Rogue Lords

Game atmosphere, animations, voice acting and music are top for a horror game. BUT.... it's way too challenging to be enjoyable. -You don't feel more powerful when starting a new run, - enemies have at least double health and deal at least double damage with negative statuses than your disciples do -this happens even in the first mission after the tutorial, even in the easier difficulty -because of too much randomness, you can't make any strategies or builds

Excellent. This is a very different flavor of roguelike, and it does all the elements superbly. Negative reviews kept me from buying this for years, and now that I got it on sale (at 3$), I can see how they are wrong (or devs fixed the issues from 2021 in 2026). This game is not Slay the Spire, where you have to avoid damage, here you can take a hit for 100 hp on a minion with 20 hp, which brings the minion into the "vulnerable" state. The minion can still fight, but can not take more damage - it will be dealt to your main HP/Mana pool (that red orb in top left). You got 3 minions, thus 6 hp pools, and the game is 95% deterministic - you know that enemies will not hit your vulnerable minions if they don't have an attack intention. Once you grasp this, the game is well balanced with the exception of 2 specific elite fights, which are annoying the first time you see them, but are manageable after that. Bringing up a team of 3 wimps to godlike status over 7 chapters feels satisfying. Some combinations are very weak early on and depend heavily on getting the correct relics. The starting Trio ( Dracula + Headless Horseman + Bloody Mary) specced in hp damage is a bit weak, spirit damage is more versatile. The main hp pool can be spent to alter many aspects of the game. For example, if a fight is too difficult and you will lose, just pay to drop the enemy HP to 0, then one shot them. It may cost 20 main hp, but dragging that fight on would lose you the run. Some combinations of node modifiers allow you to munchkin your way to success, for example - one free use of energy on an elite fight means you can drop an 800 hp mob to zero on round one and kill it right away to get a free relic. What this game does right: Multiple ways to build up a deck of up to 7 skills per minion - 21 skills total. There are 3 tiers for each skill, and getting 3 copies of the same skill upgrades the skill to next tier and gives you a random upgraded skill as well. Another way to upgrade a skill is to leave it with a vendor until the next vendor encounter. This mechanic - produces meaningful choices in terms of how you get top tier skills. In order to get the 2 locked slots open, you have to forever sacrifice a skill - it will not drop anymore for the entire run. So early on there are important choices of what to sacrifice. There are 3 things you need to balance to win - skills (their number and quality), relics and minion stats. These are obtained through different nodes. If you neglect one, you will suffer at the boss fights. For example, a character starts at 20 hp, if you don't do any events, he will stay at 20 hp and will struggle, while events can raise this number to around 60. Enemies are tough, but fair, I've reached the end game and only failed 3 runs, including two runs that ended with a boss at 3% hp due to some misunderstanding of the mechanics. I like how all the info regarding skills is there - all the keywords are highlighted, I have no problem understanding what skills do, except for "combo", which I had to read 3 times - it does not require another "Combo" skill, but simply having another character act before. Just in terms of Art, music, voice, this is a labor of love, not some pixel graphics and sprites - all the characters are fully 3d animated, and you can run around on the overworld as any of them. That's a huge step forward from any of the darkest dungeon clones, which are made of sprites.

Good idea, great setting, nice story — absolutely terrible execution. You have a lot of RNG on the campaign map, which is of course normal for this genre, but the issue is that it comes with really bad game design. You have multiple things to acquire: artefacts, skills, social skills and stats of your disciples. The problem is that most of the time you can only level up or get one of them. Enemies past the first one or two fights scale ridiculously, which, combined with the above, means you are always on the back foot. You will face early enemies that deplete a disciple’s health in a single attack while having more than double your HP. Your disciples are these legendary creatures, but they feel like trash mobs compared to the random goons they face. It doesn’t even matter whether you fight normal or elite enemies; their damage output escalates way too much, way too soon. Because of that, you are meant to use your devil’s powers — but regenerating the currency for them is heavily dependent on RNG, which is exactly the bad combination I mentioned above. On top of that, there are brutal enemy effects you cannot block or stop with your supposedly almighty power. You often have to sacrifice a skill or remove it for a random amount of time on the map in order to upgrade it or get a better one. Nice idea, but with the bad balance it only adds to the feeling of being on the back foot. I greatly enjoyed Slay the Spire, Darkest Dungeon and Iratus: Lord of the Dead, which do something similar, just better. RNG adds the spice and battles are challenging, but they are balanced in a way that you never feel cheated. That reminds me: this game’s UI is absolutely terrible. So much information is not listed on the skills, not even in the form of a keyword. Often you think you understand the mechanics you use or that get thrown at you, only for them to do something completely unexplained. This game is simply frustrating and not fun because it lacks a solid underlying balance and design.

Not great, RNG no fun and awful progression

Не рекомендую (со вздохом) Начну с хорошего: задумка у игры реально интересная — играть за Дьявола и его адептов, ломать правила боя себе в пользу вместо банального "бей-беги" — свежо. Графика приятная, стиль выдержан. Механики и случайные события на карте тоже цепляют — есть над чем подумать, помимо "куда ударить". Но всё это перечёркивается тем, насколько душной оказывается сама игра в первых часах. Первая глава превращается не в обучение, а в бесконечный забег на месте: перепроходишь её раз за разом, теряешь весь прогресс, и по факту твой единственный "рост" — это накопленные достижения в логове, которые расширяют пул возможного в следующей попытке, а не что-то ощутимое здесь и сейчас. Из-за этого возникает стойкое чувство, что ты не учишься и не продвигаешься, а просто с разной степенью неудачи повторяешь одно и то же. Отдельно доставляет то, что я проходил всё это на пониженной сложности — то есть с бонусной эссенцией и Ужасом на старте, со сниженным уроном врагов — и это всё равно ощущалось как борьба на грани мазохизма. Страшно представить, какой опыт получают те, кто честно играет на обычной сложности с первого запуска. В сухом остатке: интересная задумка, которую портит совершенно неоправданно жёсткий порог входа. Если бы кривая сложности была хоть немного более щадящей в первых главах — было бы отличной игрой. А так — на любителя мазохизма от roguelike-жанра.

Игра неплохая, не рекомендовать я её не могу. Слишком связаны у тебя руки буквально с самого начала. Это как из кубиков "п", "ж", "о", "а" пытаться собрать слово "счастье".

I like the game. Its addicting. But more of a bad habbit kind of way. Its fun but the random unbalanced regular battle that will destroy a run and other frustrations make it not worth the time. Definitely not money. Sorry

Yeahh i cant beat this game i give up over all it good but hard fights are sometimes not fair but i guess it a skill issue