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Hi, this is HexyWoo and welcome to the second of my game reviews.This time, I'll be showing
you Eldritch. It's an Indie Roguelike, based in a Lovecraftian world of unspeakable horrors.
If you're not familiar with the term 'Roguelike', it's just an annoying-to-say word that is
used to describe a genre of games that are similar to the 80s game Rogue. They're generally
randomly-generated dungeons or rooms and they have perma-death. Eldritch does have perma-death,
but once you've unlocked a book it stays unlocked, and you can go into the worlds in any order
you like really. Which I'll come to later. You play as an adventurer, starting out in
a library. There are books dotted around the library and they tell you a little bit about
the story and there's also a whole section of books which tell you how to play the game.
You can play the game with a controller, it works really well in Steam 'Big Picture' mode,
which is great for a little indie title. It looks a lot like Minecraft, it really, REALLY
does look a LOT like Minecraft, but don't be put off by that, because it's NOTHING like Minecraft at all. It doesn't play the same way. It's completely different.
The game's major strength is in the audio and you are not going to really experience that in this review because
I'm talking away over the top of it. But the sound is just so amazing. Because you look
at the graphics and it looks like Minecraft and the monsters they look, some of them are
really cute and they have silly little faces and they... to be honest, even the noises
the monsters make isn't exactly scary on its own. But when you get into this game, it's
SO immersive, it takes you by surprise. You don't expect it to get you so hooked and you
don't even need a good pair of headphones. It is even better with those obviously, I'm
not saying don't wear them. But, just playing it coming through my monitor speakers or my
main speakers, you get really into it. And you surprise yourself with how into you it
you get. You'll hear sleeping statues snoring and be terrified and you'll hear footsteps
around a corner and not want to go round, and you'll hear the bubbling and slurping
from a Shoggoth and you will run away. Because those things are horrible. Some of the monsters
have ways of killing them, some you'll just run up and punch in the face because you can.
And some you can only stun, so you need a bit of strategy involved with them. And there
are other monsters that you can't destroy, you can't even hurt them, you can't do anything
but just, get away from them, get out of line of sight as quick as you can. And it's quite
interesting that this encourages you to change up your play-styles a little bit. As do the
rooms, or the books. Sometimes you can just, especially in the first book, you can just
run into enemies and punch them and they'll die. It's as simple as that. It's quite easy
to get away from things, you don't really have to worry about too much. In other books,
you'll find yourself sneaking everywhere. And there are different abilities.You get
a magic ability that you can use with one of your hands. There are a few to choose from
and you can use them to suit your play-style or to suit the way that you need to play that
particular dungeon. There are also different types of boots, you can sneak and have silent
footsteps or you can... you can jump really high. There are medical kits that let you
revive, there's also tinning and if you use Tinning you're such an evil human being. Why
would you do that to those creatures. There's amulets too that have different abilities,
if you really wanna just run through the level then the compass is the best. It's the first
thing you get in room one. It's the very first thing, you get a compass, it shows you where
the exist is. So if you can get a compass and some Dynamite, you're generally sorted.
You just blast a hole down. the different books do make you play differently. I do find
the difficulty is a little bit messed up in the progression. because I find, and I've
read other people find the same thing, book one is really easy, book two is REALLY, really
quite hard... in the grand scheme of things. Especially compared to book three, book three
is OK, they're in a weird order. So, personally, now I've got them all unlocked, I play book
one, then book three, then book two. It's because I find the monsters in book two are
a lot harder to deal with. Especially the lizardmen statues. I hate them. If you don't
like the Weeping Angels in Dr Who, you'll hate them too. They're basically the same
idea. You do not turn your back on them, or you'll die. There's also currency you'll find
scattered around the place in the form of these blue coins which are... artefacts and
they're really useful. You can store those in chests and you can store those in the
library, there's a chest there. I'm not sure how useful that really is. I mean, unless
you go through the first room and you collect all the artefacts, come back, dump them in
the chest and restart. I'm not sure how useful it is. I've never really used it. Now, having
said that the first book is really easy. If you find that the whole game is really easy,
which... is possible, I'm bad at these kind of games so it was quite easy, but it wasn't
really easy. But if you find that it is really easy, then I would suggest you grab that compass,
run to the end and just speed-run the whole thing. Do all of the levels, because there
is New Game Plus, it's a bit of a give-away, but there is, there is New Game Plus in this
game, and it is MASSIVELY difficult compared to the first run through.And you might get
a little bit more out of it, but the only thing is. With any game with New Game Plus,
you don't necessarily wanna see everything in the first run. Because it makes the second
run not quite as interesting. So I would suggest, if you're finding it really easy on book two,
then I would just blast your way through. Literally. Another last thing I will say about
this game, just to say how great i think it is. And I think it's definitely worth your
money, it's not an expensive game. But the one thing that i found really interesting,
was they actually released DLC, 'the Mountains of Madness' and it's all icy and snowy. This
was FREE DLC on an indie game which I think is great... and it looks like there's more
DLC to come, but I'm not 100% on that. But it changes things up again as I've... I spent
so long on book two and the library, being a little bit sneaky and then it comes to the
DLC and there's icicles on the ceiling which you have to run from. You have to run through
those or you will die. So I'm trying to still get my head around running, which i can't
do yet... so I die. But I would say definitely pick this game up, it's not even that expensive
so you don't have to wait for a sale. DO IT!