The Serpent Rogue is an fascinating mashup. It’s half Souls-like, half crafting, and an entire lot of trial and error. It’s each accessible and difficult, cute and inscrutable, and it forces you to attempt to fail repeatedly and once more in probably the most charming method doable.
It’s about grinding assets after which being playful with them.
The sport presents a top-down map whereby you’re a “Warden,” a category of being who’s summoned to defeat the corruption that’s laying waste to the land. You will need to defeat enemies, craft potions, forge weapons, and enlist allies that will help you. And also you costume like a bubonic plague Beak Physician, however in chibi type and—frankly—cute as a button.
The land you’re saving is split into a number of areas. A few of thoses are secure on a regular basis, like the home the place you’ll be able to analysis substances and blend potions, or the close by camp the place you’ll be able to forge weapons. Different areas are hostile, stuffed with creatures each impartial (will ignore you until attacked, or will be made into followers) and corrupted (assault on sight). An extra drawback is corruption storms, which pop up and trigger injury for so long as you’re within the space. Leaving an space and returning to it causes the monsters to reset.
Crafting is the guts of the sport in some ways. You’ll often discover scrolls that offer you a recipe, but it surely’s largely a technique of trial and error as you harvest substances from the world over and experiment with their combos. The sport has loads of time dedicated to this, so how a lot you take pleasure in screwing up a potion time and again till you lastly discover a mixture that works will decide how a lot enjoyable you’ll have.
You may craft three sorts of objects: potions, instruments, and meals. The method is straightforward—go to the suitable crafting station (potion bench, forge, range), drag and drop the parts you need right into a combiner, and hit a button to make them. However there’s multiple answer. Put a chunk of uncooked meat into an oven with firewood, and also you get a steak, which you need to use to revive stamina. However, in the event you prepare dinner uncooked meat with an egg, you get steak ’n’ eggs, which supplies you an excellent greater increase.
In case you attempt combining issues that don’t have a “right” recipe, you lose the substances, however you additionally be taught what not to do. And until you search for the recipes on-line, you’ll be doing {that a} lot.
Fight is usually a run-and-gun, Smash-TV-style affair the place you throw a potion from a distance or hit your opponent with a device then rapidly transfer away to dodge. This turns into simpler as you be taught the enemies’ assault patterns, but it surely’s nonetheless barely wonky. Whereas The Serpent Rogue does permit you to lock on to foes, the lock breaks fairly simply, leaving you fumbling your assault as you attempt to run away.
You may recruit followers within the type of animals, people, and spirits. Animals and dwelling people must be bribed with the precise merchandise (canine need uncooked meat, for instance), and when you unlock the trail to the mysterious harbor, a ghostly ship will arrive frequently with spirits which you can purchase as companions. All of them will allow you to struggle, carry issues, and lend their expertise.
Therapeutic is type of off-beat on this sport; whereas you need to use well being potions to immediately restore your hit factors, you additionally regenerate slowly by burning off stamina, which you get by consuming. Stamina can be used for working, however after you cease working it can replenish to no matter degree it was at earlier than. The sport is definitely playable in the event you’re out of stamina and may’t discover meals, however with out the power to heal or run, you’re going to must be very cautious about the way you proceed.
Fight-wise, The Serpent Rogue is fairly forgiving. In case you die, you get up again in a secure space. Any gadgets you have been carrying, nevertheless, are left on the spot the place you expired. And in the event you die earlier than retrieving them, they’re gone for good.
The Serpent Rogue provokes totally different feelings whereas taking part in it. The crafting facet is gradual and stress-free as you discover new gadgets, analysis them to search out their properties, and apply making new issues. Fight, although, is fast and demanding, as you attempt to handle motion, aiming, and merchandise administration. It really works, although, and matches in with the sport’s theme that this Warden is a newly shaped being who’s in a world-saving quest and is in waaaaay over his head.
