Necropolis: Brutal Edition Review

At this point in time, comparing something to Dark Souls is trite to the point of being a joke, but in this case, it's quite apt. Necropolis, developed by Harebrained Schemes, is the Dark Souls of roguelikes, and that's no joke. Necropolis is a multiplayer soulslike roguelike, and it's probably about as rad as it sounds. Although, I think it's a bit more apt to compare Necropolis to Bloodborne, as the gameplay is more fast-paced and considerably more forgiving than that of Dark Souls.

For those who don't know: Dark Souls (and Bloodborne as well) is a notoriously difficult game in which any and every combat scenario can end in the player's death if they are not careful. The player must read their opponents and look for safe openings to attack or risk losing most of their health to a single hit, since every attack has start-up and end lag that will lock the player into a vulnerable state. The gameplay in Necropolis is quite similar; enemy patterns must be learned to avoid losing precious health, but unlike Dark Souls, not every enemy will take most of the player's health in one hit. However, given that Necropolis is a roguelike, the player has no sorts of checkpoints to fall back on when they die like they would in Dark Souls; they will have to start from scratch after every death. Everything from the beginning to death/victory will be randomly generated, so the player also can't repeat a scenario until they get it right.

Also unlike Dark Souls, Necropolis doesn't take itself that seriously. Where the tone in Dark Souls is like "There is no hope, everything is bad and you should feel bad," Necropolis is more like "Yeah, you're probably going to die, but I'm going to benefit from it, so it's all good." This silly tone serves not just to keep the player from wanting to break something when they die after finding cool stuff, but to help the player remember what an item does as well. The game does not directly state what any given item does, so players must surmise their gears' abilities and item effects from the descriptions. For example, the player can equip Codex books to acquire a passive buff. Once such Codex, "Keeping Your Blood on the Inside (And Other Tips)," doesn't outright tell you that it grants health regeneration; however, one might surmise that from the part of the description that says "you can slowly recover from any wound."

The Necropolis

Traps

Darkness

Codex

Additionally, potions and magic scrolls must be identified before they have proper descriptions (for as "proper" as descriptions get in this game), but items of the same type have the same description while unidentified, so the silliness can help one remember the effects of an item. One scroll I obtained had the description "Picture of a snake on fire, magic word, something that looks like a liver, magic word," which turned out to be a healing scroll. Because I associated the "Picture of a snake on fire" part with the healing glow of the scroll, I trusted that the next unidentified scroll with the same description would be a healing scroll - and it indeed was. Don't go and write that down, though, as these descriptions are random between each player, so while the "Picture of a snake on fire" scroll may be a Scroll of Healing for me, it may end up being a Scroll of Command for you.

When Necropolis first debuted, it had only one playable class, the Blackguard, but the game later received an update that added one more: the Brute. While Blackguards are swift and good with light weapons, Brutes are the opposite; slow but powerful, and good with heavy weapons. Brutes also have higher starting health pools, are harder to stagger, have have more staggering power to their attacks. Sure does make Blackguards sound bad, huh? Well, the Brutes also posses a slower dodge move than the Blackguards and sprint at a slower speed, so it's harder for Brutes to escape from enemies should they need to recover. Personally, despite my usual preference for tankier, harder hitting playstyles, I prefer playing as a Blackguard. I find the speed of Blackguards more fun to use than the staggering power of the Brutes.

As previously mentioned, Necropolis's combat revolves around reading your opponents and look for safe openings to attack. Both Blackguards and Brutes start off with a simple shield and a longsword - a starting set-up that's technically better for Brutes than Blackguards, since longswords are heavy weapons. The heavier a weapon is, the slower its swing is, but the more likely it is to stagger or knock down an enemy. Brutes do great with these both because they swing them faster than Blackguards do, but also because of their naturally higher staggering power. On the contrary, Blackguards are better with lighter weapons than Brutes are because they swing them faster.

Each weapon has a light attack combo and a heavy attack combo, as well as light and heavy power attacks and even jump attacks; though, power attacks and jump attacks exhaust the player character, reducing their maximum stamina until they restore it with an item such as a Ration or through one of the other, much less common methods such as receiving an upgrade from the fountain found at the end of each floor. Ranged weapons, such as wand or crossbows, also cause exhaustion with each shot. For this reason, ranged weapons kind of suck, especially for how rather uncommon they can be and how considerably weak they are. You're better off using power attacks over ranged weapons, since they'd deal more damage and hit more than a couple of enemies.

Both melee and ranged weapons are always one-handed weapons, with melee going in the right hand and ranged weapons and shields being held in the left. This leave a disappointing lack of playstyles to experiment with. There aren't any two-handed weapons, off-hand melee weapons, or dedicated ranged movesets, so you're basically stuck with a sword-and-shield moveset. Personally, I'd love to see these kinds of options added. Imagine: greatswords that sacrifice defense for damage and staggering power, which would be excellent in the hands of a Brute; dual-wielding that likewise sacrifices defense for offense, but with an emphasis on speed rather than staggering power, which would be great for Blackguards; large bows with staggering power and mage staves (that actually work) with crowd-control power. These sorts of new playstyles could add extra value to rarer items and make more runs feel distinguished from one another.

Another thing that can contribute to runs feeling similar is the lack of enemy variety for the first couple of floors. Hordemen, Screamers, Hollowmen, Skeletons, and Grine; these might sound like completely distinct enemies, but they're all very similar in that they're basically just dudes with swords. While I wouldn't argue that the enemy variety is bad throughout the whole game, but you will fight those five aforementioned types very frequently early on and they persist throughout much of the game, so their presence can become tiresome after some time. Thankfully, however, if you get tired of fighting them, you could always trick the enemies into fighting themselves. Enemies are rather dumb and careless, so they can often end up hitting other enemies when attempting to attack the player, and in addition, some enemies just plain don't like each other and will fight one another directly.

When you inevitably die, you're rewarded Tokens of Favor (presumably) depending on how well you did, but it seems rather arbitrary. I've gotten two Tokens of Favor after runs that didn't make it past Level 2, yet on runs where I've gotten to Level 3, I just barely don't do well enough for a single Token of Favor. It seems to be based on how many Gems are collected in that run, but in the previous example, I definitely collected more Gems in the longer run. Tokens of Favor can also be earned by completing tasks give by the Brazen Head, which can be anything from killing a certain amount of enemies to opening a certain amount of treasure chest. Unfortunately, all tasks reward the player with only a single Token of Favor, regardless of how difficult the task is.

Tokens of Favor can be spent on Codex books, alternate palettes for the player characters, or to open the chest that the Brazen Head offers once per floor. I find it slightly disappointing that there is nothing of value to work towards between deaths beyond these things. Of course, dying isn't supposed to be rewarding, but it would be nice to have something to work towards other than defeating the final boss. You know, something that feels like progress, even if you don't actually make it farther into the game. In combination with the lack of variety to playstyles and the slow rate at which one can earn Tokens of Favor, this lack of anything else to work towards can make the game feel repetitive rather quickly, which is an especially bad thing for a game of this nature.

This lack of a sense of progress is something that I think is quite unfitting for a game that's a combination of the soulslike and roguelike subgenres, considering that some of the best examples of both subgenres do this much better. For an example - perhaps the most obvious one - Dark Souls rewards the player with Souls for killing enemies, which can be spent to improve the player's stats. Thus, should they struggle with a particular segment, they can at least earn Souls for what parts they can progress through and spends them on stat improvements, making the part they struggle with easier (even if only slightly so). Enter the Gungeon and Crypt of the NecroDancer both have in-game currencies that can be earned mid-run and spent post-death on new items that will appear during future runs. Heck, even Has-Been Heroes, a roguelike criticized (not by me) for being repetitious, at least rewards the player with a new item and a new spell after nearly every death.

It certainly doesn't help Necropolis's repetition problem that starting a new run is rather tedious. For most roguelikes, when you die, you can get right back into it. With Necropolis, however, you have to re-select your character, re-select your desired color palette, then run through the hub, gathering the Gems, crafting materials, and potential Rations scattered about and re-equipping your desired Codex. This process is quite tedious, especially if you die frequently - as one is likely to do given the nature of the game. Sure, you could just not do most of that stuff, but you'd really be shooting yourself in the foot to not grab a Codex or scrounge for potential Rations. It'd be really nice if the game would at least pre-set you to the last character and color palette you were and auto-equip the last Codex you used to make starting a new run a smoother experience.

That said, Necropolis is still considered an "early access" game, so these flaws may get cleared up with another update, much previous flaws did when the Brutal Edition patch launched. Under this notion, I'm giving Necropolis a 4 out of 5. What exists is solid, but there is plenty of room for improvement. The combination of soulslike and roguelike subgenres makes for an interesting experience, and the game's humor, setting, and lore make me eagerly await the next update not just for potential gameplay tweaks and additions, but for potentially more insight into the world that Necropolis takes place in.

(Screenshots were captured on a low-power PC and thus may not accurately represent the full potential of the game's graphics.)

Title Art Source - Official Necropolis Website: http://necropolisgame.com/presskit/