As the dungeons get longer, the luster chips away and reveal its inherent flaws in being predominantly RNG, yet still manages to keep things fresh until the end. Runs can end in the blink of an eye without food drops, and precariously placed enemies only harm you further by burning your hunger bar with necessary shield and cross slash usage, but smart item manipulation can save a savvy player.

I'll give a lot of praise to specific systems that kept me engaged until the end, like EXP high scores for individual dungeons mostly eliminating the need to grind, and the lottery orbs allowing a certain level of RNG mitigation. The bosses were cool in how phases could be completed in two ways; patiently dodging until a phase timer ends, or deftly attacking openings in their patterns.

My favorite system which I've never seen replicated in anything else is damage and healing only being determined at the end of a physical dice roll. Every action you take uses one or many dice that have predetermined outcomes queued in an invisible meter, which you can make visible through a specific item, letting you perform unique actions like burning a series of low dice rolls before using your healing potion for a much larger benefit. The game even rewards you for rushing rooms at low health, as when you take a hit, you still have time to advance to the next loading screen before the dice finish rolling, nullifying the damage entirely.

Regarding item manipulation, item spawns seem to relate to player states. Food either only drops from enemies when low on hunger or has a drastically reduced drop rate when full, meaning you can sequentially clear rooms on low hunger without eating to accumulate a large amount of food, allowing backtracking if you're in a pinch. The same seems to be true for health potions, benefiting riskier players.

It's fun and the dicing knight is really cute.

Reviewed on Dec 10, 2023


Comments