Corpse Keeper

Warning: This is a single player game that forces online EOS telemetry and data harvesting. There is zero ethical justification for a single player game to require always-online telemetry, especially from a business as unethical as Tencent backed Epic Games. "Corpse Keeper" is an unusual game from China with an unusually large number of zero-day fake reviews all written in Chinese heaping praise on what is, well, not exactly garbage, but far from what anyone would really consider a good game. The concept of the game is almost compelling... you're a necromancer and you do roguelite procgen "runs" through various levels, summoning your undead warriors and then engaging in sadly console-like 2D arcade brawling... and that core gameplay is pretty terrible. The concept of upgrading your corpse warriors adds welcome depth, but with a cap on the number of attempts you can make, that artificial cap erases any value from that basic premise. On the upside, the game does feature customisable controls and resolution, so at least some of the basic, minimum requirements have been met. It's also worth noting this isn't an asset flip, the animations and models are tolerable, if clunky... th…

meh

I hate leaving negative reviews, especially for these types of games that "almost good", but I feel compelled for some reason. Maybe because the potential was so high. It has all the fixings of an odd gem, but the combat is just really not good. There are other smaller issues, but ultimately this is the crux of it. You only have one attack, so there are no real choices to be made while fighting; the only skill test is reactions to enemy attacks. You don't have to time your attacks because you can freely cancel into a block or dodge. Sometimes spacing matters, but not in most fights. So you just spam attack and either dodge or parry enemy attacks. It's boring, unfortunately. I am definitely interested to see what this dev does in the future, but I was really disappointed by this game.

Sadly I think this game just falls short of being recommendable. The concept & some of the execution is good. Play a necromancer, engage in 2D fights using your undead minions, gather bones & other stuff from your fallen enemies to then build & play as them, in roguelite format. Despite looking like a 2D fighter, it doesn't play like one, with only 1 real attack button yet 4 defensive as the real focus is on defending well with parrying, dodging and so on. Every fight you win offers your current corpse a random replacement attack for one of their chain of 3 that all playable corpses have. Corpses decay over time as they're used, sent out on darkest dungeon-esque dungeon raids with loot, events & fights. The problems emerge the more you play. There's a janky feeling to the whole game, it has weird funky lighting that makes things feel unpolished as lighting suddenly shifts whilst you're in a menu. It's a little buggy, as multiple times I managed to get stuck inside an opponent until we rolled making our attacks miss. But it's biggest sin is poor balancing. Corpses are overwhelmingly not created equal, and not just in the intentional way. Some are extremely difficult to play, s…

You're a necromancer collecting souls and corpses to make your own corpses which will fight on your behalf. Fundamentally it's a fighting game, but with side scrolling dungeon adventure and crafting to make better and stronger fighters. It's awesome

Darkest Dungeon meets clunky fighting game. The concept is actually really good and I really hope that a more capable dev takes the idea and gives it a better execution.