As someone that was burned out by the rogue-lite genre so much I couldn't even enjoy Hades, playing Cult of the lamb felt like a breath of fresh air. It barely feeling like a rogue-lite might've helped with that lol.
Cult of the lamb reminded me a lot of this game called Moonlighter, which also mixes the rogue-lite aspect with some management sim gameplay. This time you're managing, what else could it be, a cult. Growing your following and ensuring they have a place to sleep and enough food to keep them fed, performing sermons and all kinds of rituals to further develop their belief in you is something I really enjoyed and where the game really shined for me. It scratched the itch I've had for a Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing-type game.
While it is advertised as a rogue-lite, don't go into this game expecting some deep rogue-lite experience with synergies and all kinds of gameplay mechanics, because CotL doesn't offer this. Runs are short and not difficult at all and they're separated in those 4 biomes with their own enemies. What burned me out on the rl-genre is starting at the beginning when you die and having to do everything over again. I never felt that in this game and I had this constant feeling of making progress. Don't think this will stand among the greats of the genre but it did enough for me.
Sadly, it gets held back by a few things, performance being the biggest. I played the game on Switch and the game freezes a lot during specific moments (change from night-day for example), but also during moments where a lot of stuff is happening at the same time. I died a few times because of this during boss battles and it sucks.
The weapons and skills feel super unbalanced with some being so OP compared to others (heavy-slow-poison >>>> anything fast). Most of the bosses felt underwhelming and easy but especially the final one. Despite those few annoying things I still had a great time with this game. I can definitely see myself going back to it when they release some DLC.
TL:DR
Super fun rogue-lite mixed with some management sim that gets held back by poor performance and balancing.
I also going to need more games like this and Moonlighter, why isn't this a genre yet? (pls let me know if there are games that are similar to those two)
Cult of the lamb reminded me a lot of this game called Moonlighter, which also mixes the rogue-lite aspect with some management sim gameplay. This time you're managing, what else could it be, a cult. Growing your following and ensuring they have a place to sleep and enough food to keep them fed, performing sermons and all kinds of rituals to further develop their belief in you is something I really enjoyed and where the game really shined for me. It scratched the itch I've had for a Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing-type game.
While it is advertised as a rogue-lite, don't go into this game expecting some deep rogue-lite experience with synergies and all kinds of gameplay mechanics, because CotL doesn't offer this. Runs are short and not difficult at all and they're separated in those 4 biomes with their own enemies. What burned me out on the rl-genre is starting at the beginning when you die and having to do everything over again. I never felt that in this game and I had this constant feeling of making progress. Don't think this will stand among the greats of the genre but it did enough for me.
Sadly, it gets held back by a few things, performance being the biggest. I played the game on Switch and the game freezes a lot during specific moments (change from night-day for example), but also during moments where a lot of stuff is happening at the same time. I died a few times because of this during boss battles and it sucks.
The weapons and skills feel super unbalanced with some being so OP compared to others (heavy-slow-poison >>>> anything fast). Most of the bosses felt underwhelming and easy but especially the final one. Despite those few annoying things I still had a great time with this game. I can definitely see myself going back to it when they release some DLC.
TL:DR
Super fun rogue-lite mixed with some management sim that gets held back by poor performance and balancing.
I also going to need more games like this and Moonlighter, why isn't this a genre yet? (pls let me know if there are games that are similar to those two)