For the most part, rogulites take players through procedurally generated dungeons or levels, pitting them against enemies in a black-and-white, kill or be killed fashion. Emberlight - from developer and publisher Quarteronion Games - follows the blueprint admireably, while adding its own spin on the genre by making players think a little harder about the decisions that they are making along each journey.
The Enemy Within
Players take on the role of a three-person party comprised of members from the Knights of the Ember Order. These knights bring skills that you would expect from a turn-based RPG, including swordplay and magic being doled out in various melee and ranged offensive attacks. Each dungeon is randomly generated as players take out the menacing threats found deep within the walls. However, it’s not necessarily the other enemies that players need to watch out for.
As enemies are defeated, players can learn their fallen foes’ abilities. A “Learned Abilities” table appears following each successful encounter, detailing each party members’ abilities, along with skills from the slain enemies that are now ripe for the taking. Adding the skills to the party’s ability table is as simple as a quick click-and-drag. However, equipping new abilities comes at a price. For every ability taken from an enemy and learned by one of your party members, the more corrupted that character becomes. The corruption eventually consumes the character, which leads with them actually becoming a boss in a future quest. Players will have to take down the very person they helped create, creating a new dynamic for player progression through each dungeon - which increases in difficulty with each roughly 30 to 60 minute play through - and lore that becomes, in essence, written by the player.
RPG Fans, Rejoice!
My experience with rougelites has been more along the lines of 2D platformers and digital collectible card games, such as Dead Cells and Slay The Spire, respectively, and less within the realm of turn-based RPGs. As such, the learning curve for me knowing what the heck I was doing during my first few playthroughs of Emberlight was rough, to say the least. Eventually, I figured out the basic mechanics and how everything worked, but it felt like I had barely scratched the surface. This primarily speaks to the fact that RPG veterans will likely have no problem jumping into the fray, while newcomers to the genre may struggle initially.
The gameplay itself was a little underwhelming. Running from room to room to battle a handful of the same enemies became redundant pretty quickly. The audio was also forgettable, with what sounded like recycled sound effects that I’ve been hearing in video games since the Sega Genesis. Fortunately, future updates should break up the monotony a bit, with new game modes and challenges being added eventually.
The visuals, on the other hand, were a surprising treat. They weren’t necessarily anything to write home about, but they look good for a $15 game. Although not quite as dated, I was vaguely reminded of the graphical style of 2002’s Dungeon Siege, which is very much a compliment considering my fond memories of that game.
Spread The Word
Based on SteamDB statistics, Emberlight is still very much a hidden gem within Steam’s massive catalog. Hopefully its exposure for being nominated for the Fan Favourite Game of the Week at the Game Development World Championships (and placing in third place that week) will gain the title some new players, especially as Quarteronion Games looks to add a story mode, co-op mode, multiplayer mode, and dungeon master mode in upcoming updates. At the very least, Emberlight is certainly a title that RPG roguelite fans won’t want to miss.
3 Out Of 5 Stars
A review copy of Emberlight was provided to TheGamer for this review. Emberlight is available now for PC.
Emberlight