3 people found this review helpful
Recommended
24.5 hrs last two weeks / 129.6 hrs on record (18.5 hrs at review time)
Posted: 19 May, 2017 @ 3:42am

Early Access Review
Streets of Rogue is a Rogue-lite simulation-esc game in which you grab one of a number of characters with unique traits and abilities in order to traverse a town of randomly generated buildings completing missions in a number of various ways. The game currently being early access means it currently has no end but the fina end goal is to kill the tyranical mayor whom outlawed chicken nuggets and dance parties (The madman!)


Story/Writing:
The game has little story, similar to other Rogue-lites. In Streets of Rogue you are a resistance fighter against the tyranical mayor, previously mentioned. You must complete missions for the Resistance in order to ascend through the floors from the Slums to the Industrail area to the Park with more to come in the future. (The game currently has 9 floors, 3 of each with the 3rd having an extra surpriise event)
Whilst the story is lacking, as expected. The writing and humour in the game truly makes up for it. It's quirky, weird and self aware chock with various pop-culture references. It's a game that all in all, doesn't take itself too seriously and I truly love it for that given the way AAA games have seemingly forgotten that art.

Gameplay:
The gameplay in Streets of Rogue is relatively both simple and complex at the same time. You can achieve your goals in a number of ways depending on the equipment, character perks and other things you have. For instance, if you play the Scientist, you get a bunch of handy sci-fi esc tools to deal with your foes and can identify syringes (Think the pills in Isaac) This way you can freeze people and use it as either a way to bypass them or use it as a scapegoat. If that's not working, you may have some syringes or cigarretes or something similar that you can jam into an air vent to do a number of effects but most of all clear out the building or killl them outright. The best one being Rage potion which causes an all out brawl within whatever building you put it in.
Optionally, if you perhaps are not the scientist (It's very likely when there are more than 20 characters with more to come) You can brute force the building as the Jock and run straight through the walls of the building (Some walls are unbreakable) or alternatively play a more stealthy option with the Assassin whom can turn invisible orthe doctor whom can put people to sleep or the gangster who can gain a mob of fellow Crepes or Blahds (Crepes 4 lyfe) There are numerous ways you can attain your objectives and the way you do it is up to you.
You can also just outright murder everyone in the map. Or loot everything, or both. You can basically play however you choose. Player Freedom and ingenuity are really at the core of how you play the game. You are rewarded wuith exp, money or other items for whatever it is you choose to do. (Unless you're the cop, you need to be a law abiding citizen)
So basically, go buck wild and have a good time!

Aesthetic:
The Aesthetic is your typical simple 2D sprites with a 3D background being viewed from a top-down perspective. As I stated it's simple but it manages to look nice and clean with little effects here and there to make it more endearing than anything else. Plus the simple nature makes it elatively easy to tell what's going on amidst the chaos that occurs and is sucseptably deceiving for the sheer amount of gameplay that lay beneath the surface.

Soundtrack & Sound Design:
I had to mention it. It's wonderful. If you're like me, you'll spend 10 minutes per floor and hear the trakc loop numerous times yet it never gets repetetive. It's interesting enough to not become repetitive whilst being equally enjoyable and melodic with various instruments used throughout the game that you dont usually hear i.e Steel Drums. Equally each floor has it's own track so that also greatly aids with avoiding repetiveness.
As for Sound Design, everything acts as it should and you can distinguish what is happening via the sound, little clicks for when someone is alerted, alarms when tripping sensors or cameras and explosions that are truly satsfying. Punching people into gibs or through walls has never been so satisfying!

Other notes:
The game has multiplayer but I've yet to try it. This is both local and Online.
The game has plenty of options to turn on and off to customise the flow of the game and such i.e no slow motion or no blood.
Whilst the game is in Early Access, the price is definitely worth the purchase. The amount of content within the game is very vast and the game has a lot of potential for what could be added bot hby the commmunity and the developer himself.
The Developer. He's great. The game has links to the Wiki, the twitter accounts for both him and the artist, the forum, a link to the devblog and a Discord server too. He's very transparent about the game and is very keen to be involved with the community which is great to see. The game also has a feedback form for if you have any suggestions of what you want added or any bgs that you have found. Also, the games part of a humble bundle already which is pretty crazy.
Updates: The game is updated frequently with fixes and new stuff. I'm hoping to see this continue throughout the development of the game and look forward to how the game turns out in the end.

So, should you buy it? If you read all of that and you aren't going to, then I don't think I can really convince you. The game is truly wonderful and refreshing and I hope to see it grow and be a very successful game.
One of the best releases of the year already.
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