HEXCELLS REVIEW GAME INFORMER FULL

A damn masterpiece that doesn't receive enough love.īut if you are looking instead for a immersive and chilly JRPG packed with content, in which spend tens of hours absorbed by a lot of brilliant mechanics, and you prefer easy and accesible JRPGs. So if you are looking for a true 'Shiren the Wanderer' clone with a great balance, 100% loyal to the Japanese principles of the genre but also throwing a few fresh ideas to make the combat more compelling, ' Dragong Fang Z' is still the roguelike to go in Switch. In a sense of pressure which is close to the survival horror genre, and which is a defining aspect of the dungeon crawling genre. In knowing that a single mistake even in the first flor, will cause a death. I have read negative reviews in Steam, of people having being able to complete this in his first try, playing in hardcore difficulty, without dying a single time.įor me, part of the pleasure and joy of a roguelike consists in dying a lot. The game is intended to be enjoyed like a time consuming JPRG through tens of hours, packed with an insane amount of content. Indeed, the game is not intended to be played with the typical structure of a roguelike by dying a lot to learn things, and then use this knowledge to try to reach a lower floor in the dungeon. So ridiculous easy that it's almost impossible to die. But here comes the major problem of the game, specially for a game that is marketed as a roguelike. but played with the turn based control system of a roguelike, and with map layouts close to western roguelikes. Well, I can live if this game is more a western roguelike, instead of a Japanese one.īut maybe it's more accurate to say that this is a mixture of different JRPG systems, like a combat taking clues from ' Secret of Mana', a job class system taken from ' Final Fantasy V', monster breeding elements taken from ' Pokèmon', the town structure from ' Shiren the Wanderer', the items worlds from ' Disgaea'. Other element that empties the game of emotion or risk.

Once you have explored the map, all the enemies will appear located as red points. And in this game it's managed in a much more casual way, opening portals to temporary travel to the town. You can grind objects and upgrades through the town, but there is not a pot system, which was one the most satisfactory award-risk mechanics in 'Shiren the Wanderer'. The combat in 'Tangledeep' is set instead on a big open structure, being more close to something like ' Tales of Maj'Eyal'.

Other example is that the walls don't serve to block diagonal attacks, which is one the pillars of the combat strategy in Japanese roguelikes. In the sense that sometimes, the only way to survive is running from the monsters by studying the structure of hallways. Thanks to this structure, they have a survival horror approach. 'Shiren the Wanderer' and the tens of Japanese doujin games imitating its structure, normally rely in a map with a lot of small rooms interconnected by long corridors. There are so many elements tied to the spirit and balance of the Japanese roguelikes, that are ignored in this game. The only thing in which resembles 'Shiren the Wanderer' is in the structure of the town.Īnd it stops here. There is an important thing to note at this point: the game has zero of 'Shiren the Wanderer', or any Japanese roguelike using the layout of the Chunsoft games. Indeed, I don't know if his creator doesn't fully understand the genre, or more probably, he has intentionally made tons of concessions to make the game accessible for a casual public, normally not interested in roguelikes. Because it's a great JRPG, but not a very good roguelike. And I think that it plays a lot of right notes as to be enjoyed by a broad public, specially those nostalgic of the JRPGS in the SNES era.īut I also need to say that it has been a disappointing game for me.

HEXCELLS REVIEW GAME INFORMER FULL

It's incredibly ambitious for a game made by a single creator, full of charm and great ideas. It's a love letter to RPGs in general, taking elements from ' Final Fantasy V', ' Secret of Mana', the town management seen in 'Shiren the Wanderer', but also from western roguelikes and CRPGs. Well, I played a couple of levels of ' Tangledeep' last night, and started to scratch its surface.

Hexcells review game informer