I feel like I frequently tout that I hate roguelikes, but very rarely, there comes along a title that catches my eye. In this case, it was a "laid-back, casual roguelike" with character art that I immediately detected as being done by Akihiko Yoshida (of Bravely Default fame), and published by Cygames (multimedia enterprise with experience in creating high fantasy settings). That checked off enough boxes for me, so I took a chance, and y'know what? I think I found my favorite roguelike.
Noah Little, descendant of a long line of master alchemists, ends up crashing her airship into some ruins while searching for her missing father. Instead, she finds an amnesiac cat (whom she names "Zipper") and a brooding, cloaked villain who's clearly up to no good. Noah and Zipper butt heads, but they have one goal in mind: reach the center of the ruins and stop this evildoer. Noah has all the spunk and energy of a sassy lost child, and is more than capable of getting shit done (by giving orders to others). She doesn't fight using weapons. An alchemist only gets their hands dirty in the name of science after all, not to fight ruffians. No, she summons creatures called Lilliputs to attack in her stead. Each one has an entirely different type of attack, and they can be reordered at any time into a 5-hit combo of your making. The ruins consist of randomized rooms in a randomized order with randomized contents within. You defeat enemies in a platform-fighter fashion, reap the rewards, and move on. Most accessories collected will increase your stats, but a handful of them give more interesting effects, like causing enemies to explode after they die. The screen can become a chaotic flurry of particle effects, which is extremely fun and cathartic, but there's also no real distinction between enemy attacks and your own, so you can get completely blindsided in the midst of all the chaos.
This game forgoes a lot of the trappings that make the roguelike genre so difficult to approach. When you inevitably fail, all the junk you collected is converted into mana, and you're taken back to your airship base. That mana ges fed back into repairing your airship's facilities, unlocking new abilities, features, and permanent buffs for future runs. Essentially, each subsequent run will likely see you making more progress than last time, due to a combination of your new upgrades and your own experience kicking in. There's even a few shakeups on repeat trips though the ruins, like the area boss having an entirely different weapon or element, so you'll still get some surprises. The game does cut itself a bit short, but I prefer to use the phrase "well-paced". It's a $15 title. I beat the game in only 11 runs.
It's cool to see Cygames put resources towards something that isn't just a fucking gacha game. I can count all of their non-gacha titles on one hand. They still have a dedicated team working on the game. It was recently updated the game to let you toggle items/upgrades on or off, and they let you play as Zipper the cat too. There's a "to be continued" right before the credits, so I assume they wanna make another one of these. I'd be down for another adventure with Little Noah, roguelike or otherwise.
Noah Little, descendant of a long line of master alchemists, ends up crashing her airship into some ruins while searching for her missing father. Instead, she finds an amnesiac cat (whom she names "Zipper") and a brooding, cloaked villain who's clearly up to no good. Noah and Zipper butt heads, but they have one goal in mind: reach the center of the ruins and stop this evildoer. Noah has all the spunk and energy of a sassy lost child, and is more than capable of getting shit done (by giving orders to others). She doesn't fight using weapons. An alchemist only gets their hands dirty in the name of science after all, not to fight ruffians. No, she summons creatures called Lilliputs to attack in her stead. Each one has an entirely different type of attack, and they can be reordered at any time into a 5-hit combo of your making. The ruins consist of randomized rooms in a randomized order with randomized contents within. You defeat enemies in a platform-fighter fashion, reap the rewards, and move on. Most accessories collected will increase your stats, but a handful of them give more interesting effects, like causing enemies to explode after they die. The screen can become a chaotic flurry of particle effects, which is extremely fun and cathartic, but there's also no real distinction between enemy attacks and your own, so you can get completely blindsided in the midst of all the chaos.
This game forgoes a lot of the trappings that make the roguelike genre so difficult to approach. When you inevitably fail, all the junk you collected is converted into mana, and you're taken back to your airship base. That mana ges fed back into repairing your airship's facilities, unlocking new abilities, features, and permanent buffs for future runs. Essentially, each subsequent run will likely see you making more progress than last time, due to a combination of your new upgrades and your own experience kicking in. There's even a few shakeups on repeat trips though the ruins, like the area boss having an entirely different weapon or element, so you'll still get some surprises. The game does cut itself a bit short, but I prefer to use the phrase "well-paced". It's a $15 title. I beat the game in only 11 runs.
It's cool to see Cygames put resources towards something that isn't just a fucking gacha game. I can count all of their non-gacha titles on one hand. They still have a dedicated team working on the game. It was recently updated the game to let you toggle items/upgrades on or off, and they let you play as Zipper the cat too. There's a "to be continued" right before the credits, so I assume they wanna make another one of these. I'd be down for another adventure with Little Noah, roguelike or otherwise.
Hooblashooga
1 year ago