the current one not being the easiest one, mind you), Has-Been Heroes would become considerably more accessible and less frustrating. Sadly, no dice. At least not yet.

If you're ready to fight an uphill battle, then I think Has-Been Heroes has all the chances to deliver and end up providing a truly enjoyable experience. Otherwise I don't really know what to say, because while I do believe that the game deserves attention, it may rather easily turn out to be more torturous than it ideally should've been. Tough call.

A nice tactical game. The game shines when you get passed the learning curve at the beginning and begin squeezing the most out of your team of heroes. Other reviews already mention everything else so I'll just contribute a thumbs up!

If you are fan of rogue-likes and/or surprisingly deep tactical combat, you owe it to yourself to get this, BUT you do need some patience, as it will take some time to learn how things work and just how deep the battle system goes and the game is absolutely brutal as far as tolerating mistakes goes. Think you can just take on that random trash mob without paying attention? Well. It was nice knowing you!

Reminescent of Darkest Dungeon (and I mean that in the best of way, why I love DD), altho replace horror with comedy, dark animation style with Frozenbyte's characteristic charming animation and the DD combat system with pretty unique and new 3 lanes based real time battle (but with frequently used pause button) based on characters with very different abilities swiching lanes rapidly and very frequently to dispatch various types of enemies with the strengths unique to them.

Frankly, this game may seem simple and unfairly hard at first, but the tactical side of the game goes way, way deeper than it may seem at first and eventually, when you learn the ropes, it will become more akin to playing a chess game, as it's mostly about planning ahead and positioning than anything else. I do apperciate that.

On the rogue-like aspect, I think this one is done right, as you always open up new things, even when you get murdered horribly, but especially when you "complete" the run you start, the game opens up more and more. On that note, the difficulty of this one is really brutal, so do not even try unless you are okay with something like 10+/1 W/L scenario (and yes, you get new toys even after you lose).

Sidenote: Very intuitive, easy and comfortable to play with M+KB and controller alike. I feel like I should say this after some experiences recetly.

I cannot recommend this game to others. Pick it up on a sale later if you are interested.

I don't think the game is as hard as others are saying. I have beaten it twice without dying. If you get how the game works it's challenging but not hard. The game is extremely repetitive and lacks polish in many areas. The biggest problem as many point out is that you can't switch lanes at will, even when charaters are ready. And the controls for switching lanes are also annoying. There are many other issues like noticeable low resolution artwork in some areas, an at times overly clutered UI etc.

While I find the game enjoying in short bursts, I get bored after an area or two. The game is pretty much only made out of a series of repetitive battles. There isn't enough in the game to justify the price in my opinion. And I think the battle and leveling systems are not going to appeal to most RPG players.

Has-Been Heroes is a challenging, rouge-lite, strategy game where you control 3 heroes with the mission to get the king's daughters to school. Each time you start a new game you will encounter different enemies, items, and spells similar to other rouge-lites like issac or enter the gungeon, and just like in those games, every time you beat the game, follwing runs get longer until it reaches the true ending. Because of the rouge-lite nature of this game, what items/spells you find and what enemies you have to fight on a particular run directly influence diffculty, which can range from brutally difficult to moderatley challenging. After multiple successful runs, this game gets harder the more times you beat it, just like isaac. I feel that as a whole, this game is as fair as a rouge-lite can be, without compromising being a rouge-lite and giving a good degree of variance on each run. I have not reached the longest possible run yet, but so far I have really enjoyed playing this game and haven't felt cheated or that the game had given me no possible way to win. All in all I would reccomend this game if you really like rouge-lites and the lane based combat.

I don't review often but figured I'd do my part and try to raise the review score on this gem because I think it deserves it. This is one of those games that somewhat defies classification as the core game play is quite unlike anything I've played before. If I had to try, I'd say it's a cross between Darkest Dungeon, Plants vs Zombies, and Tetris - go ahead and scratch your noggin on that one for awhile :D

I think people that have put any time in the game would get what I'm saying though - at certain points as I am watching lanes approach and am doing math on stamina to figure out where my 1, 2, and 3 attacks fit, it just brings me back to my days as a kid playing Tetris and manically trying to figure where I was going to put the blocks as they dropped . . . and kind of like Tetris, my failures feed me to get better and better and . . .

I will say there is no hand-holding here and the initial learning curve is a bit steep - but once you get some unlocks going, the game really opens up and there are all kinds of interesting interactions and strategies that develop. There is also definitely a bit of RNG on how well each run will treat you in terms of items and spells - but making a "bad hand" work is part of the challenge and joy.

I'm 20ish hours in and I've unlocked 4 of the additional variant heroes. I *thought* I had unlocked a good number of spells but then I looked at the Unlock section of the game and realized I haven't even scratched the surface. The game is not perfect and could use some polishing and perhaps the devs will do that. But, all in all, the core gameplay is so engaging that I can overlook the other things. I will say, even on PC, it feels better with a controller so take note of that.

At any rate, I'm guessing I'll easily cross 100 hours before I'm done with this - for $20, that's a far better value than the quarter arcade as a kid. The game is not for everyone and will probably frustrate some . . . but if you enjoy games that challenge your creativity and perserverance simultaneously, this one might just scratch the itch for awhile.

This game is an incredible amount of fun!
It's kind of a mix of a final fantasy-esque but with a bit of PvZ gameplay.

Enemies come from the right and head towards your heroes, your heroes have a set of attacks and spells that they can use to kill the enemies before they reach your heroes. Sometimes you have to use a combination of attacks from different heroes to stun enemies and do "full" damage to them. There's a lot of lee-way as to how you can do this, some spells let you stun enemies out right, while others help you by buffing your heroes to hit multiple times. The game flows really nicely once you get the hang of it, to the point where you feel like you're seamlessly kicking undead ass and don't want to stop.

Pros:
Lots of unlockables, like a fucking shitload.
Fun, strategic gameplay, that flows really nicely.
A lot of fun to try different hero comps that synergize together.
Variations in enemies that make you change up your approach.
Cool bosses.
Dope art style, and animations.

Cons:
Sometimes the game can fuck you with RNG, making you have to start a run over.
The game can be ludicrously difficult and punishing at times ( if any of your party members die, it's game over).
Some enemies and bosses feel annoying to fight against.
Game doesn't explain many things outright and you have to find things out by trial and error.
Story is lackluster.

I would recommend you watch gameplay of battles in the game, because if you don't like the fights, you WILL NOT like this game at all, i want to say that 90% of the game is battles while the other 10% falls down to running around the map looking for upgrades or heals.

This is a very hard game at first, but once you understand the different ways in which you can swap your characters between lanes and combo off of attacks it becomes very doable and satisfying.

There is some luck involved as you would expect when it comes to finding items and spells but, despite what some claim, the same is not true for the other parts of the game. As far as the gameplay goes, your success is far more reliant on skill and planning than on luck. Once I really figured out what I was doing, and after quite a few failures, I completed my first three successful runs in a row and I'm looking forward to going for my fourth. As long as you think of it as a puzzle game rather than an action game and find the patience to learn the most effective strategies, you should have a good time.

Edit: I just attempted to beat the fire boss a second time without a certain spell that I had the first time, and I'm pretty sure it just wasn't possible. So there is most certainly some bullshit in this game, but that's what you sign up for with roguelikes. It's still less RNG based than something like Darkest Dungeon.

I really died often in that game and everytime I say to myself "Come On, next time you can do it!"
The try after I didn't come to the third boss (I am at 6 bosses right now). normal enemies finished me off. Well i had so much spells. Why i didn't finished it?
The try after that try i don't have much spells and not much items but i finished the game....Wow, i am happy and won with crappier equipment than before.

It is not random luck. You need to figure out which enemies have high priority to kill and sometimes you have luck with your items. I really love the game

This game is fun but not perfect. The game has 2 major flaws. First, the lack of infomration in the game. I'm sure someone will write a good faq soon that will cover the pages of missing information that should be in the game I'm not talking about damage formulas and such but basic mechnics like Candles. (I saw one reviewer say darkness was random it's actually 100% non random and a good game mechanic that's not explained at all). Also the discoverable section that shows what you the items and monsters you have seen is not too bad until you get to the monster section where no special unique abilities of the monsters are listed. Just basic stats. I feel like this was a major fail.
The other issue is the lack of control customization. The Controler setup is good but you will be about half blind not being able to mouse over equipment and such, I find activating spells to be a bit clunky too. However it's that or full mouse control which is excessive. I'd love to have some keys bound to the controler actions to give the best of both worlds.

Lucky for the game that the information problem will be fixed by the community if enough people like the game well enough to play it more than a few hours. If the game was any less fun that problem would have had be asking for a refund. However now that I know more the game is growing on me and I do recomend it. I'll even add a few pointers at the end for those who may want to try it out. The control issue is also anoying but I'm getting by.

You need to know that despite the silly name and backstory this game is not light. This is a moderate to hard random death machine. You can win in the first few playthroughts then the game gets harder and goes from 2 maps to 3 maps. I don't see any way to go back to 2 maps. I have got to the 3rd map and then next game died in the first fight. If you don't like games that thrown unfair combos at you and even when playing flawless you fail then this is not the game for you. So far I feel that the unfair poor RNG is not so bad ruin my day. As I have learned more (things the company should have told us) I find the game resonable more often than I originally thought. However it's still hard.

A few things to help you play the game if you go that way.

1. Plan a path that covers the most nodes without walking over the same road twice (you can cross the same node as long as you use a differant road) backtracking along a road costs a candle and you will lose if you run out.

2. Hover over your equipment (especaily the starting stuff) the information there is very useful

3. Spells have a cool down but no mana/stamina cost so use them as much as you can (timing is important but use them every fight as they come back each fight)

4. Stamina for your characters works just like the monsters. You kick any that bump you back to the end of the line

5. If you attack someone and swap so that the attacking person is now in a row behind enemies you will damage all the enemied you hit on the way back (seems to be a low percentage but not sure)

6. More monters and maps show up after you kill the final boss the first time.

"One more run and then I'm done for the night"

and then i did 10 more runs......

if you were going to get this, but are on the fence because of some reviews you read,
please try it for yourself, this game is super fun and incredibly deep.

I have to say this is a pretty good game, don't let the reviews from major sites discourage you.
If you like roguelike games, you will like this one.

Micro managing your party and min/maxing items and spells that you find/buy through out the game is key to defeat the challenging mobs & bosses.

Good progression mechanic, if you happen to get a bad seed, making any progress will count towards item/spell unlocks.
Unlocking additionally heroes (there is more than 3 shown) requires a complete run, which can take about an hour.

There is plenty of meat to this game, and for the price I feel like it's worth it.

This game is a fun, DIFFICULT, roguelike.

It has an interesting gamestyle thats a little difficult to udnerstand at first.

You have to think before you attack and move your hero carefully so you are set up to attack correctly when your attacks refresh.

The only other review I see is complaining about candles. You can only go back a path if you have a candle, (making it so you chose between a shop or a gamble room, ect) You shouldn't ever really need to go back but if you run into that issue more than once you're not thinking at all when you chose your next room. (BTW you get candles by killing bosses)

The game is fun. I think its worth the 20 bucks if you like roguelikes and you like challenging gameplay.

EDIT: After 10 Games I finally beat a playthrough and unlocked a character. My new thoughts on the game is its like chess and a rouguelike...dont move time until you've thought at least two moves ahead.