I’m a big fan of roguelike games. There is just something special about the way they play. Obtaining new items to increase your character’s strenght and grind your way through the game. It’s simple to just pick up and play and doesn’t require you to think much about the story but still needs a strategy to complete. This is why I love Rising Hell as well.
Fight your way out of hell
Rising Hell is a vertical-action roguelike with metal coursing through its veins. The game is made in a collaboration between Indonesian indie game studios, developed by Tahoe Games and published by Toge Productions. Rising Hell places you, the player in the shackles of Arok. He’s a sinner who possesses a mysterious power to slay demons. Fight your way through the horde of Belial and try to escape the randomly generated and ever-changing landscape of hell. Heavy-metal riffs and pixelated madness will accompany you as you fight your way through hell. Face the different creatures and bosses of hell. Chaining combos, jumping manoeuvres and talent building will be key to help you climb out of hell. You can chain jumps together by hitting enemies one after another. This coupled with the wall jump gives you a lot of mobility and makes it fast-paced.
Roguelike in a nutshell
Like in every roguelike game it’s all about increasing your stats and unlocking new ways to play. For every enemy you defeat you gain souls. Souls are used to buy new perks/talents that increase your stats or soul gain. You can only get to buy one so choose which one suits your playstyle the best. Besides souls, Blights can be obtained. Blights have a random low drop rate when slaying enemies and unlock more content. Blights unlock new relics permanently which you can select before every run and give you different buffs and debuffs. Some enemies carry artifacts with them. These give you temporary extra powers like a shield or lightning bolt creating a weapon. The randomness can be annoying because you sometimes get robbed and only get a few Blights but this works the other way around as well. Playing through the game unlocks 2 new playable characters besides Arok, each with their own stats and fighting styles.
Addictive gameplay loop but lack of content
You have two game modes to choose from. Conquest is basically your story mode. Discover the lore of hell by battling through its realms. In Gauntlet you’ll be tackling various challenges to test what you are capable of. Besides the challenges and the unlocks which have you putting in a good amount of hours there isn’t anything else. There are only 3 bosses and like I said only 3 playable characters. The game lacks some content but this could always be added in the future of course. Most importantly the core gameplay loop is addictive and plays really well. I have not stumbled on any bugs while I played.
The whole game has amazing atmospheric lighting and is beautifully animated but of course, there are always people that are turned off by pixilated graphics. The text has a gothic font that makes it somewhat hard to read but this is not a big deal. The soundtrack is amazing as well and fits that action-packed gameplay like a glove. I love me some metal guitar shred.
Conclusion
Rising Hell is one hell of a good Roguelike game. The gameplay loop is really addictive and the game is beautifully crafted, from the metal OST to the graphics. It does, however, lack some content in terms of bosses and playable characters for instance but this could always be added later on of course. If you are into roguelike games this game is a good one to pick up. Especially considering the small price of €9 on Nintendo Switch. For those on the fence about Rising Hell, a demo is available on Steam to pull you over.
