I feel like we've been here before...



The thing about roguelikes is that they are, by nature, repetitive. You do a run, die, then start the run over. The variation comes from different skills you earn along the way or different paths you can take. When you compare games across the genre, you look for features that make one stand out from the others. Perhaps the graphics are amazing, the story is fulfilling, or the mechanics are interesting. Skul doesn't seem to have any of these standout features.

The throwback pixelated graphics are fine, the story is kind of fun, I guess, and the mechanics feel pretty standard. With some pretty stellar roguelikes coming out in the past few years (Hades, Dead Cells, etc.) that do the genre better, Skul is in a tough spot to make an impression. Even though you can change your head, which is fun, you still have to slog through some pretty boring platforming and hack and slash through a stack of kind of monotonous enemies to get to a boss who will just murder you and send you back to the start.

If it was the first roguelike I'd ever played, it'd probably be pretty decent, though.

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