izigame.me

What can i say about this game that people probably already haven't said? Yacht Club Games never disappoints in bringing great fresh and new experiences to the table, and they didn't miss with this one! Their partnership with VINE surely paid out, I'm a huge puzzle game and roguelike/lite fan, two of my most played games are both The Binding of Isaac and Tetris, and this game is an almost perfect mix between the two genres (even though the roguelite aspects are minor compared to the puzzle game aspect of Pocket Dungeon, it sure is there and it DOES make a difference!), this is just one of the most fun i've had playing a game in a while to be completely honest.
The hi-res pixel art of this game is nothing short but gorgeous, the animations are fluid, everything is shiny and beautiful, there sure is a lot of visual candy and this is a really important part of puzzle games, it's one of the aspects that help making it addicting (and you can be sure this game IS REALLY ADDICTIVE), the way they translated the designs from the 8-bit styled original game is amazing, it's a weird thing to say, but i'd say the art style of this game is really charismatic by itself, really pretty and comfortable to look at.
Ohhh, the soundtrack...Jake Kaufman sure NEVER disappoints with their songs, doesn't matter which game he is working on and his previous work with Yacht Club on Treasure Trove was already one of the most amazing things i've ever heard, and in this game, i'd personally say he outdid himself with these remixes of the originals, there are some remixes that i just flat out like a bit more than their original versions. Even the original songs for this game like the Puzzle Knight fight theme are amazing, the modern approach and vibe of the soundtrack really helps to build that atmosphere of a more modern stylized Shovel Knight spin-off with the techno/dubstep/breakcore approach he took with most of the songs in the OST of this game, the production on these songs are really out of this world!
And about the gameplay, which i at least imagine is the most important thing to point out in a game, it's just a pure adrenaline rush. People who complain about it simply just don't get it. It's a MATCH-3 FALLING BLOCK PUZZLE game, mixed with ROGUELITE elements, it's not the same thing as a platformer, there is obviously randomness to it, if you complain about RNG on a mix of two genres that are commonly known for having randomness, i don't know what to say to you. I get it, not everyone will enjoy it, but then it's just simply not made for you. At first when i played this game back when it released, i wasn't really in the mood for playing puzzle games but i still gave it a try. It was really challenging. Then i just forgot about it for a while until some weeks ago when i decided i wanted to play this game again and gave it another try, then i stuck with it and something clicked. The more you play it, the more you get better at it, you learn to deal with the procedural-generated stages, and the more you play and fail, the more you get that feeling of "damn that thing i did was really dumb..." or "aaugh, i could've played that better!" and you feel that you're learning intuitively, since the core of the game itself is really simple, the more time you spend into it, the more engrained the gameplay gets inside your brain and it becomes like second nature. And re-learning to play the game with every new character that you unlock is also really, REALLY fun, certainly one of the most fun parts of the game, every character is so unique, it's like you're playing a completely different game since their way of dealing with the game environment is completely different from the standards the game gives you at the tutorial. And even though their playstyles can seem intimidating, if you just go with it, you WILL learn and you will get a lot of enjoyment out of it, even if you have a personal favorite to play as. The amount of replayability is just so huge with only the different characters aspect of the game, add a COMPLETELY FREE, MASSIVE content update on top of it, brand new unlockables, new characters, just a lot of new stuff to enjoy.
My only gripe with the game is a really minor one, which can be completely ans easily fixed by the developers if they so will to do it, that is the roguelite aspects of the game, while they are present and really important to give the game it's uniqueness, i feel that the game could have even more variety in the item pool of the game. You can unlock all the relics from Chester in more or less ten hours of non-stop gameplay. There is basically no item variety in the game, and you will be building the same items every time, which while not exactly something really BAD per se, i wouldn't say it's good too. A part of what make roguelite games fun is the fact that every run is completely distinct and while it is true to some point in this game, it's certainly not because of the items, they are really just there and that's it, you don't even really think about them after you're used to them, there will be some point where you're basically not doing any decision-making about the items themselves because you already know what you want to get every run, which certainly takes away some of that fun of roguelike/roguelite games of doing a lot of wacky, vastly different builds every run. But i can assure that is not a deal-breaker in any sort of way, as the game is still REALLY, REALLY fun, it just could be EVEN MORE fun.
While i am FAR of having played the entirety of the game, since i haven't even been able to complete the true ending with any character so far (which while also fun, can be a real challenge), haven't completed any of the Quadriportals from the new update or anything like that, i can assure you that if you are a fan of one of, or both genres mixed into this game, you are certainly going to have a good time with it! Don't let some of the bad reviews disencourage you from this absolute masterpiece of a game, for me it's a real underrated gem, both as a fan of puzzle and roguelites and as a fan of Shovel Knight as a whole.
GO PLAY IT!!!