I’ve sunk probably a thousand hours into Slay the Spire, have beaten Hades, and just finished Cult of the Lamb. Looking for something else to scratch that itch- preferably on switch. Any suggestions?
Update: Y’all convinced me. I bought Binding of Isaac and am excited to start. I also tried out Dead Cells via Netflix, but feel like I’d prefer it with a controller compared to mobile. Gonna start with Isaac, and wait for a sale on Dead Cells. Thank you for all the recommendations! I’m saving this thread for future reference.
My absolute favourite roguelite is Noita.
Beware though, it’s quite different to other roguelites in that the world it creates is suprisingly expansive. You can get lost in it, mentally. There are quests that can take you dozens of hours to complete, all on the same run, and even if you become so absurdly overpowered that nothing can threaten you directly, till you can fly inside the sun, you can still get turned into a sheep and die in a single hit.
Also the wand-building is complex, it’s like a programming language. People have built wands that can teleport you to parallel worlds, and the developers did not intend for that to be possible. And in a way I’ve never seen magic be done before, you can screw up and kill yourself with your wands, just like a discworld wizard. It’s so easy to do, it’s a rite of passage for any new player.
Some people don’t like spoilers on this game so here you go, but honestly getting just a little spoiled made me get properly into it to understand what the hell people were talking about.
Tap for spoiler
I was maybe 8 or 9 hours into reaching the hardest boss in the game, up to NG+24 or so, just a couple of hours away from my destination. I was teleporting, had hundreds of thousands of hit points, had immunity to every kind of damage, could tear through the terrain like it wasn’t there, had weapons that would evaporate any enemy in the blink of an eye even as they became exponentially more powerful with each NG+ level, and I was being careful. I had even pacified the world so nobody would attack. Then some asshole dropped in from off-screen with a wand of transmogrification, got hit by the chainsaw on my tele wand and retaliated while something exploded nearby throwing fire over us, and I, now a sheep, flopped around impotently for a few seconds on fire then just fucking died.
I… stopped playing after that one, I’ll be honest. But I will return.
And rather than simply being repetitive, the way the world loops creates an ennui that’s kind of haunting to me. The whole game is littered with versions of people trying to achieve immortality, and if you manage to reach a point where you actually can’t die, you feel like you’ve soft-locked yourself, because dying is how you get to the end-screen. You can just end the run from the menu, but it feels fake somehow.
10/10 would try to kill god and confront my mortality again.
People have built wands that can teleport you to parallel worlds, and the developers did not intend for that to be possible.
Alright, this has convinced me to give Noita a shot.
I mean, I don’t know how much they anticipated. There are a lot of projectile path modifications that are clearly meant for tinkering, but the idea that they knew their players would do this is hard to tease out. It’s a simulation game built very much on “Things are what they are,” and they know this has deep implications.
Like when I was turned into a sheep, I wasn’t “noita (sheep)”, I was just “sheep”. The noita I had been playing as was effectively stored in a state of nonexistence until the transmogrification wore off, then the sheep was replaced with the noita. So transforming yourself - or simply causing yourself to temporarily cease to exist - can be a way to eliminate side effects of certain things.
If there is one thing that it might be worth spoiling yourself on, if you’re struggling to finish a run, is in the next spoiler.
Tap for spoiler
Learn to escape the Holy Mountain without collapsing it. Being able to return to edit wands, go back up in the world, and access health is a game-changer. Finishing the game without that trick is something I don’t think I’ve ever done.
All the big lore stuff is discovered after finishing your first run anyway as far as I can tell.
Other than that, I would look up how to design good wands. This can be a good thing to learn by doing for a while, but there are deep interactions that you could soend a thousand runs not learning. I think the shared science is a big part of what makes this game great.
Thank you for the in-depth explanation! I’ve wishlisted it and will pick it up when it goes on sale. The art is absolutely beautiful, I can see how it could get haunting and lonely.
Have you tried Mystery Dungeon? I think there are four of them on Switch. There’s Shiren the Wanderer 5 & 6, Chocobo’s Mystery Dungeon Every Buddy, and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX. If you’ve never tried the Mystery Dungeon format, then I’d recommend playing the demo for the Pokemon one to see if you like it first.
I’ve played several Shiren games (1 on DS, 3 on Wii, 5 and 6 on Switch) and I recommend Shiren 6 (Mystery Dungeons of Serpentcoil Island).
5 kinda went too far from its roguelike roots and feels too grindy, with too many ways to escape safely, especially easy ways to undo your death indefinitely.
6 is a lot more fun to me and makes good runs and crazy builds more special again.
For a very good introduction to the series, if you can play it, the port of Shiren 1 on DS is great and already has a lot of what makes those games fun. There is also a rom hack translation for the original on Super Famicom (that one only existed in Japanese), but I’ve not played that one much.
Like most others said. Dead Cells and Binding of Isaac are the top dogs. No matter what else I play I always circle back to one of those two eventually and get sucked in again. But some other lesser known ones that are good are:
Cursed to Golf - 2d golfing roguelike, no combat or anything. There’s a bunch of different cards to make the ball do different stuff. From a rocket ball you control after hitting to an ice ball that’ll freeze water hazards to a drill so you can tunnel through walls.
Oblivion Override - 2d with fast combat and a lot of perks and weapons that change things up. Perks from different “trees” have synergies that are a lot of fun.
Rogue Prince of Persia - 2d parkour style combat made by the folks that did most of Dead Cells post launch updates, still in early access but still fun.
Soundfall - not a true roguelike, top down rhythm shooter with random loot.
BlazBlue Entropy Effect - 2d with a boatload of different classes, different elemental perks that synergize and each class has different perks to add new melee combos
Curse of the Dead Gods - isometric with slower parry based combat, has some mechanics with light and dark that some folks don’t like. If there isn’t a light source nearby you can’t see traps and take extra damage but you can pull a torch out to light braziers or enemies on fire to illuminate the area.
Ravenswatch - same people that made Curse of the Dead Gods. Isometric with different classes and online co-op.
Voidigo - top down shooter with unique art and sound design. Lot of weapons and four or five different characters with unique abilities.
Have a Nice Death - 2d melee with nice movement, mechanics don’t seem as deep as others but still fun.
Dandy Ace - isometric with ranged combat. Magician that throws cards around, good selection of abilities.
Patch Quest - top down, hard to explain this one, might wanna watch a video to see how it plays.
Devil Slayer Raksasi - top down with a lot of elemental effects. Haven’t spent much time with it though.
Well this got a bit longer than I meant but they’re all solid, not sure if they’re all on Switch though.
One more, not a roguelike at all but Switch exclusive and a surprisingly awesome game. Golf Story, check it out.
Raksasi is not so much about elemental effects as it is about spacing and good core action. It’s also a fantastic game with a lot of value.
Shows how much time I spent with that one. I just remembered enjoying it but started running into enemies that had all kinds of status effects and not liking getting blinded and slowed constantly. Need to get back to it eventually.
Dead Cells is 50% off on GOG right now.
If you enjoyed Hades, you might like the new Ninja Turtles game, Splintered Fate. It’s definitely a bit more than “inspired by” Hades. Doesn’t quite hit the same, but it’s still a good time.
While I also strongly recommend Dead Cells like others, I think it’s best if you first play Rogue Legacy. Let’s put it this way, if Rogue Legacy is like a good cup of coffee, dead cells is cocaine, or maybe crack.
I have generally found roguelikes to be too difficult, so if you want a turn-taking, strategic one that leans into the easier side while letting you set up many ridiculous combinations, I enjoy “Backpack Hero”. You get a Resident Evil 4 styled inventory screen, and must arrange/place items for an optimal build. You generally get rewarded for stacking similar items.
The Bazaar is a similar game releasing soon. It’s still primarily focused on developing synergies between items in your build, but there’s more varied events between pvp fights and configuring your pack is simpler because it’s on a line rather than a grid, if that makes sense. It will be releasing as free to play probably in February or March.
Wizard of Legend
Ants Took My Eyeball - Pixel graphics, awesome soundtrack, ridiculous premise. One my favorite roguelites ever. Similar to Dead Cells and Noita.
Pathway is fun and I think counts as a Roguelite. If you also enjoy Rhythm games I would recommend Crypt of the NecroDancer. There’s also Peglin that is pretty good. Getting off the switch I want to recommend Noita, but that game is also kinda intense in terms of both brutal difficulty and just how much stuff there is the game puts out of the way. I will also second the other recommendations for Darkest Dungeon, Risk of Rain 2, and Enter the Gungeon.
You owe it to yourself to try some traditional Roguelikes:
- Caves of Qud (Just released 1.0 a month ago. Amazing game. Unique science fiction world full of weird and wonderful characters, complex tinkering crafting system, crazy mutants and really cool cybernetics. Huge amounts of lore and a rich detailed world. I can’t stop playing it!)
- Shattered Pixel Dungeon (Really awesome game with a friendly developer who posts on Lemmy. Extremely well balanced classes: 5 main classes with a 6th in development. Cool character customization and equipment upgrade system. Super deep alchemy system. Probably the best mobile roguelike but amazing on PC too, with a great UI for every platform)
- NetHack (old school, developed since 1987 and still active, very tough game, might not want to try this one first. Incredibly rewarding once you learn it! Absolutely crazy amount of interactions between items, characters, and features in the dungeon. Takes its “verb-based action system” much farther than any other game, including text adventure games)
- Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup (very complex but not as brutal and spoilery as NetHack. Extreme replay value due to the huge number of species, backgrounds, skills, and gods)
- Tales of Maj’Eyal (not as many races as DCSS but still a huge variety of character builds. Great music as well)
Two of my favorites are Vagante and Streets of Rogue. Vagante is a great challenge with all sorts of build variety and interesting choices to make along the way. Streets of Rogue is comedy and chaos. Both are a great time either single player or in co-op, either local or online.
I don’t know if you are into Mystery Dungeon games, but I loved both of Void Terrarium games. Both on switch.
Came here to suggest The Binding of Isaac, but it looks like people already convinced you. Hope you love it! I’ve achieved 100% completion at around 870 hours, and one of my acquaintances is currently at 4.1k hours played of that. It’s an incredible amount of fun
Hollow Knight
I’ll try to name some unusual ones I enjoy
Pokerogue - a Pokémon one that’s surprisingly well made but grindy
Rogue tower - tower defense
Peglin - pachinko roguelite
Backpack battles - a weird inventory game where you auto battle other peoples builds but it’s not really pvp so don’t worry if you’re not into that