Vertical Drop Heroes HD

We're going down

As promised, I have arrived on your planet "Earth" to deliver a review of last week's bundle.  Or part of it anyway.  The theme of the bundle was roguelikes.  If you're an avid gamer you may be aware that roguelikes were, until very recently, the new World War 2 games.  There are quite literally dozens of them, they're all largely the same, and there are a couple that stand out as shooting stars across the midnight sky among the crap.  Vertical Drop Heroes, hereafter called VDH, is one of them.

Now, VDH isn't exactly unique.  Compared to 99% of roguelikes it is, but one could actually call it formulaic.  You see, it's very much similar to Rogue Legacy.  They're both side scrolling platformers, they both have roguelike elements, they both have upgrades that carry over from game to game.  They both have a choice of three random characters, each with up to two random traits, random spells, and a random class.  Hell, you'll even have characters named Whatever II and Something IV.  It's a bit egregious in some ways, really.  One might even call it...polyvinyl.  No, that doesn't make any sense.

Where it differs is primarily the level design and the combat.  Instead of a giant semi-Castleroidy mansion to explore you just go down.  The horizontal plane, in fact, all fits on the screen at once, making the levels very long rectangles.  This might sound boring, and it kind of is, but it also makes for much more intense gameplay.  Since each level is one big room, you're almost guaranteed to have a few enemies on screen at any given time.  You're also guaranteed to have any number of traps, chests, spikes, and whatever else that particular level has to offer.  One problem many roguelikes have is that there's a lot of downtime.  Randomly generated areas tend to manifest as enormous networks of squares, most of them empty.  VDH does not have this problem.

Palmstrike's in...a jam!!

On the combat side, you're looking at more of a survival mission than a quest to slay the ultimate evil.  Sure, you will be slaying evil, and eventually that evil is ultimate, but for a long time you'll be some jerk with a stick, terrible stats, no traits at all, and no idea what most of the stuff you encounter does.  So it's a lot like Rogue in that way.  Unlike Rogue, thank God, you can embetter yourself as you play.  Killing enemies drops gold, gold carries over from character to character, and between runs you can upgrade your health and attack power.  This means that if you play long enough you're basically guaranteed to become an unstoppable killer.  Skill is still heavily favored, though, as you'll be lucky to get another 10 health for your next run if you don't make it quite far.

Palmhook, on the other hand, meets his challenges with vigor.

What's quite far?  Well, there are only ten levels.  Each level probably lasts, I don't know, five minutes at most.  But don't worry, the game isn't 50 minutes long.  Oh no.  You'll be playing each level many times over as you unlock new spells and traits for future characters and learning how to counter the enemy types.  Thankfully there are many of all of those things.  Combined with the randomness and setpiece aspect of the level designs, you're not going to be getting bored for a while.

WHERE ARE THE CHARGES

There's one other thing that sets VDH apart from its kin, namely Rogue Legacy.  There's a type of collectible in the game called pacifist orbs.  These give you money and experience, and are all-around better than normal coins.  Plus you can spend money to make them give even more experience!  The downside?  The second you kill any enemy, they all vanish forever.  The optimal way to go through a level is to collect all the orbs, avoiding enemies all the way to the bottom.  Then you take one of the game's many "teleport to the beginning" tiles back up, then do it again killing everything.  Gains will be had by all.  It sounds grindy and stupid, but it's actually a very different experience each time.  To get the orbs you have to plan your route carefully, sneaking by enemies whenever you can.  You have to know when to take some hits and when the jig is up and you have to start murderin'.

In the jungle you must wait until the dice read five or eight

Let's just get it out of the way; it is not as good as Rogue Legacy.  But you know what else it is?  Cheap as hell.  Seven dollars at the time of writing.   The list of games that are actually fun and engaging while being under ten dollars is a short one, but now we have another entry.  And that's...good.  I don't know how to end this review.