Then there’s the progression, as this is a rogue lite and not a straight-up rogue like. Because the gargoyle can glide, it registers as multiple double jumps and I pretty much could just carpet bomb entire areas by flying over them. These work in combination with your skulls and I discovered some very cool synergies between them, such as the gargoyle skull and an upgrade that caused me to drop bombs every time I double jumped. One upgrade may simply increase your attack speed while another may summon a familiar every time you attack. The variety doesn’t stop at just the skulls though, the game also has a decently sized enemy roster, some neat bosses, and your standard passive upgrades and stat buffs just like most other action roguelites. This gives the combat a nice layer of depth to it, as you’re basically encouraged to swap between skulls depending on the situation and I quite liked the dynamic there. You can have two of these skulls equipped at any given moment, and each has a unique ability that activates when you swap to it. Those are just a couple examples of the variety offered by these skulls, and there are dozens to be found and even more so when you consider that most of them can be upgraded a few times to unlock different attacks and abilities. This applies to the class’ abilities too, with one throwing out 21 piercing cards and another throwing out dice that rain down darts based on what they landed on. This skull has you throw out 1-5 cards as your basic attack, with a 30% chance of one of those cards being an explosive joker card, with each joker card then having a 20% chance of failure and a 10% chance of a much bigger explosion. Then you get something like the gambler, a legendary skull with a much lower drop rate. That’s one of the most basic skulls though. They’re basically classes, each revolving around some theme and some really changing the way you play the game.įor example, there’s one skull that has you equipped with a spear, allowing quick and easy attacks from a little bit of a range, with one of the abilities being to dash through groups of enemies spear-first. The weapons and abilities you have at any given moment are granted by whatever skull you have equipped, and these skulls can be found as room rewards or in shops during each run. For one, I really liked the dynamic between the “skulls” that you can equip and regular items. Skul may not be perfect here (which I’ll get into later), but it has a solid grasp on this concept. Alongside core combat, roguelites also need something differentiating each run, to avoid the game feeling repetitious or grindy. If anything, that’s a testament to how fun the combat is. However, it kept me coming back, even when it felt like I had hit a wall. Bosses will constantly stomp you, certain room layouts may be a guaranteed half-HP loss, and it can honestly be quite frustrating at times. This is an incredibly difficult game, especially at the start when you have barely any upgrades. However, that is not to understate the game’s difficulty. There is so much movement to the combat that I was quite literally zipping around in most of the fights, especially so whenever I had a speed class equipped. Want to cancel that attack and double dash to the side before flying back in with your next attack? No problem. This is perhaps best seen in the movement, which is incredibly responsive. It’s a very fast-paced game most of the time and there’s nothing like stamina meters to slow you down. Hits offer up ample feedback, the controls are intuitive, and there’s really no sense of clunkiness to it. The core to any good action roguelite is combat, and that is fortunately something you won’t have to worry about with Skul.
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