Game: Rogue Wizards
Genre: Role-Playing, Adventure, Strategy, Action, Rogue-Like
System: Nintendo Switch (also on mobile, Steam, GoG, PS4, and Xbox One)
Developer | Publisher: Spellbind Studios
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 3+
Price: US $14.99 | UK £10.79 | EU € 11,99
Release Date: July 15 2021
Review code used with many thanks to Spellbind Studios.
Rogue Wizards is a brand new dungeon crawler rogue-like adventure game. This game was not only funded successfully on Kickstarter but its developer and publisher, Spellbind Studios, is a one-man show. Let’s dive right into the story.
The Story
Rogue Wizards is about a character that gets sucked into a magic scroll and right into the middle of an adventure. As hungry adventurers, players sift through what looks like an empty inn in search of money, but they find a scroll instead. Written on it is a curse that causes players to be bound to a quest to save another realm.
The gameplay of Rogue Wizards
The game has two modes: Story and Gauntlet. Story mode is an easier mode that is quest-driven and allows players to respawn in town on death. Gauntlet, however, is a true rogue-like with permanent death, no story, and progressively harder dungeon crawling. Depending on which mode players pick, Rogue Wizards becomes a completely different challenge.
As players move through dungeons, they meet with more and more difficult enemies that drop progressively better and better loot. Players can pick up potions, armour, all different kinds of weapons, and even gems that can be socketed into equipment to make them better. Depending on which type of weapon a player wants to specialize in, they can look for and equip trinkets and armour that helps to boost their stats with that weapon.
As the adventurer, you can choose to focus on spellcasting with a staff, melee with a sword, axe, or another close-range weapon, or even specialize in ranged combat, using bows or sharp round disks that can be thrown at targets. This allows players to choose what sort of specialist they wish to be every time they play.
The combat is turn-based, giving the setting an even more D&D-like feeling. Players can use their turns to use potions, change weapons, cast spells, move one space (or more if your speed is high enough), melee, or attack at range. Although turn-based, the combat is as fast as you want it to be. With everyone taking only one action per turn, turns do go by in a snap. However, players can take as long as they want during their own turns (at least in Story Mode) to decide who to attack first or how to move.
The combat is a little strange at first, but once you get used to it, it is a lot of fun. Each type of enemy is a completely different type of style to battle against too, making fights even more interesting. The flow of regular movement into combat is so smooth too; players only ever have to sit through a fight-starting cutscene when they battle against a boss.
The Pros of Rogue Wizards
Rogue Wizards had a successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2017 that raised $74,739 from 1,429 backers. It attracted all those backers with its beautiful, clean, and stylized graphics, and it really delivered after the Kickstarter was over. Players are treated to a wide selection of possible talents, skill trees, armour, and weapon combinations that really allow a player to tailor each run to match their equipment or preferences.
This game is incredibly polished, and it gives players tons of options to make play as visually appealing to each person as possible. You can change the visual effects of how the screen fades in and out of existence, turn tutorials on and off, change the game speed, toggle damage numbers on and off, and even change the HUD offset. These seemingly little adjustments can help players to feel as comfortable as possible with the visuals on the screen.
There are so many items to choose from in this game. While I tend to gravitate toward melee classes in most games, Rogue Wizards makes it so easy to switch between weapons and classes that I could use basically whatever worked best in each individual situation while still focusing most of my stats on melee.
Overall, this game is so pretty, so smooth, and interesting. There is a lot in the story about changing what is allowed for women to do in the world. This gives it a strong and wonderful feminist message. There is not a whole lot of in-depth lore or story to the game, but what is there is positive and great for any age.
The Cons of Rogue Wizards
I cannot come up with any cons for this game. The visuals are great, the music is great, the battle system takes a bit to get used to, but I really like it. I would recommend this game to anyone!
Conclusion
I adore this game. It’s so much fun and has tons of replayability. If you like rogue-likes or dungeon crawlers and D&D-like settings, you cannot go wrong with Rogue Wizards.
Final Verdict: Two Thumbs UpÂ
