Skul: The Hero Slayer

Peguei esse aqui esperando mais um roguelike padrão e acabei me surpreendendo com o quanto ele consegue se destacar dentro do gênero. O combate é rápido, fluido e muito satisfatório. A mecânica de trocar de caveiras no meio da luta muda completamente a forma de jogar, já que cada uma funciona quase como uma classe diferente. Isso deixa as runs bem variadas e incentiva testar combinações. A progressão funciona bem no estilo clássico do gênero. Mesmo quando você morre, sempre sente que avançou um pouco, seja desbloqueando upgrades ou entendendo melhor as builds. Isso ajuda a manter a vontade de continuar jogando. A dificuldade é bem equilibrada. No começo pode parecer tranquilo, mas conforme avança, o jogo cobra mais atenção e execução. Não achei injusto, mas exige aprender os padrões e usar bem os recursos. Visualmente ele tem um estilo pixel art bem bonito e com bastante personalidade. As animações são fluidas e ajudam bastante na leitura do combate, o que faz diferença em momentos mais caóticos. A variedade de caveiras e itens é um dos pontos mais fortes. Dá pra montar builds bem diferentes entre si, o que evita aquela sensação de repetição comum em alguns roguelikes. Por outro lado, algumas runs podem depender um pouco da sorte nos itens, o que pode frustrar em certos momentos, principalmente quando você já está mais avançado. No geral, é um roguelike muito bem feito, com mecânicas criativas e um combate que prende fácil. Pra quem curte o gênero, é daqueles que você começa e quando vê já perdeu várias horas tentando mais uma run.

пушка гонка бегаешь за нищего скелета и побеждаешь врагов, становишься сильнее и круче, потом тебя убиваетсильнее вражина и вот ты снова нищий

First of all I never beat this game just wanted to say that.. The devs put so much work into this and creating all of the skulls, love the story and love to always think im better than my last playthrough and die (dieing in this game gets pretty repetitve)

I have played several roguelites/roguelikes in the past - in fact I fell in love with Hades and Hades 2 more than I ever thought I would. They are what I would call the perfect roguelikes and have beaten both up to 32 heat. That was an incredibly satisfying challenge that tested my patience and build design. Skul was something I thought would be up my alley. In fact I really enjoyed the game from the jump; the beautiful sprites, the interesting storyline, the fun enemies, all of it. I was even able to beat the game after 2 runs (albeit with the help of rookie mode), and got myself a great start with unlocking the traits. Sounds like this should be an easy yes right? The issue begins when you stop experimenting with random equipment and inscriptions and begin planning runs and designing builds that may work really well for specific skulls. From my experience the earlier part of the game (prior to the Dark Mirror) has no way of aiding players in acquiring the equipment needed to succeed - It is all completely random. You might think "it's a rogue-like they are known for their randomness," but the problem is more nuanced than just some randomness. The developers never programmed any weighting in the RNG to bias the selection of equipment towards something that goes with the skulls in use. Specifically, I have seen dozens of runs fail because all I was being served at the shopping district or chests were magic items when I was running a physical build (or vice versa). I would re-roll the options and again just get magic items. I would run through my money just hoping for something I needed to no avail. The problem gets worse when the system doesn't de-select options that have been seen already and were not selected. In Hades, you are less likely so see certain things that you were already given as an option and passed up, but not here. In a single run I ran into the same item three separate times, and destroyed an item in my inventory only to have it reappear in the very next shop. There are something like 200 equipment items in this game which already makes getting a desired item rather rare, but then you tack on the rarity of the item making it less likely to appear. Then you have to consider the issue with some common or rare items repeatedly appearing at the shop and the odds are idiotically against you. In 30 hours of gameplay I have still never seen the Medal Box item appear in any chest, or shop (I want to say after looking through the wiki it is confirmed to appear outside the mirror, but maybe I am wrong). For me this becomes a tragic shame, because my favorite part of Hades was being able to push the RNG in a certain direction; you couldn't ever guarantee anything, but there were ways to make it more likely and I was able to play the way I wanted. With this 'system' (if you can call it that) you just hope and pray; many times I just felt that by worlds 3 and 4 the game was deliberately telling me you might as well restart because you aren't going to win, not because you are playing poorly, but because the game refused to give you anything that worked together. Some might see this post and say, "The Dark Mirror gives you plenty of options to design builds and influence the RNG after you beat level zero." This is true, but the issue becomes why do I have to wait till then. The game lets you rebuild the Demon Lords castle, but has zero features to allow players to customize their runs until you start building inside the mirror - why? I am an average player I would say, I play rogue-likes off and on intermixed with many other genres, but I can hold my own at some difficult games. With that said, I can't beat the base game without rookie mode which negates half of all incoming damage, and even with that many many runs are left on the cutting-room floor. Why should I have to jump into a more difficult mode to have customizable options when I need to obviously practice some more on the less difficult mode first. But the less difficult mode doesn't let you influence the runs to make them more survivable. It feels like the game devs designed the game backwards, you should have less customizability later as a challenge (a work with what you get mode). Again I really wanted to like the game, but I'm so tired of runs feeling ruined more by the poor RNG and less from me playing poorly (which is definitely a contributing factor). The more I played and strategized the less damage it seemed I was doing and the longer bosses took.

This game is on par with Dead Cells for gameplay, customization, level design, etc. It's honestly more fun to me than DC, but that is just my opinion. Just like Dead Cells, the pixel art is awesome, but it is on a whole other level here because of the character sprite work. Amazing game and if you love roguelike games, this'll tickle that hardcore!!!!!

샤라웃투 기리고

진짜 처음에는 너무 어려워서, 요즘 사람들은 이런 어려운 게임을 좋아하나? 라고 생각했는데 갓겜 맞네요...20시간 걸려서 처음으로 막보잡고 엔딩본 이후부터, 검은거울 들어간 이후가 진 짜 꿀겜이네요. 나이가 47살이라 피지컬도 딸리고, 조금만 겜 하다보면 졸려서 꾸벅꾸벅 하는 데도 어떻게 어떻게 하다보니 결국 검은거울 10단계까지 클리어 완료했습니다 많은분들이 얘기하는것처럼 성우눈나 목소리 너무좋고, 게임 자체가 도전욕구를 자극하면서 도 처음부터 끝까지 너무 꿀잼이라, 어느새 162시간 걸려서 검은거울 올클리어 달성했습니다 진짜 가격도 엄청싸고, DLC까지 포함해도 얼마 안해서 무조건 DLC까지 같이 사시는걸 추천합 니다!! 회사끝나고도 피곤한 몸으로도 컴퓨터 켜서 어떻게든 플레이를 즐길정도로 정말 너무 나 즐겁게 했습니다. 다들 한번 시작해보세요~