Tangledeep (PC) Preview

Tangledeep sets out to accomplish a simple but direct goal: make a SNES-style roguelike with various classes, systems and skills. To a large degree it accomplishes it. There is a lot going on, which at times can be a detriment to the experience, but on the whole it is largely enjoyable.

Staying true to the genre, many of the conventional aspects are in place, with each turn/move of the player and monsters being one space. The goal is to advance through the random dungeons to the next level, balancing levelling up and running out of HP. Each 'turn' the player decides whether to move, attack, or use a special move. There is a lot of strategy ranging from managing slowly healing potions, to moves that change the character's position.

One major thing done differently, though, is the inclusion of a competent class system. From the beginning there are several classes to pick from, ranging from a knight, to a mage, to a monk - each of them with their own special skills, as well. Imagine something like Final Fantasy Tactics and this is the same idea. Additionally, the enemies drop random gear ranging from trash to various magical mods reminiscent of any loot-based game.

These aspects serve to make the action addictive, even if the combat itself is a little flawed. Enemies spawn with random tags, and there are a lot of them, and although the 'ideal' strategy would be to mouse over every enemy to make sure nothing is odd, the reality is 90% of them can be blown away with little effort until suddenly some random enemy is pulling you around the map and casting lightning bolts.

Another issue is the 'combat log,' which records stats for combat need some work, too. Pertinent info of who is getting attacked, for how much, and where is buried under a cascade of useless reports that both render the whole thing unusable, as well as preventing any sort of feedback for the player. Hours into the game it can still be unclear how some multi-attacks actually worked, as far as damage or turns go.

Tangledeep starts with three difficulty choices of either no loss on death, 'recommended/normal,' which is permadeath where some equipment passes on to a new guy, or permadeath and no equipment. After playing for a long time, these options actually do not seem positive. Given that the character starts to take a life of its own, from super rare drops, to the skill tree, a loss is devastating. While it might not happen due to very careful gameplay, losing a character after playing hours upon hours would be enough to make many gamers never play it again, which is unfortunate because it is actually a fun title.

One other issue is that the only sex gamers can pick for their character is female. Having female mains is never a problem, but it feels like something is missing in an RPG of designing your own person and only females can be chosen. Some may not care at all, whereas others could think this is a big deal.

Tangledeep is close to release, so not much is likely to be changed with some of the issues, but the developer seems fast to respond to community problems. Regardless, there is a lot in the class and skill system that makes it intriguing enough to want to continue. Although combat often feels more frustrating than fun, the other aspects come together in such a way that hours melt away fairly easily while playing.