Skeletal Avenger Mini Review

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FlyingPenguin
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Skeletal Avenger Mini Review

Post by FlyingPenguin »

I picked up this game on sale a few months ago. It's a roguelite was billed as a "Diablo Lite" for people who don't have the patience for Diablo (like me).

It's a simple game hiding some complex skill and equipment management in the background. Playing a dungeon won't take more than 20 minutes. depending on it's difficulty, and you can save at any time.

I found the game difficult to start off, but part of that is building the memory muscle for the buttons (I'm playing on a controller, but you can also use keyboard and mouse - IMO though, it's best played o a controller). There's also a slight learning curve for how each enemy type needs to be dealt with. You start out with no armor, decent weapons, or perks, so your first several games should be easy dungeons to get some of these and some gold so you can buy improved stats.

The game is quite addictive. I've got 10 hours into it and finally progressed to the harder sewer sections with new enemies that require different tactics. Dungeons are randomly generated so while there are similarities in design, no two dungeons are exactly the same.

You are a resurrected soul, occupying a skeleton resurrected by a wizard. Your primary goal is to defeat the boss at the end of each dungeon, and steal his blood crystals. Blood crystals unlock new areas and get you closer to avenging your death. The catch is when you die, you lose some of the hard won crystals. However, over time, you can increase a skill that reduces the number of crystals you lose when you die, and that eventually makes life easier. When you die, the wizard re-animates you in a different corpse and that corpse will have one unique skill (you pick from three possible corpses).

Hacking and slashing is fun, but another weapon is your skull, which you can throw to deal serious range damage, especially when you get a better helmet later on. You can recall your skull when thrown, but it takes time (there's a perk that reduces this) or walk over and pick it up after throwing it.

You find more perks as you explore the dungeon by smashing furniture and cairns, but those perks all go away when you finish the dungeon, or die. Your health and armor also carries over between dungeons, so it's worth managing them so as not to start a new dungeon low on health.

Very fun game, and it's 30% off now ($11.89). I feel the 10 hours I've spend on it is worth what I paid.

It has a Very Positive rating on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1277 ... l_Avenger/

Good review here, despite his complaints, although he reviewed it in April and some things may have changed since then:
"Turns out I’m 'woke.' All along, I thought I was just compassionate, kind, and good at history. "

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