NECROPOLIS: BRUTAL EDITION

Such a shame it died.

Great concept left to rot. Story: Necropolis throws you into an underground maze called Necropolis which is controlled by a mage to practice magic away from civilization. Your main goal is to travel deep enough so you can escape from this otherworldly place. Necropolis has a very cool story set up and there's some interesting lore for sure, but I feel like there's not much of it there. It's rather disappointing cause I wish more could have been done with the story for the game. Graphics: This is one thing that Necropolis does incredibly well. I really enjoyed the visual aesthetic it was going for, each floor you descended down had it's own cool and unique visual flair and it was very pleasing to look at. That's also not to mention the design of both the enemies and the adventurers you can pick, there's plenty of really cool designs and honestly it just oozes great atmosphere. Audio: The audio design is also incredibly strong. There's plenty of great ambient tracks when you're exploring the maze and just hearing enemies around corners like skeletons making sort of like cracking noises is very cool. Also other SFX like enemies dying and your sword clashing with them just sounds incredibly satisfying. Gameplay: This is where Necropolis completely faulters as a game. At heart the game is a roguelike and a sort of semi soulslike journey. You pick an adventurer class which have sort of different stats like faster running and or more damage done when you attack and then you have to find your way out of Necropolis. Each floor of the Necropolis acts like a maze and your goal is to find an elevator that will take you deeper into the Necropolis. At first the game is really fun and I enjoyed the difficulty enough, but quickly the issues start to rear their ugly head. First of all like most roguelikes, the floors are randomized each time you restart and that's fine, however a lot of the times the elevator would either be in the first door opened or be hidden so far away that getting to it is guaranteed to kill you. Also the first half of the maze is pretty damn challenging, it will definitely put your gaming skills to the test and will require you to either get incredibly lucky or farm out for some scrolls that will improve your stats. Every so often you reach a safe area where you can stock up on items and buy scrolls these give you better stats like faster stamina regen. However one of the best ones gives you some health back upon a successful attack and that one is the only one you actually need and it makes the game a lot easier. Going back to the difficulty, I found the majority of the game pretty hard, but due to the balancing the final few floors are incredibly easy which leads to an incredibly laughable final boss. In the earlier floors I was dreading facing off against the final boss, but then I reached him and saw that he moves slow like a snail, has a long wind up attack that you can easily avoid and he sometimes gets stuck in the environments. Also a lot of the enemy types are so slow that you can avoid fighting them and just run off. Also there's co-op which is how I played it and from what I can tell the game does not scale if you're playing with friends or not and if you do intend to play this, then definitely bring a friend along. Verdict: Necropolis is a great concept, but a very flawed execution. The game was very quickly abandoned after launch and that's quite sad, cause the devs could have definitely polished this game into a gem, however they left it half finished. On sale the game is pretty cheap and it could provide a fine 6 hours of content for you and a friend, but for a solo run I wouldn't really recommend it. Final Rating: 5/10 Pros: + Great art style + Some cool lore + Great audio design Cons: - Poorly balanced levels - Final boss is insanely easy - Level design can really mess up a run - A few of the items can break the game If you liked this review please consider joining https://steamcommunity.com/groups/completingthebacklog and https://steamcommunity.com/groups/ImperialReviews