Give me a roguelike action-adventure game any day of the week, and you’ll make me a happy gamer. And believe me, folks, I am happy.
The Player Who Can’t Level Up, from developer Tripearl Games, is a roguelike action-adventure indie game. It is driven by action, supported by stacks of buffs, and is crazy-quick fun that resides in a beautifully chaotic wrapper. For the last couple of weeks, I have been privy to playing this unfinished title, and it is off to a good start. It brings exactly what is expected, which is non-stop action, and delivers some meaningful fights, especially of the boss variety. While the action is just a means to an end to gather and stack buffs, it is still a fun experience.
At its core, The Player Who Can’t Level Up is akin to a Bayonetta or Devil May Cry with its main gameplay. There will be a lot of jumping around, button-mashing, combo-executing, and activating special powers to take down enemies. It’s exactly what you would expect from the action-adventure genre, and it doesn’t stray away from that genre at any time. Tripearl Games nailed emulating the above game structure, even down to repeatable enemies.
Now, those enemies might not have been of the large variety of creative creatures, but they did have some pizazz to them when it came to gumming up my progress during my preview time. The enemies I encountered within this game were mainly mask-wearing pawns that either ran toward me with fists ready to go, threw bombs from all parts of the map, or were simply suicide bombers ready to ruin my day with vicious hugs. The majority of the first tower encounter was made up of these little gremlins, and they were relentless at times, which made the game a bit of a challenge at times.
As I progressed from room to room, the enemies did become even more challenging and quite a bit different. The first big enemy I met was a bigger version of the smaller gremlins, and it had some spinning attacks, as well as wider attack zone coverage in comparison to the others. From there, the game threw sword-wielding robots at me and shield-trapping baddies that tried to entrap and throw explosives at me while trapped. A considerable upgrade to the smaller enemies, and they threw different patterns of attacks. Combined with the tiny gremlins, they did cause some confusion and chaos at times, though nothing incredibly difficult. Thanks to smooth controls, dodging their attacks was as easy as quickly hitting the B button, which propelled the protagonist beyond their follow-through. If timed right, the parry from my character would be devastating, which only added more fun to the entire sequence of my fights. It’s tough to time, though, but not impossible. Definitely not Dark Souls-like.
Anyway, to help keep these battles interesting, The Player Who Can’t Level Up segments its levels into smaller tiers, as taking down large groups of enemies reveals a buff for the player to build upon. This buff could increase damage, decrease damage to the player, and/or have other effects like stacking secondary fighting capabilities to help the gameplay become more than just sword-swinging. Adding those stacks of buffs helped create a proper amount of motivation to keep pushing forward through the repeating piles of enemies, if not only to find out what buff reward was waiting for me at the end of my efforts. It helped quite a bit to keep me hooked into the gameplay, plus it showed me that my effort to take down enemies was well worth it.
Of course, all of those enemy encounters led me to a larger shield boss, who had a tinge of everyone’s moves, and who didn’t telegraph their punches. The boss fight, while nowhere near a typical Roguelike boss encounter that typically feels like an uphill battle and challenge, was still fun and worthy of the effort given to that point. It certainly made me want to continue the fight and push forward in the game.
Shifting gears just slightly, the visuals of this game are outstanding. Built on the Unreal Engine, the game showed some anime-like creativity in its design, especially with the character and enemy models. For an indie outlet to build something this gorgeous speaks volumes about their passion for their project. And believe me, folks, this game is gorgeous.
Beyond the visuals, the levels that I did play were not on the same quality level as the character designs. The levels were side shows in comparison to the rest of the visuals in the game. They did provide enough ‘umph’ to give the presence of depth, but they didn’t outshine or take away attention from the action. And that is completely okay because even DMC and Bayonetta go along the same route when it comes to level design and execution. It isn’t about the levels and surroundings; it’s about the fighting, gameplay, and the characters.
Anyway, I have rambled enough on this preview. Let’s wrap things up. The Player Who Can’t Level Up, from developer Tripearl Games, is a promising action roguelike adventure that is fun, mindless in a good way, and a solid experience for players looking for a challenge. Keep an eye on this one, folks. This could be something special by the end of its development.
