If there’s a video game genre that I’m horrible at but couldn’t stop checking out titles (within that particular genre), it would be rogue-likes. Named after the 1980 ASCII-based game, Rogue, rogue-likes are a role-playing game subgenre which generally encompasses the following tropes: procedurally generated dungeons and perma-death.
The past several years have been a boon to the genre, first with Dead Cells, followed by Hades and then Curse of the Dead Gods. Of the three, I’ve played Hades the most, with is beautiful 2D isometric look and interesting characters plus story-telling making each attempt at playing the game rather worthwhile. It was so good that I’ve gotten the game on both the Switch and on the PC.
However, all three games have suffered the same fate in my hands: I’ve never finished them. Yup, I’m kinda allergic to the combination of increasing difficulty + pattern recognition + lack of healing opportunities + permadeath. It’s a whole lot of difference versus a game like Diablo III, which I’m still playing until today.
Despite knowing that I can’t finish a rogue-like title, I went and gotten another title in the form of GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon for the Nintendo Switch. It’s basically a new take on Konami’s Famicom title GetsuFumaDen. It’s a 2D rogue-like, very similar to Dead Cells, and what gotten me interested in the game were the Japanese theme and graphics, which look really awesome. I stopped playing after failing to beat the first boss….. thrice.
The best balm when licking my wounds? Play Diablo III.
