Rustil: Eternal Labyrinth Castle [蒐命のラスティル - とこしえの迷宮城 -] Game Sample - PC/Doujin

Another day, another Roguelite / Rogue-like action game. While I'm a fan of the older Rogue-style games (your Mystery Dungeon titles such as Torneko, Shiren, Milandra and Azure Dreams), super old-school works (like Rogue / Hack / NetHack, etc.) and Quasi-Rogue titles (Evolution series, Biomotor Unitron titles, Crimson Tears, later portions of Grandia Xtreme), I quite enjoy the more modern spins on the genre too which are quite frequent within the gaming community these days, especially in the Indie space (Hades, Xenon Valkyrie, Metal Unit, Demon's Tier+, Streets of Rogue, etc.). While they don't exactly re-invent the wheel, recent titles like "Ed-0: Zombie Uprising" and "Rustil: Eternal Labyrinth Castle" really seek to crank up the action in the genre while still adhering to basic tropes found in the genre, but while "Ed-0" doesn't really have any more room to grow, "Rustil" is in Early Access currently and would greatly benefit from player feedback and reviews.

Developed by KIC Games (formerly Shinden Games, led by Yosuke Kamata) and published by KTMG LLC in April of this year, Rustil is advertised as a "Roguelike x Exhilarating Action" game and while content is sparse (from the basically non-existent plot to dearth of enemies, items, etc.) and it feels like an Early Alpha, the game has the bones of something that could be great as the developers have crammed numerous systems in that are perfunctory at best but brimming with potential. As the titular amnesiac, Rustil, you go on errands for your "little brother" to get a "Big Catch" raiding dungeons to earn money and provide for the two of you when you one day meet a fairy named Kotryn who needs your help and... that's basically it as you explore forests, castles and ruins. The game, to be fair, constantly makes you aware that it's in Early Access, but it's still important to emphasize that while some EA titles have a healthy amount of content at launch with clear goals, Rustil just has the basic gameplay loop established and seems to be developing everything around it as opposed to having a proper roadmap. It's also worth noting that Rustil is mainly spearheaded by "Kobe College of Electronics" students.

So, in typical Rogue / Dungeon Crawling fashion, the loop involves the player taking items into a random dungeon (reverting back to level one every time), collecting treasures with random attributes (determined by Rarity and RNG), killing goons to gain money and levels, and getting as far as you can until you either succeed and leave the dungeon or croak and lose an overwhelming degree of progress unless certain conditions are met. Different weapons and armors have different skills attached to them and generally alter your fighting style along with many shrines which grant lots of abilities broken down from different classes and the player will run into a multitude of traps and events while exploring. The game also employs a SUPER BASIC character customization system, skill tree that can be utilized with points earned from the end of each dungeon run, a PvP system, a monster catching / summoning system (complete with a "Arc Rise Fantasia" type augmenting system putting shapes on a grid) and an item insurance system to prevent losing qualified items upon death.

The visuals are, overall, quite nice with vivid colors, swift animations and satisfying effects, even though some aspects are still unfinished or lacking (no response to moving in water, first boss just comes through the ground, etc.) and the soundtrack is appropriately mysterious and adventurous in equal measure. The translation is crude and the controls are a tad bit cumbersome when utilizing your second set of weapon / armor skills but takes little time getting accustomed to them (and this is only because the game is so fast-paced that minor errors can cause big problems) and exploring the different areas is fun when everything "clicks". The reason I say this is because the game isn't as generous when it comes to how and where you can exit the dungeon (if you get random scrolls to leave, cherish them as they aren't common, otherwise you need to get to the boss floor while avoiding the hard difficulty floors and monster dens) and dying, ESPECIALLY in the early game, is very tedious as beating the first boss isn't the easiest task. Upgrades from the skill tree also take a while before they give you a significant advantage against the early monsters.

The game seems to be juggling a lot of things at once and should probably prioritize really fleshing out one system at a time, but I could be great with lots of content... here's hoping it doesn't get abandoned. This is a video showing various things in action. You can get it at:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/21...

Enjoy.

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