• Welcome to Talking Time's third iteration! If you would like to register for an account, or have already registered but have not yet been confirmed, please read the following:

    1. The CAPTCHA key's answer is "Percy"
    2. Once you've completed the registration process please email us from the email you used for registration at percyreghelper@gmail.com and include the username you used for registration

    Once you have completed these steps, Moderation Staff will be able to get your account approved.

The Roguelike Thread of ??? (Use to Identify)

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Been playing a lot of roguelikes this year. Really enjoyed Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX (I put like 100 hours into it!) and have finally gone back to play Chocobo Mystery Dungeon: Everybuddy and am really enjoying myself. Just beat Leviathan who wasn't too difficult - having a partner who can heal you trivializes him. I have to clear someone's memory to advance the story right now, and I'm annoyed because I'm gated from town because of it. I want uncurse my weapon, stupid game!

Anyway, who else loves roguelikes? Let's talk about them!
 

Kalir

Do you require aid.
(whatevs)
I have been finding new and exciting ways to splat my Brogue runs lately. Most recent example: accidentally tripping a paralysis trap while trying to entrance a tentacle horror into some lava.
 

SabreCat

Sabe, Inattentive Type
(he "Sabe" / she "Kali")
Caves of Qud is my current go-to. Great writing, a unique and inventive world, many many viable character builds--it's a lot of fun!
 

Kishi

Little Waves
(They/Them)
Staff member
Moderator
I've really only messed with ToeJam & Earl, but I adore that game. I'd be all over the new one if only I had someone with whom to play it.
 

Riot.EXE

Fighting Game Enthusiast
(He/Him)
I've recently taken to revisiting FATAL LABYRINTH...I still have fun with it, despite how frustrating that game can be.
 
Last edited:

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
I, uh, tried Fatal Labyrinth for the first time on the Genesis Collection for 360 and beat it completely blind in an afternoon (without save states), IIRC. Took me a few hours. I don't know if maybe any changes were made for that version, but it seemed to me to be tuned a lot easier than most roguelikes, even compared to other console roguelikes.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
I’m kinda lukewarm on Roguelikes in general, but there’s a handful that really grab me;

A Robot Named Fight isn’t likely to ever be dethroned as being my favourite
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Anyone else playing the Switch version of Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate? I know it's been out for years on other platforms but this one hit when I'm really in the mood for more roguelikes.

If you have played it, can someone explain to me the difference between the warehouse and the storage unit? Is the warehouse just there so I can use like pots and such, or something? They both seem to just store items and I don't really get why lol. The in-game explanation didn't really make much sense to me.

In any case - it's a Shiren game, so it's fun. Good art style, too. I wish the text moved a little faster, though it's not too slow.
 

Mogri

Round and round I go
(he)
Staff member
Moderator
I am hoping to get it for Christmas. I'm looking forward to it!
 
I beat the main story chapters of Chocobo Mystery Dungeon: Everybuddy earlier this year. I really liked the remixed FF tunes and the charm of the characters. My play through of the main story chapters was very enjoyable. I would encourage anyone to stick with the game through the end of the main story chapters.

I played on easy mode where you lose your items when you die, but not your equipment.

After the main story chapters are complete there are some hard dungeons. I found them to be very difficult and tedious. I did not feel compelled to play through the hard dungeons.

I would play Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate if it was available for PS4 (I don't own a PC or Switch).
 

Nich

stuck in baby prison
(he/him)
I still play Nethack all the time and still get into weird situations and see messages I've never seen before. Just today, something actually happened which resulted in the message "You break out of the invisible warhorse's stomach!"
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Shiren doesn't fuck around. Glad I figured out how to get a points card and some Undo Herbs. Currently grinding up some gear to eventually attempt to get significantly farther past the Hermit's Hermitage. I was starting to take a lot of damage and wasn't one or two-shotting enemies like four floors into the Tower past there, so I bailed haha.
 
Shiren for switch is an excellent game, and I am pleased that my run through the main dungeon snagged me the top spot on the English leaderboard! If anyone needs a rescue feel free to ask me "King Wanderer"! (or if there are a number of us playing maybe there should be a rescue requests thread)
 

Wiggy

(she/they)
I've been playing the recently fan-translated original Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon on PSX! It's my first mystery dungeon game ever, and I've been having a good time exploring things and figuring things out. In particular there's a lot of adorable spritework in the game, which just oozes personality. I'm definitely a fan of the gameplay of the series now too, and I'm excited to play others in the future.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Shiren for switch is an excellent game, and I am pleased that my run through the main dungeon snagged me the top spot on the English leaderboard! If anyone needs a rescue feel free to ask me "King Wanderer"! (or if there are a number of us playing maybe there should be a rescue requests thread)
I saw that, and wondered if it was the person I know from TT! Haha nice. Congrats! I only managed this by getting 31 floors into the Garden of Destiny:


I beat the main story last night, myself. Great game.
 

MrBlarney

(he / him)
I found myself in the mood for a more traditional roguelike with the release of Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate on Switch and ended up purchasing... void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium instead? I saw some videos of it pop up in the history of a streamer I'd been vaguely following, and I guess I found the base building aspect of the game appealing enough to give it a go. I guess the fact that my most recent experience with the Shiren franchise through the Wii entry left me with a slightly sour aftertaste also contributed to my decision. (If I recall correctly, I died in a dungeon after a particular cutoff point, after which I was unable to recover and continue on with the storyline due to an inability to build up enough resources to continue to progress.)

Overall, Void Terrarium lands as a simpler, more lenient game than the Shiren games. There's nothing in terms of item fusion or shopping, no random item identification. The dungeons themselves didn't have a lot of variety either, with all of them drawing from the same tilesets (which, admittedly, makes sense given the game scenario) and, within each dungeon, a very limited set of rooms to draw from. (Additionally, I got a couple of game crashes while playing, but the fact that the game autosaves at the start of each floor made those occurrences not too bad. I also experienced some extreme slowdown in the final dungeon, which kind of helped me know whether or not there was a monster house present.)

Despite that, the game still does some interesting things with its systems.
  • Dungeon Progression: The game does a good job of introducing item types well through its first few dungeons. Each one introduces a new type of item, and only gives the ones with the simplest effects to the player in the dungeons where they are introduced.
  • Rewarding Failure: At the end of a run, whether successful or not, all of the items you were carrying get converted into resources that get used for base building. Base building then gives you permanent upgrades to your character to let you make deeper runs more easily. The fact that you benefit from every run makes losing sting a bit less; you'll also find yourself wanting to voluntarily leave the dungeon once your pockets are lined with valuable materials. It also makes for an interesting decision on what items you want to use to stay alive versus what would be valuable to turn into resources. On the flip side, while the game is mostly on the easy side, it still feels like there's still a certain amount of failure required to build your stats high enough to progress through the mid-game dungeons. There's also a little bit of required grinding in order to manufacture items for story progression.
  • Skill Building: Every time you level up, you get to choose a skill to learn among a random selection. Like opening a pack of trading cards or pulling from a gacha, there's a certain amount of anticipation you get from seeing if you get something that will punt your run to another level. A fair amount of things that you can construct are geared around helping tip the odds of what skills show up into something that fits your style of play. One downside of this level of customization is that once you've manufactured enough tools, it can be surprisingly easy to come up with broken builds. In my endgame runs, it seemed inevitable that I would have at least 40 inventory slots, a 100% critical hit rate, and at least 30% (and not infrequently a maximum 95%) damage reduction rate, which made dungeon crawling effortless.
Through all of these pros and cons, the gameplay loop supported with these systems was enough to see the game through to its ending. (Took me about 28 hours, for reference.) It's not the most polished or balanced game out there, and it won't require all of your attention to complete, but maybe someone out there will appreciate the game being shouted out. It was charming enough for me to want to post about, anyways.
 
Last edited:

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
I started playing Shiren tonight on the Switch. Played for 2.5 hours and beat the easy Tower. I haven't personally played a Mystery Dungeon game before but I have watched a friend play some a long time ago. I'm not sure what to expect when it gets harder because mostly I just hit stuff hard enough that nothing was much of a threat, but I also kept running out of inventory space because I didn't need to use any of my consumables.
 

Mogri

Round and round I go
(he)
Staff member
Moderator
Well, it's time to do the rescue dance. My code is 0101-8678-0098. I died at like floor 6 in Tower of the Future because a monster killed both of my allies and then two-shot me. It's got the haste aura on top of that.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Well, it's time to do the rescue dance. My code is 0101-8678-0098. I died at like floor 6 in Tower of the Future because a monster killed both of my allies and then two-shot me. It's got the haste aura on top of that.
Revival spell sent. Rescue requests are weird in this game... It just had me send you a Revival Herb rather than come get you like in past games. Let me know if I screwed it up...
 

Mogri

Round and round I go
(he)
Staff member
Moderator
Yeah, that did it! I also learned that you need stuff in the storehouse (not the warehouse) if you want to attach it to a thank-you note.
 

frogbeastegg

Mostly, I read
(she, her)
Any beginner-friendly recommendations? Been playing RPGs and strategy games for donkey’s years but never done much with the roguelike/lite genres.

There’s a few potentially suitable titles which I’m aware of and would welcome feedback on, along with any further recommendations which people have. Game pass has Children of Morta and Undermine, both of which look pleasant and seem potentially approachable. Morta has been there for a year so it might be leaving in January. Maybe I should try it before it goes? Chocobo’s Dungeon on Switch gets big plus points for the FF theming. Everyone’s talking about Hades. Tangledeep has a female protagonist and nice spritework. Dead Cells gets love but I’m not good at platformers so potential for frustration seems high. Shiren has intrigued me ever since I saw the write-up for the Vita version on USGamer; talk about leaping in at the deep end with bonus sharks. Touhou Genso Wanderer is supposed to be good but the presentation is unappealing and I’m not sure if it gets pervy. Moonlighter has the shop element which could be fun. I love Super Metroid so A Robot Named Fight could work out, though I enjoy exploring the lovingly handcrafted worlds of Metroid and proc-gen with one chance before deletion doesn’t offer that.

NB: I have some minor sight issues so no bullet hell elements, crazily busy screens in fast action combat, etc, thanks. Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, that sort of thing is not likely to be manageable for me.

Thanks.
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
Brogue? It's a classically styled roguelike, but it also has a very narrow and focused set of mechanics that all work together to form a much greater whole. Also hard to beat the price of free.
 

Mogri

Round and round I go
(he)
Staff member
Moderator
Shiren has intrigued me ever since I saw the write-up for the Vita version on USGamer; talk about leaping in at the deep end with bonus sharks.
Shiren has a relatively gentle curve for the genre, although I'm not sure how much that means to an initiate, since the genre is classically brutal.

You've mentioned roguelites as well as roguelikes (a critical distinction for fans of this thread in particular). Hades is excellent indeed, and I'd recommend it except that the action does get quite hectic at times. Maybe watch a run on YouTube first -- here's one that shouldn't spoil too much.

If you're interested in dipping your toes into roguelikes, Brogue is a great starting point if you can get past the ASCII. If you want something more graphical, Tangledeep is a fairly gentle entrypoint with multiple difficulty options (including various levels of permadeath), an interesting job system, and lovely graphics and music.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX on Switch is an excellent introduction to roguelikes as well. It's on the easier side, but for a beginner there probably will be some decent challenge.
 
Top