Chimera (2024)

Chimera is an indie action roguelite developed and published by Croc Pot Games that places players in the unusual role of a legendary monster rather than the typical hero. The game revolves around the mythological Chimera, a powerful creature imprisoned inside a mysterious tower filled with hostile enemies and ancient defenses. Instead of following a traditional fantasy narrative where the player ascends as a noble adventurer, Chimera reverses the perspective by casting the player as a creature fighting its way out of captivity. The result is a fast-paced dungeon-crawling experience built around experimentation, procedural combat encounters, and a roguelite structure that encourages repeated attempts to escape. The story itself is deliberately understated but intriguing. Players awaken within a towering prison where the Chimera has been sealed away for reasons that are not immediately clear. As the creature struggles to escape, it encounters strange enemies and remnants of forgotten civilizations that hint at the tower’s long history. The narrative is delivered gradually through environmental details, scattered lore, and occasional discoveries during exploration. Rather than prese…

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Killed the first boss on my second run (probably largely thanks to getting 2 ranged attack limbs) - it's not crazy difficult, but attacks are poorly telegraphed and hard to dodge. Combat feels a bit clunky all round. Getting limbs from enemies are a neat idea and all, but it's closer to a concept than something that's well-refined and which works well - it's far too easy to lose limbs, you get far too few of them to compensate, you don't pick the limbs you want as much as you just take the few the game gives you, and plenty of them are largely useless. Meta-upgrades are too expensive and not that interesting (after my second run, I could afford the first upgrade and that's it). The signs telling you what you'll get through which door are also a bit cryptic. Not sure if it tells you which limb you'll get, or just the enemy type. Game also bugged out and I couldn't pick up what the boss dropped. It's not too bad for a dev's first game, but I can't recommend it given how saturated this genre and the industry is with high-quality games.

Chimera is a small action roguelite that puts me in control of the actual mythological Chimera, which is a pretty good change from playing another ordinary hero. I start trapped inside a huge underground tower and have to fight my way through it while trying to figure out why I was imprisoned in the first place. The game is free to play and focuses on short runs, combat and building up my abilities as I go. It is a simple setup, but the idea of playing as the monster rather than fighting one gives it a bit more personality. The best part for me is the grafting system. When I defeat certain enemies, I can take their limbs and attach them to my Chimera to gain new abilities. That gives me a reason to pay attention to what I am fighting instead of just attacking everything with the same moves. I can also use trinkets and relics to change how my build works during a run, so there is some room for experimentation. I like this because it fits the character really well. I am not simply collecting swords and armour. I am literally changing the creature I am playing as. The actual combat is fairly straightforward, but there is enough going on to keep it interesting for a smaller game. I a…

Combat is not very good, with poor feedback and enemies not really telegraphing their attacks. It just doesn't feel very good. The core idea of the game where you use enemy body parts is really cool in concept, but not quite fleshed out enough to hold up. The game has poor support for ultrawide monitors (3440x1440) with many text fields going out the bottom of the screen. There are no options to adjust the resolution to force something more normal. Toggling fullscreen merely puts the game in a window with the fullscreen resolution.

In almost one hour I got stuck in a wall, in a root, in a space but most frustrating - in the exit door at the second boss (jumped near the door and got elevated and bosses were running near the door). Chimera took many bugs from bugs to play further. But idea is fun