Halls of Torment

For under $10 I have gotten hundreds of hours of entertainment, collected all 500 achievements, and keep coming back for more. Simple and fun gameplay loop with lots of items and unlocks to collect. 10/10 would buy again.

I know I am writing a negative review to the "Overwhelmingly Positive" game, and only weirdos do that, but I think I can add a perspective that may be valuable for those who have played a lot of character-builder games in the past and consider themselves somewhat seasoned. I doubt this review will get any traction, so this is mostly for my Steam friends. First, let me clearly say that it's not a bad game. This is like a 4 out of 5 Vampire Survivors. It will be extremely fun if you have never played VS. It will also scratch an itch for those who played VS inside and out and want just "some more of that". Now with this out of the way, let me show what my negative review is all about. In addition to Vampire Survivors, this game gets compared to Diablo quite a lot. Diablo this, Diablo that. Well, I have thousands of hours across all Diablo games across two decades, so let me share my perspective. This game has an art style somewhere between Diablo 1 and Diablo 2, but it doesn't REALLY grasp that Diablo vibe and feel. It's more like 50-70% there depending on how you look at it. 50-70% is not bad but it's useful to have your expectations set correctly. Vibes are of course always nice to discuss, however this is not the main issue. Where it starts falling apart is when you start comparing its [b]game systems[/b] to Diablo. [b]And here is why:[/b] After about 10 hours when you have unlocked all the characters and merchants, filled up all your gear slots with useful items, created all the potions, completed all the levels, and found several relics, you will be left with a single meaningful goal: getting all the achievements. The vehicle that is supposed to get you there is the fun you are supposed to have while trying to build various character builds. And holy moly this [b]core part of the entire game[/b] sucks аss. It basically comes down to these three problems: 1. There is a lot of added variety and complexity just for the sake of variety and complexity. It's not meaningful. For many skills it doesn't really matter which attribute you will be making stronger. +0.1 Base Multistrike, or +0.02/s Base Attack Speed, or +0.75m Base Range, or +0.1 Base Force for your Morning Star? Yeah yeah, all of them add something, but it doesn't mean much in terms of results. It doesn't MEAN anything, you know? Sure, there is sometimes good synergy between some skills and attributes, and synergy is the core element of "character build-centered" games. But here, your choices often feel meaningless, and they don't really affect the results most of the time. 2. The build you create doesn't impress you. Visually or aesthetically. You either get more of what you already have or you don't get any visual changes at all. Your abilities don't really transform that much, there are almost no interesting effect combinations, plus all the skills mostly feel separate from each other, everything is incoherent. You're aware that the "math" of your build is there, you crack that math, you see big damage numbers, you can eventually clear an entire screen of mobs with what you created, but it just doesn't feel impressive or cool or memorable. You feel... nothing really. 3. UI/UX is not built right for the goal that this game tries to achieve. It's extremely irritating and annoying. The amount of clicking and scrolling you have to do just to check and compare the stats to make a decision about where your build should go is obnoxious. And you have to make dozens of these decisions every run. I got the hang of it pretty fast, but it just always stayed inefficient and annoying. Man, just put everything that's important together and in one place, and everything secondary in another. Don't mix it up so much, don't hide the most critical information behind tooltips, and describe things better. It's just SO clunky. I guess the problem is that once you've extensively played some great character-builder games (like any Diablo game), you are cursed with your knowledge of "what can be", and you will just see right through this game and how shallow it is in comparison. All in all, this game tries to go a mile wide and an inch deep. You get a lot of things, but they fall apart once you engage with them on a deeper level. I really wanted to like Halls of Torment and was quite excited about it, but it turned out to be mostly a disappointing style-over-substance game. I suppose a proper "Vampire Survivors x Diablo" game is not impossible, but you have to make it with greater attention to detail, not fill it with pointless complexity just for the sake of it, and refrain from scattering your focus so much. Less content, but deeper and more thoughtful system design could've made this game iconic allowing it to overshadow even Vampire Survivors simply because it would establish a new full-fledged genre. Right now it falls short of the bar necessary for that achievement. Thank you for taking the time to read my long review. If you didn't relate to anything I said, this game will probably bring you quite a lot of fun, but if you did - just spend your time elsewhere and get a better quality experience. Or keep it below 10-ish hours - unlocking all the stuff in the beginning was fun.

only survivor slop game that should be allowed to be downloaded and played. everyone who play other games in the vampire survivor genre should be permanently imprisoned, flayed and boiled.

At first the game feels pretty bland and not much different to Vampire Survivors but once you have unlock various items after about the 7-10 hour mark, there's a lot more going on and the game does successfully innovate on the Vampire Survivors formula.

Survivor Type that looks like Diablo 1/2 Neat characters, a lot of items, quite a lot of ways to set up various builds. Huge meta-game progression: You have to do runs to retrieve equipment from the maps. Killing bosses gives you shards with which to further boost your characters. Torment mode also slowly unfolds by collecting Artifacts that modify and make the runs more difficult. If you want to see everything, you will grind *a lot*. But even if you don't care about grinding and just want to fire up a casual round the game holds up well. In my opinion, beats Vampire Survivors out of the park.

Excellent game. 9 out of 10 points. There is always room for improvement. After playing the demo for around 25 hours, I ended up purchasing the full game. Some people say that this is a Vampire Survivor's wannabe, but they are totally misunderstanding this game. It is [b]NOT[/b] a Vampire Survivor's clone. It is a [u]reverse bullet hell with Diablo 1 gameplay style[/u]. As such, the game offers a slower paced gameplay, like Diablo 1. The game offers limited skills, like Diablo 1. The game involves slow progress, exactly like Diablo 1. And the game is NOT skill oriented, but gear oriented. This means armour & weapons are the main way your character becomes stronger, and guess what? Yes, exactly like Diablo 1. Each run, you will find only two or three new items. It is not going to drop dozens of items for you. And yes, again like Diablo 1. If you don't like Diablo 1 (and I say Diablo 1, NOT Diablo 2), then chances are you won't like this game. Still, give a try to the demo before purchasing. But if you love Diablo 1 and played it extensively, then you will love Halls of Torment.

Pretty fun game and works great on Steam Deck.

fun for a few hours but the levels are very repetitive and so are the weapons / spells

After the 100% The torment is over! very good vampire survivors like but the progression wasn't as satisfying as it could be, and the inability to speed up runs except for a single modifier was a shame. Worth it for 20-30hrs but going for all the unlocks might do your head in.