BELOW (2018)

Absolute fire. The rating tanked by casuals.

I like hard games, I like interesting exploration and puzzles, I like atmospheric games. This should have been a game I loved, but they combined instant-death traps with long and tedious walkbacks, and I know there are some people out there for whom that just adds to the atmosphere and gameplay experience but my spare time for gaming isn't what it used to be and this was just tedious. For those looking for this particular brand of masochism I'm sure it's great, but for people just expecting a challenging atmospheric roguelike, my bet is you'll enjoy other games more.

One of my favorite games of all time. Criminally underrated. I played this game at the very beginning of the covid pandemic. It is simply dripping in atmosphere and was the perfect game for me to get lost in at that time. If you go into it expecting it to be something it's not, you will likely be disappointed. But if you approach it like I did, with an open mind towards adventure and challenge, and the singleminded goal of going as far down as you can each run, you will find this game is a diamond in the rough!! I HIGHLY recommend you play in a dark room at night. [This is my second copy, I bought this copy just to support the devs and give a review.]

I really want to like this game, the atmosphere is awesome, the "story" is intriguing and makes me want to progress, but the game just isn't for me. Far too tedious, and I constantly got stuck because I had no idea on what to do next. Had to look up guides to get some hints on what on earth I was supposed to. Constantly out of crafting materials, many which are only found at certain levels, meaning you need to return over and over again. Running out of light because enemies don't respawn, making you unable to progress deeper since you need light to unlock certain doors and such. The only solution is to die, but the enemies are all gone, so you need to find traps to do the job. Then you have to run back to your corpse and get your stuff back (at least you do get it back), adding to the tedium. If you like "hard" and tedious games with some mystery - then this game is for you though.

I only did one run so it's probably on me but UGH. All I knew to do was gather ingredients and craft them, I didn't know what I was doing or what the point was, and then I slowly bled out and died with no idea as to why. I get that you're supposed to play as a bunch of different heroes in randomly generated dungeons, but spending half an hour just picking up rocks with no goal while your health depletes with no explanation so that, when you start again you can't even gather those items you spent half an hour collecting sucks. And there's little things that drop out of the enemies you can use to level up but oops, they are magnetically drawn to the chasms all over the place. Also it was lagging constantly and would just go unresponsive mid swing

One of the best Indie Rough Like Out there. It is hard as ♥♥♥♥, but I love how deep you have to explore in this game. Not only on the map, but also its mechanics.