From developer FairPlay Studios, The Land Beneath Us is a Welsh folklore-inspired roguelike that blends dungeon crawling with turn-based grid fight and has you methodically planning your each mythological transfer.
You awake because the Final Soul Harvester 001, a robotic ideally known as Sven, and are knowledgeable by your very personal AI hal pal “Fundamental PC” that the creator and inventor of your self and “soul tech” (humanity’s cure-all for all the pieces), has been captured by the lords that dwell within the underworld under, dubbed Annwn. It is advisable courageous the deep and struggle by 4 worlds and 7 lords of Annwn to be taught of “The Creator’s” destiny.
Every stage you descend by in your spelunking journey has 30 flooring, damaged up by a mini-boss each 10 flooring and a stage boss battle on the ultimate flooring. Clearing a flooring unlocks a reward, both a Relic, Weapon, Gold, or Soul Factors. Every flooring might have a number of doorways and a corresponding reward image so you may plan your route accordingly. In fact, it wouldn’t be a roguelike with out an occasion stage that may provide an opportunity go to from retailers to purchase or improve gear or relics.
You have to to be armed to the tooth to face the nightmare forward, with relics and weapons being your important arsenal. Relics provide stat bonuses to assault or important hit percentages or extra particular use case objects corresponding to stopping loss of life one time. These are everlasting passive bonuses that, except in any other case acknowledged, will not be eliminated except you exchange them or your run ends.
Weapons tie on to your motion. Every weapon you equip will get mapped to the D-pad, permitting you to make that assault motion any time you progress within the corresponding route. Your beginning weapon, a fist, can solely assault the adjoining tile, however different weapons have completely different ranges. Weapons can shoot as much as three areas forward; some weapons, just like the greatsword, have further skills corresponding to knockback which strikes you and your opponent one area away, or the Katana which teleports you one sq. behind your goal. Being keenly conscious of your assault ranges and what to anticipate out of your weapon motion is essential to success as the sport telegraphs all assaults. Earlier than an enemy takes a swing at you, you will note a glowing yellow striped grid which signifies an enemy’s goal space. You don’t wish to be standing in it whenever you finish your flip, so plan your motion properly and take your time. Time doesn’t move till you make a motion, so that you will be as affected person as should you’re nonetheless ready for George R.R. Martin to complete The Winds of Winter.
You’ll be able to assign a number of of the identical weapon to numerous directional inputs, however assigning a weapon choose as much as a slot that matches the identical weapon will as an alternative improve it. Along with the enemies, there are hazardous tiles corresponding to lava and spike traps, and different hazards to keep away from on any given stage, including one other layer of technique to your actions.
When a run ends, your gear is misplaced, however defeat doesn’t come with out its perks. Souls gathered within the underworld will be spent on everlasting character upgrades that may enhance your relic slot depend, total hit factors, or the price of some service provider actions, to call just a few.
The gameplay wrinkles don’t cease there. A few of TLBU’s greatest tips are revealed when you’ve crushed your first stage: Teleportation and Chips. One of many recreation’s earlier frustrations is you could find yourself discovering your self in fairly the bind, caught between enemies requiring a number of assaults to defeat and with no motion choices that don’t simply depart you extensive open–teleportation removes that difficulty. Throughout a stage, you may queue this capacity up and inside a restricted distance get out of a bind, after which it goes on cooldown.
Subsequent up is Chips. Simply as addictive as Mark Messier’s favourite potato-based snack, these are very similar to name indicators from the Helldivers collection. You’ll be able to equip varied skills within the hub space and produce them into the depths. Talents corresponding to a heal or a fireball that, when you’ve accomplished the proper directional enter, launch that capacity in your chosen route. Really a recreation changer, although the mechanic does take some getting used to. Until you are paying shut consideration, you may find yourself triggering these results unintentionally, however that is by no means a lot of a burden—extra of a contented accident, and for anybody trying over your shoulder whilst you’re taking part in, you, in fact, meant to do this.
Lastly, whenever you defeat a stage boss for the primary time, you’ll get an improve level to place in direction of Fundamental PC or Arawn (a second NPC who arrives in your house base). Upgrading between the 2 can unlock a number of endings, so select rigorously.
The visible model of TLBU is sort of engaging; the chunky pixel graphics in a 3D setting accented by popping neons look fantastic on the OLED Change display screen. Sound design is becoming, with looping tracks that neither stand out nor get in the way in which. The whole lot works fairly properly as a bundle. Fortunately, I didn’t run into any glitches or efficiency points throughout my playtime.
Total, The Land Beneath Us sports activities enormous replay worth and strategic roguelike gameplay that may be difficult however immensely rewarding. I might extremely suggest any followers of the turn-based roguelike style to have a look underfoot at The Lands Beneath Us.
