Necropolis is a permadeath 3rd-person action-adventure game with procedurally-generated dungeons that hold death around nearly every corner. The game draws inspiration from other rogue-stylized games like Dark Souls but swaps out the darker palettes for bright neon ones to highlight the action. Your goal is to escape the Necropolis; however, your only escape route is going through it, which is unfortunate for you, but fortunate for the hordes of enemies who seek to add another soul to their numbers.
Gameplay and Story
You play the role of a nameless explorer who must escape the Necropolis, a living magical dungeon that reconstructs and rebuilds after each death. In order to escape, you must reach the bottom. As you explore, the difficulty of the enemies and traps will continue to increase along with the rewards. Each playthrough may feel similar at times but will ultimately be unique each time when it comes to the enemies, dungeon layout, upgrades, and other elements of the game. During your journey, you will also need to utilize the crafting system. Through crafting you will create various meats and potions for healing and other various effects. Discovering how to use them best and when to use them will play a big role in determining your chances of survival.
Like many other rogue-like games, the story is told in a minimalist nature and often riddled with cryptic lines that make no sense to the player early on. Its story is told via the game’s narrator when the player approaches various strange glyphs written on the wall. The story never takes itself too seriously and often consists of the narrator belittling the player upon death or questioning their decisions on which direction they choose at certain crossroads.
Highlights
Necropolis is at its best when you’re in the thick of combat. The action is consistently fast-paced and even overwhelming at times, due to its sheer number of enemies. To fight off the hordes, you’ll have a variety of attacks at your disposal ranging from simple swings, jump strikes and even destructive charge attacks. Your stronger attack options are not without cost though. The latter two will temporarily decrease your maximum stamina until it’s replenished via items. Players will need to gauge when to attack and which attacks to use, for running out of stamina mid-combat will often lead to death.
Every playthrough will be unique while certain enemies won’t appear until their designated floors. Each layout is procedurally generated as you progress, so you never know what to expect. Along with danger following you on each consecutive plays, you will gain access to more powerful upgrades called codex. Along with being able to equip codex for special bonuses, you will often be able to take the weapons off your enemies. These will start as simple swords and shields, but during lower floors, you will find wands, elemental swords and even more. Finding your ideal weapon during each playthrough is a challenge on its own, so luck is always a factor when exploring.
Final Reaction
Necropolis doesn’t set out to reinvent the wheel with its rogue-like gameplay and procedurally-generated dungeons. Instead it offers its own brand of challenging combat and follows up with good writing for a lighter comedic twist. Mixing its drop-in, drop-out co-op and creative enemies that all want to have your blood on their hands, players will be journeying through a magical dungeon that will certainly have them coming back for more after each death. Fans of dungeon crawling and rogue-like games with permadeath should grab a friend or three and try their best to escape the Necropolis. The true challenge isn’t in the completion of the game, but in the player’s resolve to keep going after losing everything after each death. You will die, but death is only the next step on your way to escaping.
Final Rating: 3.5/5 Atoms
Necropolis is currently available for Steam and will be released later this year for PS4 and Xbox One.
*Necropolis was reviewed using a pre-release code provided by Harebrained Schemes.
from Nerd Reactor
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