One Way Heroics

Saw this on steam sale today and had a look just on a hunch, and it looks pretty neat. A 2D top-down roguelike turn-based sidescroller, where if the "darkness" that's eating the world from the left side catches up to you, you die. Cutesy anime graphics, like the world map on a JRPG, also reminds me a bit of Elona.

Oh and it's dirt cheap.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/266210/?snr=1_4_4__106_2

Oh and a review:

 

Purchased from Playism-games.com for $1.99. Will play soon.

 

I watched a let's play and came back, saw your reply, and grabbed it from them too.

 

Picked it up on a whim the day before, GREAT investment. It's one of the best "coffee break roguelikes" I've played in a long time. Might be a little on the easy side, but it's solid.

I've heard there's a number of unique ways to complete the game as well, haven't found any of them yet... just running each of the classes through on Easy to unlock perks before I delve into optional challenges.

 

I've already beat it once as knight. With the aid of the "reinforcements"(two party buddies).

 

My first successful run was as a Pirate, I lucked out and got a key of seals early and found an overpowered staff and armor in the chests, carried me through the rest of the run with no difficulties.

Trying to reach the end of the map is much, MUCH harder though. I'm not sure exactly how far past the 400k marker you have to go, but progressing while the demon lord relentlessly chases you is a big step up in difficulty.

 

I picked it up also but for some reason it seemed a tad boring to me. My first game I actually committed suicide by darkness because I wasn't really having much fun.

 

Really? I'm having a blast. I died like 8 times within the first 8 minutes, started to figure it out, and once I found a Quality Whetstone and a Lumberjack's Axe and stowed them in the Dimensional Vault, and busted them out first thing on the next run, I went all the way. Swordsman, all three Perks as +Agility, with a Quality Axe can take down a stone wall in 2-3 turns with all the combo strikes he gets. I only opened like one chest the whole game, but I never once felt like I was going to die...right up until halfway through beating on the Demon Lord, my Heavy Longsword broke. That sucked, but by then I also had a Quality Flaming Rooting Lumberjack's Axe, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I opened up Hunters, got enough Hero Points to unlock Master of Lockpicking as a perk and a total of 4 slots in the Dimensional Vault. I feel like I'm going places with this.

XD

I love this game.

 

When I was playing it took me a bit to figue out how to attack, etc. I finally figured that out, so I wandered ever east, never found anything particularly interesting, kept running low on food towards the end. Somehow I found out I had no weapon wielded even though I had wielded it earlier (there was no warning that my weapon had worn out or gotten lost or fell into a black hole or whatever had happened). Nothing interesting happened, somehow I lost a bunch of levels unintentially (because the ui when it asked me if I wanted to exchange levels for a save game thought I said yes). Nothing realy could kill me unless I chose to let it. It was kind of silly. I couldn't open up chests, I couldn't really do anything of interest except run away or fight. Even when I didn't know how to fight, nothing could kill me. I couldn't afford anything for sale. I finally about halfway through figured out how to access my inventory (because it's all very anti-intuitive).

Anyway I was not happy with my experience.

 

Enemies outside of dungeons (or the occasional golem) aren't very dangerous - but fighting those dangerous enemies is the only way to gain levels at a reasonable pace and get the money/items needed to survive, and you do need to be farmed up a bit to beat the Demon Lord, unless you get a very powerful find early on.

 

Huh. I considered the control schema remarkably intuitive, but then, I'm comparing it to the likes of Angband and NetHack. There's seriously only three buttons other than the arrow keys (until you get into weird stuff like Ctrl+X to pass a turn or Ctrl+arrow keys to restrict your movements to the diagonal.) You could play it on a NES 1 controller if you had to, with an extra button left over.

And yeah, as a Knight, not a lot will kill you outside of dungeons or special events. Special events are rare enough that you won't get one every game -- but boy, howdy, when that warning pops up that says "I sense a demonic presence," you f***ing RUN. Even in the wide-open plains, a Legendary Phantasmal Knight will f*** your day up faster than you can say "But I activated Shield Wall!"

XD

 

Just completed my first run on Grueling!

... but I was playing as a Hero, so it probably doesn't count. Hero with a full loadout of the critrate boosting perks and spears is insane.

 

I've completed a winning run with each class on easy... and there's only one perk left to unlock.

Tried a couple of runs at normal with bard, but not had much luck with that. I'll probably do a knight or a pirate run for the win on that, and then start to do the other classes. Force user can be absurdly powerful as well...

 

Wee, beat normal with adventurer. Was pretty meagerly armed most of the way through as well, but I found a longinus (holy) spear near the end, 100% crit rate... tendency to combo long chains, yeah that beat the demon lord handily.

Didn't hurt that I have my trusty holy armor enchanted to the nines(second run completed while wearing it the whole way through, it's at liks 25/50 durability, lots and lots of durability rate enchants on it, totalling 120% or something if you add them up, but I suspect it's multiplicative).

Perks +survivor(x2 = +60 health), +shield(x2 = +100% shield block efficiency, like the knight has by default), +carry weight(x1 = +30%)

 

Ok, so anyone have any dimension seeds with interesting things going on?

HADLEY: has one of those 'trade levels for stats' statues right outside the opening castle (fun if you have a Demon Lord's Heart) and also has a couple of Elven Villages toward the end where you can buy sweet weapons like the Crescent Axe. (Yeah, that's my wife's name.)

GIOVANNI: has one of those Sealed Door shrines with a Holy Item in it right outside the starting castle; great if you have a Key of Seals in your Vault. (Yeah, that's my son's name.)


[edit]Hero w/ Zenura Weave and 5x Pro-Wrestler is ridiculously overpowered. My first ever Grueling Campaign, I walked up to the Demon Lord at his very first appearance and punched his lights out. Game over at <100 km.[/edit]

 

I've beat it with every class on easy and on normal and won my first try at a grueling campaign(force user).

I was using platemail armor, force bracelet and priestly staff. Beat the second showing of the demon lord, using mostly force powers(I had the default flame power, lightning and phalanx), first hit in the fight was a 15 meditation flame strike, then I phalanxed and kept flame striking him until he croaked, using a few healing herbs and avoiding his own flame strikes(if he meditates, move away). Oh and my perk setup was survivor x2 and charisma x3(if you start with 4 charisma you can spend 3 to recruit the bottomleft soldier in the starting castle!)

 

Sidenote, an important piece of information for anyone who's going to play a force user:

The staff of prayer puts you in a permanent concentration 1 state by just wielding it, so you can cast flame or lightning every turn if you want.

Salacia's Staff puts you in permanent concentration 3 state by just wielding it, so you don't need to meditate before using any force skill, including healing and summon(both normally require meditating for 2 turns).

Using one of the above is pretty vital for force users, so you can cast every turn and not need to spend a turn meditating before every cast. Basically a doubling of your baseline DPS, but also important to save turns to not get trapped in dungeons and such to stay ahead of the darkness.

Oh and force attacks ignore the demon lord's barriers! So do holy weapons.

 

You know, despite using Salacia's staff for four runs straight I never knew that. I need to find another one of those...

 

Damn, I haven't found any staffs yet except the basic Wooden Staff. I am currently working on a Force User based off of DBZ: 3x Pro-Wrestler, 2x Survivor, and save the Force for alpha strikes that have plenty of setup time and hopefully healing if I can get high enough level to buy it.

Also, there's a bit of advice from a very common bit of D&D pop culture that will completely make your head spin about this game if you follow it with the right kind of Holy weapon. It's not quite I cast Maagic Miissle, but it's close.