Indie Preview - Vagante

Vagante

Check it out on IndieDB 

from Nuke Nine

Just a quick update to start off a busy month, but an important one nonetheless. There's a title I've been getting recommended by quite a few trustworthy people lately, and seems to be gaining popularity at an impressive rate. After taking some time to try out the new public alpha of Vagante I could see why everyone was so set on spreading the word.

Vagante is an action platformer with procedurally generated stages and perma-deaths , making this absolutely imperative for any enthusiast of games with roguelike elements. The game is very akin to Spelunky in terms of its random maze-like passages sprinkled with difficult enemies, and its maiden rescuing objectives. The controls and platforming are smooth, combat is simple and fun, and your skills and equipment actually have a noticeable impact on your current run. Your consecutive runs will be incredibly difficult with narrow and claustrophobic corridors trapping you between numbers of varied monsters. As challenging as it is on the surface there is a slew of options available for your survival from leveling up important life-saving skills and abilities to finding or buying very useful equipment from the merchant which keep the game increasingly addictive in its progression, exploration and discovery.

Rescuing prisoners is no easy task, as your hands will be full

The art and character designs in Vagante are stunning while retaining a simple indie game charm and the very well-done character portraits of the two distinctly different heroes in particular are reminiscent to me of the most memorable mid-to-late 90s era JRPG designs, with lovely organic background art in the eye-catching title screen almost akin to the Secret of Mana/Seiken Densetsu games. The music also follows the same attractively unique yet familiar territory into RPG classics, the natural wood and string instruments sounding to me almost like tracks you would expect from something like Yasunori Mitsuda's Chrono Cross soundtrack. Long story short, even in its earliest form Vagante already has the makings of a classic.

Spikes are certain death, you'll have to approach them cautiously.

Vagante is available on Steam Early Access currently, and is already very hard to find any faults with other than the fact that it's early and still has lots more content to come. With nostalgic visuals and music combined with fun, precise and easy to pick up randomized gameplay this is a title I'm certain could become the next 'big' roguelite. I already know it is for me, at least.