Roguelikes (or at least roguelites) on Steam are almost a dime a dozen nowadays. What exactly sets Rogue's Tale apart from the heavyweight in this category on Steam - Dungeons of Dredmor? Honestly…. not much. If you want an in-depth experience with multitudes of classes, skills, and items types, don't look here. Rogue's Tale is, simply put, a roguelike distilled to the genres' simplest concepts:

1) Turn and grid based play, randomly generated dungeons and encounters, and perma-death.
2) Unnecessarily clunky and cumbersome controls.
3) Unyielding difficulty, unfair and frustrating deaths that encourage you to punch holes through your monitor.
4) Addictive as crack.

There's no crafting, only a small number of different basic item types, and essentially only three different archetypes you can play with the limited number of skill choices in the game - mage, fighter, and archer. Yet this simplicity is a large part of what makes this game so addictive. It's just so easy to walk through a dungeon, floor by floor, killing monsters and discovering treasures until you inevitably get killed by a lucky arrow or random spike trap. Just one more death until I sleep, I swear!

Seriously though, you will die in this game. And you will die a lot, often within 5 minutes of character creation. Don't expect any handholding, other than some sparse tutorial messages. Your deaths will be unfair. My record is actually a death within two turns, less than 10 seconds into the game. Human and humanoid NPCs in this game have similar stats, skills, and equipment as you, after all. The difference is the human controlling your character. Thus, the only way to improve is to master the game mechanics and unlock different heritages, skills and equipment that carry over to your future characters. At least until you get flattened by a cave bear.

As part of the challenge, nothing in this game is identified. Sometimes this is nice - you'll find that your sword is causing status effects on your enemies, for example. But other times it's just plain annoying. In most other games, you wouldn't think twice about drinking an unidentified potion if you're really in danger of dying. In this game, the potions are more likely to kill you than not - there are a total of 24 potions in this game, 5 of which are beneficial, 19 of which are poison. An additional problem with requiring identification is that storekeepers simply will not buy unidentified items from you. This is a severe disadvantage through your first couple of playthroughs before you unlock any heritages. It doesn't help that 90% of items you find will cost more to identify than how much you can sell them for.

There certainly are many complaints that I have with the game. Those aforementioned heritages are far too difficult to unlock after the first couple. Just an example - I played over 15 hours on a single character, grinding through dungeon after dungeon, before I was able to unlock the enchantment and ring heritages. Yes, everything is randomly generated, but it really should not take that long to unlock. It's extra difficult because the game does not give you a list of the items that you've already found or identified. So if you see a missing item in the town store or a travelling merchant, you may not know that you need to purchase that item. Frankly, this was the reason I got tired of the game. At some point (admittedly 40 hours into the game), you just feel like the rate of reward and advancement becomes far too slow.

The controls in this game are also pretty terrible and needlessly complicated. Different weapon types have different keys you need to press in order to attack with them. Controls that work in the equipment screen don't work in the shop screens. It seems like the only reason that this control scheme was used is to pay homage to the classics of this genre. There's honestly no reason otherwise.

I left this game a "recommanded" rating, but I would really only recommend it to people who enjoy playing punishing roguelikes. Everyone else, please stay far away. As the reviews on Hack, Slash, and Loot indicate, if you aren't looking for a game in this genre, you will not like this game.

Death Simulator 2000. I hate this game. I hate it with every fiber of my being. I die over and over again. Then, like a ray of hope, I start to progress. Level 6, then 7. Level 9.. could it be? Level 10. Fully geared. Reset the dungeon twice. Im finally making progress.

Then I open a door to 3 orcs and a wolf. Well, theres 2 hours of wasted progress.

Screw this game.

...

Alright, one more go.

Enjoy all the brutalizing by procs? This game is for you. Marvel at the game throwing an enemy at you on the second floor that kills you in two hits. Watch as the only way for you to progress is barred by a door in a narrow hallway with a deadly spike pit in front of it, creating a scenario where you actually can not succeed. Gaze in awe as the first mushroom you attempt to pluck poisons you, the poison being uncurable and lethal by normal means and forcing you to sell necessary provisions in order to cure it. It's a good thing that chance is such a big factor in this game that it renders most of the skills undesirable, seeing as how you will probably not find a bow, but will find lots of arrows.

Don't bother with this game, it's obnoxious to the point that it removes most of the fun, and it moves like mud, which is a feat for a roguelike. Yes, this game crawls at a crawl.

Clearly unfinished.

Addendum: I am still playing this game because I want to like it, and the MUD-like net play is really fun, but holy cow man, you really have to put it in for this one.

woah my first negative review ever. I wish the game had any subtlety, or an easy to acess command = effect board. Lets say the game is brutal, punishes you as far as one shotting you in the very first room, even in the turorial. Otherwise it just feels a bit pointless. Imagine a game like dwarf fortress adventure mode or ADOM with less complexity and a little better graphics. yeah.. What ends it for me is that the game is just too brutal for whatever reward it gives. The stats are limited to +3 from the starting ones, which feels a bit..limiting considering the scope of a game and the customisation we wish to have, items are a lot more relevant than the rest. ive had only 1 good-lucky run because the only monsters i encountered were the harmless kind because of the massive gear i found in the beginign. 1-12 run was 'ok'. I spent hours to make it to level 5 that one time, and even then i was only able to identify 2 of my 12 items in my inventory (lack gold cant sell if not identified). all of which were basic item, nothing special but the amulets. Then i died trying to disarm a trap over and over but for some reasons it made me step on it instead of disarming it.. twice. the game is not BAD its just.. not good enough for me, sorry. good first try from the producers though!

Another dev mistakes randomness for difficulty. You'll be wasting hours dying trying until you will finally get some lucky streak. Absolutely no skill or strategy involved. Just roll the dice and 9 out of 10 times you die. And even if you're lucky to live more than 20 minutes you'll eventually will be killed by some unexpected thing that RNG will throw at you without any logic behind it.

Pure fail and garbage in a pile of roguelike wannabees.