izigame.me

Rogue-like? Chore-like!

UPDATED REVIEW: I haven't played the game since I posted this review which was a good 4 or 5 days ago. During that time I have now realized what is "wrong" with this game. And it is not that the goblins are unmemorable and basicly just clones of each other with different genes/stats ,
It is not that the base building aspect is buggy, lacks depth,creativity or innovation like the fact that having goblins in the base will be just that, goblins doing nothing in the base and NOT "One goblin will defend or be the lookout, this goblin will do blacksmithing, this one will clean etc." is such a missed opportunity.
NO, IT IS THE FACT THAT THIS GAME IS BEING TAGGED AS ROGUE-LIKE. What is the most important thing when playing Rogue-like games? It is the randomness of each game and encounter and all the things/upgrades/loots you get and it becomes a dopamine hit and release that you keep playing. It becomes a 'one-more'... until next thing you know its been 12 hours and the sun is almost back up. Don't get me wrong Goblin Stone does have rogue-like aspects to the game but it does so differently than most game. But do keep in mind that this game is also a turn-based RPG so to be honest it can do away with the whole Rogue-Like mission maps and it'd still be the same game. Repetetive and boring and here is why:
The upgrades you get are not permanent but all the deaths are. What makes a Rogue-like? It is the crazy upgrades you get that last until you face off with the final boss or you die and you start over again getting probably different set of crazy upgrades or whatever the gimmick of that rogue-like is.
In Goblin Stone Rogue-like upgrades only lasts for the duration of the mission and any good loot you get while in that mission is also only usable until that mission. Also you don't die a lot but your characters do. And I think some degree of attachment to your character is necessary specially for the RPG aspect of it. After I unlocked the next 3 rows of genes I've become desensitized with losing goblins and it just feels ehh.
So you find yourself playing this game with a bunch of characters you know won't be there the next day while getting upgrades you know won't be there 30 minutes later when you clear the Map. I usually don't care for grinding but this whole set up just really makes it feel like a big chore.
So there you have it why I can not recommend this game. Try if you must for the Story and the gameplay itself is not bad, I actually like the turn base mechanics of this game but like I mentioned it doesn't get any deeper or better 40 hours later.

Old review:
Follow the lives of 2 goblins as they build a base or until they die in the first hour or so (don't get attached to any of them) and gather more goblins, so that you can grind mats grow your base by going on adventures/missions with a party of 6. You will then have a routine of:
- start a mission to collect mats, to make base upgrades/class upgrades and increase goblin limits by killing off or retiring veteran goblins, to make room for more goblins so you can get more upgrades to build a bigger base, to get better, younger, gen z goblins by killing more goblins so you can build a bigger base to house more goblins, you get the point.
Started out fun and fresh during intro until it wasn't.
The game wants you to fall in love with your favorite goblins, or so they say but the game makes it hard to feel attached to any of them as you literally have to farm their souls, either thru death or forced early retirement to increase you base level and unlock more action skills.
At first I wanted to keep all my goblins as long as I can but this is pointless because pretty much all the goblins are the same per generation (per batch/set of genes you unlock). Once you get to the breeding part of the game which is an hour or 2 into it, you will find out that even when you grind for the next 3 hours for mats to max out your goblin capacity, there still isn't enough room for everyone or for more! Soon I find myself killing or retiring the very same minions I tried preserving because 1) that is how you upgrade your main HQ, 2) to make room to breed more gen z gobs because 3) all the goblins you have at the present will always be inferior to the next group you will get simply because you unlock more genes and better traits as you progress.
This game turned the missions/roguelike aspect and base building into a grind fest and is very limiting when it comes to collecting and breeding goblins.
This game have a lot of potential. It isn't a bad game, just a flawed one.
I would still recommend people to play this game but just make sure that when you do, don't fall for the sunk cost fallacy.

The best part of this game is the graphics, unfortunately. There are a lot of design decisions in this game that summarily make it not that fun... the most fun, I guess, is the suspense that something cool might unlock. For me, 13.7 hours later, it didn't happen. I doubt I'll keep going.
The story started off very interesting, but by the second map, I started to really hate it. Instead of being the underdog against the bad humans, it's all about orc supremacy and being their little errand runners non-stop, which actually started in the first map. It's not interesting enough to want to see what happens in the third map.
For the design decisions that I have an issue with:
The controls are annoying - finish a fight, try to loot, it talks at you like Darkest Dungeon (and repeats a lot) but removes your controls, wait, then you try to loot again and sometimes you have to do it twice to make it go. Also, clicking the mouse doesn't loot if you are too far away, it stops moving as soon as you let go of the key, but holding it down won't loot either you have to click it again. Once I found hitting the space key works, I just spam that until it does it.
When completing combat, the combat loot randomly gets dumped somewhere. I especially enjoy it when it puts it behind some of the fancy shrubberies that are in front of the goblins, then I have to fight my camera or hit space a whole lot everywhere. Oh, there is also sometimes random loot that you can't see (there might be a shiny treasure pixel or something) which reinforces my space spamming.
The stages have a ton of temporary buffs, most of which are weak, and the stages are short, which make most of the stage pointless.
The stages are also filled with an odd walking simulator mechanic, I guess in order to see the pretty graphics somebody did, but it's annoying after a while. Maybe I'm just impatient.
Ambushing (approaching an enemy from behind) is random AF. Half the time nothing happens, the other half only part of them are surprised.
Why does bleed to a crapton of damage, but poison takes a very large amount of stacks in order to do anything? If anything, I would think it the other way around (small amount of poison kills, but death by 1000 cuts)
The buildings are extremely uninteresting. You can dig out all this depth, but the only buildings that you can duplicate are the item holding ones and the retiree ones, which are barely helpful. Half my spaces are literally empty.
I keep hoping for a way to add permanent enchantments on my weapons but I have to pray to RNGESUS for the merchant to show up with decent ones - it is rare.
Soul currency is beyond weird. You do not get a soul per goblin death like you may expect, you get X amount of souls depending on if they've seem combat, how many adventures they been on, their age, and if they get to retire or not. That's right, you get more souls if they retire. No souls if they haven't seen combat. What the f...
The breeding doesn't make a lot of sense beyond a basic level. The max stats seem to be tied to the story, so there is no real point to the breeding system - you just do the story then rescue a goblin or hire a squatter then breed that one.

Sadly can't recommend as a big fan of the turn-based roguelike genre. Bugs and performance issues aside, which will be hotfixed eventually.
Gameplay loop & combat is similar to darkest dungeon alternating between adventure -> basebuilding/recruiting -> adventure etc... forming it into one bigger campaign with an actual story rather than being a fast paced in and out kind of game, if thats what you are looking for.
Combat & Map
While combat itself can be very unforgiving, you don't feel any pain in loosing a companion, as the game is designed for you to constantly replace your goblins, and with deaths shortly buffing the remaining members it will be very common to loose a few goblins in a run, while making it almost impossible to not finish the job with the remaining few.
When out adventuring the only ressources you take back home are for basebuilding, upgrades from loot and through random event markers, !which usually are THE gamechangers in roguelike!, will only affect the current adventure and will not carry over (*a single exception). Thus permanent upgrades solely stem from the basebuilding, discouraging you to ever choose the event options on the crossroads and always opt for the ressource markers.
The combat mechanics are kept simple but fine. You can exchange between a small selection of skills for each class before venturing out, but each goblin of the same class will share those skills, which gives less room for costumizing your playstyle (can't run both a dps and supporter shaman at once f.e.)
The variety of enemies and equippable weapons is rather small. A new area only introduces upgraded versions of the same weapon types, with up to 2 straightforward enchantments. Do not expect any common-legendary type of loot.
While the bossfights have a unique design so far, common enemies in a new area only seem to be stronger reskins and even the "tough battle"map markers are just adding quantity instead of introducing elite monsters.
Base & Goblins
The upgrades for each facility seem to provide a reasonable boost. If you want to upgrade everything you need to repeat farm old stages, which do display fixed clear rewards giving farming good consistency. Sadly the monotone mobs and dissmissable map events make farming no fun. Now to the 2 biggest problems in the base; Camp/Merchant + Breeding Grounds; which both result from the same fundamental problem: Everything is capped through Story progression :
A new class in camp will only appear after you beat a story boss, all other recruitable goblins will have a statcap and genepool based on story progression. The merchant completely replaces the weapon stock after certain story points. You cannot discover new Gene Mutations through breeding, breeding can not randomly overstep the parent's statcap. The genepool expands through freeing captive goblin on adventures, yes. But mutations that these captives can have are based on your story progression too. Hitting the story-statcap of 6/6/6, 7/7/7, 8/8/8 + 2 optimal mutations is always the best you can get. If 2 perfect parents breed a new child, but you did not continue the story, the child will most likely be weaker or equal to the parents at best, destroying the whole gimmick which could make the game unique. You don't get a choice to play the game at your pace. You are either too weak and need to grind or you are exactly reaching the current limit set by the game.
Conclusion
Even though the devs choose "mass instead of class" befitting the goblin's nature, it makes grinding painfully bleak knowing there is no room for improvement for individual goblins. You cannot get attached to any of your current goblins as they will be outscaled no matter how many battles they survive, neither can you look forward to your new creations as they can not exceed your expectations through stat breakthroughs or new gene discoveries. The map generation and loot pool is very poor and can't surprise you nor give you a significant change in your permanent powerlevel. In the bigger picture there is no actual RNG involved, you won't ever get the feeling of "damn i'm having a lucky run right now" or the thrill of finding a 1/100 item or perk. While this kind of consistency can be appreciated for certain types of players; for me personally from both an RPG and roguelike viewpoint, it completely misses the mark. If i could decide on the tags, it would be "Turn-Based Combat, Story-Driven, Adventure" if anything.