Lowkey maybe my favorite roguelike. Certainly my favorite 'classical' roguelike.
Hard to get into, insanely fun if you manage to, first game I've played where the sfx for casting lightning bolt literally just sounds like a shotgun.
Tales of Maj'Eyal plays like a standard roguelike with the addition of an impressive number of build options and a vaguely open world for you to explore. Some of it works, and some of it doesn't, but it is a very interesting entry in the genre that has been better every time I have tried it.
Besides the regular roguelike stuff, there are quite a few quality of life advancements here -- ToME eschews some of the things that I would call antiquated like randomized potions and scrolls, for instance. Other systems are obviated after a couple of plays with items that automatically identify everything for you, automatically destroy items for money, and let you warp out of dungeons easily. This stuff is welcome, but it feels like those systems should have just been removed outright.
ToME does have some UX problems that get in the way, however, with tons of menu and stat gore that make things generally difficult to easily understand and make equipment and abilities hard to compare. It is unfortunate since other modern roguelikes like Brogue and Cogmind have done a ton to move the genre forward in ways that ToME misses.
I like the build options, even though things can be a bit obtuse and the number of things to choose from is a bit overwhelming. Your character is just a set of skill trees defined by your race and class choices which works well as an interesting, modular way to build characters in a game like this. I did find myself tending down the same paths for any given class, but there are enough possible characters you could build that it doesn't really matter at all.
I really liked unlocking new classes and seeing what they have to offer. There is a lot of creativity on display here from straightforward melee classes of various flavors to ranged attackers, magic users, summoners, and mages who use possession. No other roguelike I have played has quite this variety in character options that can fundamentally change gameplay to this degree. The flipside of this is that many of the classes can play pretty poorly. The aforementioned summoner and possessor seem cool, but I found the actual mechanics to be clunky and dissatisfying.
ToME is an open world, but is heavily gated by level ranges you are sort of intended to find by trial and error, I guess. You can wander the (static, predefined) overworld and find your way into (predefined) dungeons that are procedurally generated at a specific difficulty level. Going into a dungeon that is too tough for you will almost always just result in near instant death. Because of this, despite the world being ostensibly open, things end up very linear. It is unfortunate, since you can see a lot of potential in a game like this with a generated open world layout or simply more options for where to go at any given time.
This is ultimately what has made me shelve the game both times, since even though the builds feel unique, what I am doing in the world feels repetitive and boring.
This is a cool roguelike to mess around with and worth trying out if you are a fan of the genre. I bounce pretty hard off the world/level design aspects, but find myself wanting to return just to explore the classes and unlocks and I haven't really even tried the expansions.
Tales of Maj'Eyal has only gotten better over time, so I hope dark7god continues to add cool things to this project.
Besides the regular roguelike stuff, there are quite a few quality of life advancements here -- ToME eschews some of the things that I would call antiquated like randomized potions and scrolls, for instance. Other systems are obviated after a couple of plays with items that automatically identify everything for you, automatically destroy items for money, and let you warp out of dungeons easily. This stuff is welcome, but it feels like those systems should have just been removed outright.
ToME does have some UX problems that get in the way, however, with tons of menu and stat gore that make things generally difficult to easily understand and make equipment and abilities hard to compare. It is unfortunate since other modern roguelikes like Brogue and Cogmind have done a ton to move the genre forward in ways that ToME misses.
I like the build options, even though things can be a bit obtuse and the number of things to choose from is a bit overwhelming. Your character is just a set of skill trees defined by your race and class choices which works well as an interesting, modular way to build characters in a game like this. I did find myself tending down the same paths for any given class, but there are enough possible characters you could build that it doesn't really matter at all.
I really liked unlocking new classes and seeing what they have to offer. There is a lot of creativity on display here from straightforward melee classes of various flavors to ranged attackers, magic users, summoners, and mages who use possession. No other roguelike I have played has quite this variety in character options that can fundamentally change gameplay to this degree. The flipside of this is that many of the classes can play pretty poorly. The aforementioned summoner and possessor seem cool, but I found the actual mechanics to be clunky and dissatisfying.
ToME is an open world, but is heavily gated by level ranges you are sort of intended to find by trial and error, I guess. You can wander the (static, predefined) overworld and find your way into (predefined) dungeons that are procedurally generated at a specific difficulty level. Going into a dungeon that is too tough for you will almost always just result in near instant death. Because of this, despite the world being ostensibly open, things end up very linear. It is unfortunate, since you can see a lot of potential in a game like this with a generated open world layout or simply more options for where to go at any given time.
This is ultimately what has made me shelve the game both times, since even though the builds feel unique, what I am doing in the world feels repetitive and boring.
This is a cool roguelike to mess around with and worth trying out if you are a fan of the genre. I bounce pretty hard off the world/level design aspects, but find myself wanting to return just to explore the classes and unlocks and I haven't really even tried the expansions.
Tales of Maj'Eyal has only gotten better over time, so I hope dark7god continues to add cool things to this project.
An extremely deep and detailed traditional roguelike with large mod and official dlc support. If you're new to old-style roguelikes and want a jump off this is the starting point. The skill system is my personal selling point and always enjoy a revisit.
It's no DCSS but it's pretty fun. Also quite accessible, if you're looking for an entry point into the traditional roguelike genre.
Great roguelike with variable difficulty and huge replayability thanks to huge amounts of customization and choice with its class and skill systems.
About half a dozen RPGs in a trenchcoat pretending to be a roguelike. Absolutely bonkers classes and skills, more crazy ideas in a single ability tree than in some entire games pretending to have variety. Unavoidably, massively flawed given how huge it is, but mod support is excellent and you can easily improve/get rid of some of the more annoying stuff (or add more if you like your RPGs bloated to hell and back). Has one of the ugliest, least functional tilesets ever, but the fake ASCII mode looks good enough most of the time and you don't want to know what a yeek really looks like anyway.
Also, a warning: prolonged exposure to the Last Hope/Gates of Morning music will cause massive headaches.
Also, a warning: prolonged exposure to the Last Hope/Gates of Morning music will cause massive headaches.
Weirdly addictive game with tons of content and near infinite amount of replayability. It's my first roguelike and I could say that it's a nice intro to the genre.
I think ToME is my most played game of all time. It's an excellent roguelike with a huge variety of character options. The game is certainly overlong, and random spikes of difficulty can be frustrating, though both issues are mitigated by the default mode allowing for multiple lives. I don't play it much these days since it can really chew through time, but I'm sure I'll be back when the upcoming DLC finally releases. Well, if it does.
The standard difficulty is a tiny bit on the easy side compared to other roguelikes, and the skills being cooldown makes this pretty good for a newbie. Dungeons are a bit dull in gameplay though, even if cool in concept.
Insane build possibilities.
What the FUCK am I doing and where the FUCK am I going
absolute masterpiece the only singleplayer game with the massive depth to hold my interest in so long
There is no better hyper fantasy roguelike. Granted the artstyle and controls are simple but there are hundreds if not thousands of hours that could be spent on this game.
Tome gets points for being one of your only options if you want a true roguelike with a somewhat modern interface. It offers familiar roguelike staples, dungeon delving, character leveling, and a class system that can allow for interesting gameplay. Gameplay is immediately intuitive and it's pretty obvious how you're meant to advance - Kill stuff, get better gear, and otherwise make your numbers go up.
Unfortunately it falls apart for me once you get past everything surface-level. TOME is built in such a way that you will frequently just die since it's nearly impossible to figure out how much of a threat an enemy is before they've already caved your skull in or fried you from across the map. Rare enemies with randomized modifiers appear and it's just impossible to know anything about them by looking at them. Sometimes one will appear and you'll start attacking it only to realize that it has a shield with an unknowable number of hitpoints and it's also happened to generate with an ability that deals massive damage. Some areas are also just terrible, this game has a ton of zones with gimmicks that aren't especially challenging to deal with, but can be incredibly time consuming to resolve.
It's hard to recommend TOME over other, more tightly designed roguelikes. While it's got good presentation, the actual game is hard to love and at times seems to have been slapped together with little regard for how some additions might fit with the larger game.
Unfortunately it falls apart for me once you get past everything surface-level. TOME is built in such a way that you will frequently just die since it's nearly impossible to figure out how much of a threat an enemy is before they've already caved your skull in or fried you from across the map. Rare enemies with randomized modifiers appear and it's just impossible to know anything about them by looking at them. Sometimes one will appear and you'll start attacking it only to realize that it has a shield with an unknowable number of hitpoints and it's also happened to generate with an ability that deals massive damage. Some areas are also just terrible, this game has a ton of zones with gimmicks that aren't especially challenging to deal with, but can be incredibly time consuming to resolve.
It's hard to recommend TOME over other, more tightly designed roguelikes. While it's got good presentation, the actual game is hard to love and at times seems to have been slapped together with little regard for how some additions might fit with the larger game.
prob never gonna beat it, but I always enjoy myself when i open it up