Serpent's Gaze

Me and 3 others were really impressed by this game in its current Early access state. It is at times more or less difficult than a typical souls-like genre game, but the unlocks along the way make it rewarding to play through multiple times, achieving higher stats through team synergy and individual builds (which again, are subject to RNG). The options of seeds, classes, and weapons give you a lot of options when building out your character for each individual act playthrough. This is an extremely promising game that deserves more attention from the community. Graphics are quite good, soundtrack is great, combat is fluid and engaging, and the big-baddie-bosses come with distinct characteristics that informs their fighting style. I will be looking forward to future updates. I consider this game to have been well worth the $15 in its current state.

Honestly this is a game that has great aesthetics but that is pretty much all it has going for it, rest of the things the game tries to do, does them okay at best. The soulslike parts of the game aren't good either but the biggest weakness of the game comes from its roguelike parts. [list] [*]The levels don't change so runs start to feel way too same, [*]Seeds are for the most part are uninteresting (seriously what is fun about getting a %3 crit chance???), [*]Half the blessings are just the same thing with a different flavor which really hurts when you only have the same 6 blessings for each deity every time, [*]Most relics are also really uninteresting, [*]Level up system feels kinda pointless, [*]There is barely any enemy variety. [*]Also this is not a problem with the games roguelike nature but i gotta mention this, ads in bossfights are annoying and a cheap way of adding "difficulty" and they only sour the experience. [/list] Now despite everything i said, would i call this game bad? not really, but its not good either it is just mediocre. It is in this weird inbetween place of not quite being eurojank but not quite being good either. I can see myself completing each level once but that is pretty much it.

Game has amazing potential, but many poor balancing choices, as well as absolutely infuriating unlock requirements for several things, namely complete RNG. The (arguably) best weapon in the game is unlocked purely via random chance, as is one of the classes. I can understand a super rare and powerful weapon being a rare, random drop, but a class should NEVER be purely random chance. There is no way to weight the RNG, and they aren't tied to any quests or basic requirements. So for unlucky people, such as myself, it's just meaningless to even try. I've unlocked everything else in the game, and now my only option is to mindlessly beat my head against the wall while I pray for pure luck, and instead just get repeated runs of nothing for weeks now. Will update to a positive review when unlocks are not PURELY random chance.

I've played 37 hours so far, almost entirely in co-op with my son, and we've had a great time. For an Early Access game, there's already a solid amount of content, and the core gameplay loop is genuinely fun. One of the strongest parts of the game is the Seed upgrade system. It adds a lot of variety between runs and makes experimenting with different builds enjoyable. Unlocking new weapons and characters also gives you something to work towards, so progression feels rewarding instead of repetitive. The bosses are generally fun to fight. They don't have the same level of polish or flow as something like Elden Ring—they can feel a bit janky at times—but they're still memorable and enjoyable. The combat isn't perfect, yet it's satisfying enough that you keep wanting to do another run. Co-op has been one of the highlights for us. Playing together works well and has created a lot of great moments. My biggest criticism is the final boss (Rezaaa). On higher Awareness levels, the number of adds feels excessive and quickly becomes overwhelming. It doesn't feel like a test of skill anymore, but more like fighting endless waves of enemies. Since the game is still in Early Access, I'm hoping this encounter will receive another balance pass. Overall, I think Serpent's Gaze has a lot of potential. The build variety, progression system, and co-op experience have kept us playing for dozens of hours already. It still needs some polish and balancing, but if the developers continue improving it, I can easily see myself spending many more hours in it. Recommended.

This game is already well worth its 15 dollars. Bought it last night with a friend and we stayed up till 4am playing. It took a minute, like all souls games, to learn the mechanics and flow but when it clicked it was very fun. The music hits so hard, the sound design is well done too. The set pieces are epic in scale and vibe and with all the creative enemies of an Elden Ring. There are already breadcrumbs of other content that will come out and I am very very excited to see it all come out. I can definitely see some balancing issues and where i would love to see other content added like more element types or synergies. Still for the price, as it is now, 9/10. I really really enjoyed this and I found Elden Ring hard to get into.

Enemy health scaling turns the game into a slog as you progress.

the devs think ads are a good mechanic in 2026

If you like unfair, unbalanced gameplay, this is the game for you. "Normal" monsters are literal pushovers, but they represent about 20-30% of the density in stages. Most of the time you fight "elite" monsters that can only get staggered 2-3 times before being immune to stuns for 10 seconds and don't worry, you won't kill any elites within 2-3 staggers, you will need need at least 20-30 hits to kill them with basically every single weapon in the game. Oh and weapons, what a complete joke they are. In the current 13 weapons in the game, 5 of those are "Ultra" weapons that take so long to swing that virtually EVERY monster in the game can hit you before you land a single hit and guess what, any monster hit staggers you instantly. In the other 7 weapons remaining, 3 of those are "Dexterity" focused weapons that literally do 2-4 damage per hit, guess how many hits you need to kill a boss in this game with those weapons: at least 100 hits for the first boss of the game, THE FIRST BOSS!!! I don't know what is in these dev's smoking pipes but they are clearly on the good stuff. The only time I beat this game in 20 hours of gameplay was with the same build that applies "status effects" like burning, poison or bleeding because the massive amounts of 1-2 damage ticks stack up in the 5-10 minutes of boss fights you are stuck in. How on earth is this game rated as very positive on steam at the time of this review is simply beyond me.