Vagante | a Review
originally published on 13/12/2024;
Hello everyone, I am the vagrant, G.E.M.Simov, a fellow so lost in the woods I have become a cave, and I am here to tell you about “Vagante”.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
Vagante is a 2D side scrolling roguelike game. In it, the Player takes on the role of a Knight, Rogue or Mage and goes into a procedurally generated dungeon, hoping to reach the last floor.
So, to do that the Player needs to have their Character (PC) walk around, which is achieved with the Left and Right arrow buttons… And the PC can also jump if the Player presses the… S button.
In short, this game's control scheme is absolutely bizarre and totally unbelievable. It is clear that the game was made with a controller in mind - because there can be up to four Players playing cooperatively on a single screen, which is a great option, but the fact that the keyboard controls are so hazardously placed all over and, frankly, don't work is baffling.
I mean the Spacebar, which is usually the jump button, does not make the PC jump. It's not even the Up arrow that does that - the Up arrow is used for interaction with things, but not all things, because some things are interacted with via the E button. Totally bonkers! So, what does the Spacebar do? It brings up the Character menu/inventory.
Now, those are not massive issues, since the game is very liberal with what the Player can assign to which button, thank God for that, but the fact that the default controls are so obtuse leaves me thoroughly confused. After all, is the default control scheme not going to be what the majority of Players stick with, because they would not feel comfortable swapping the buttons? Should the default scheme not be intuitive and good?
Apparently, Vagante's developers decided that the answer is not "yes" and went on to commit the atrocities they committed. Now, in all honesty, the button placements they've selected are not bad - there are the arrow buttons for movement, to be used with the right hand, then there are the QWE and ASD buttons to be used for interaction through the left hand, with the Spacebar being accessible via that left hand's thumb.
There was some thought that went into this, but the oddity of it, when compared to conventional stuff, is so impactful that as a person who has played a multitude of other games, I find it difficult to get used to these controls. So, perhaps this game is very beginner friendly and wants to be played by folks new to games overall? No, and more on that in the Presentation section of the review, but this is a roguelike. A difficult, relatively unforgiving roguelike, at that.
But let's get back to what the PC can do. Aside from moving around by jumping and walking left and right, the PC can also grab onto ledges, which is very helpful in this kind of game (it has Spelunky influences, namely traps that knock the PC back and onto pressure plates that drop boulders which instantly kill the PC, and there are also spikes that instantly kill anything, aside from bosses, that falls on them).
The PC can also drop down from certain platforms and swim in water. There are also other movement options, but they are tied to items and spells, so I will not go into details on those.
The PC can also, naturally, attack. Based on which class the Player picked, the PC will start off with a different weapon, or set of weapons. The Knight starts off with a sword, which is a melee weapon, and can be used by pressing the appropriate button (D). The Rogue starts off with a melee weapon and a bow, which can be used by pressing the appropriate button (E) - in which case the PC fires an arrow forward. Alternatively, that button can be held down, at which point the Player can take aim by using the Up and Down arrow buttons. Lastly, the Mage starts off with a melee weapon and a spell, which is used with another appropriate button (A). Doing so makes a small bar start filling up over the PC's head, indicating that the spell cannot be cast again before the bar is filled up.
That's a bit of information dumping, but we're not done yet. When it comes to melee weapons, there are two types of weapons. Those that thrust and those that are overhead swingers. Some melee weapons have charge up functionality. That means that tapping will have the attack go off at its lowest efficiency, and holding down until the indicators that show up indicate that the attack is fully charged up, will lead into it being more efficient, either making it do more damage OR having an additional effect, such as firing a projectile.
Every type of attack can be performed while in the air (be it after a jump or after falling off a ledge), but doing so with a bow is going to make aiming difficult and make the PC stop moving in whatever direction they were going and just drop down. Spells and melee attacks can be performed while moving, the bow requires that the PC is stationary.
Now, I will not get into Spells (not yet), but there is a bit more to them than just using them. The important thing here would be that the Player has many means of attacking and doing damage. Doing damage to enemies, who must be avoided and killed if the Player wants to proceed. Most often killing an enemy will yield some gold, which is picked up by walking over it, but in rare cases they might drop an item.
Similarly, interacting with a chest will have it produce an item (or more), and destroying barrels or boxes has the chance of yielding an item. Items are incredibly plentiful and have a plethora of effects, but there are ways of going on about them.
There are equipable items - Weapons, Gloves, Armors - which, when equipped, provide some bonuses or effects (such as allowing the Player to use them to attack, burning the enemy they've hit, increasing a stat, reflecting damage taken or allowing one to slide down walls and jump off of them).
Equipable items are unidentified, and they can be identified by equipping them (which is risky, as they could be cursed) or by using a scroll on them. Cursed items generally have a negative effect on stats - lowering them - and can not be taken off (unless the curse is removed).
Then there are scrolls, which do something when used, but they are also unidentified when first used. After one use, all scrolls of that type will be identified. Scrolls can identify items, remove curses and are, generally, useful to have.
THEN there are potions. Potions are also unidentified by default, and potion types become identified when one of them is consumed. The thing that differentiates potions from scrolls is that they do not so much affect other things, they affect the PC, and it could be an incredibly beneficial effect or a very negative one. Examples include lowering a stat's value, raising a stat's value, making the PC fall slowly (and thus becoming immune to fall damage), making the PC regenerate health, making the PC get poisoned, revealing the map and so on.
Lastly (not quite but go along with it) are spell books. Spell books, when used, get consumed and teach the PC a new spell. If the PC already had that spell, it gets improved. Some spells, as mentioned, can be charged up when cast - most of those tend to be castable an infinite number of times. There are other spells that can be cast a limited number of times, however. There are also spells that, instead of firing a projectile that does damage, have a different effect on the PC. A good example is the Dash spell, which moves the PC a decent distance away from their current location (in the direction they are facing).
With that said, I should talk about stats. Stats in Vagante dictate how much damage the PC does and how much damage the PC can take - all of them, safe for Vitality, affect the former and only Vitality affects the latter. Of course, they don't work the same way, and they have more effects than just increasing damage (though some only increase damage, like Strength).
Dexterity increases attack speed and Bow damage. Intelligence increases Spell damage, but also the number of charges spells with charges have. Luck increases the chance to critically strike, but also the chance for effects to occur.l and for evasion to happen.
How do those stats increase, aside through the drinking of potions and the equipment of items? By leveling up! This requires the context that the game's dungeon is split into many floors, and whenever each floor is completed the Player will wind up in an intermediary area that features a bonfire - which heals the PC slightly and allows the Player to allocate their stat points - and a book that allows the Player to save their progress and quit for the time being.
The PC levels up by killing the previous floor’s boss. Leveling up provides the Player with a stat point they can allocate in one of the at least 8 'trees' that are available, 5 for each of the stats I mentioned earlier and 3(or more) for a bunch of special things related to the classes (for the Knight). In the case of the latter, those are Sword, Defense and Holy. Each of the 'trees' has 5 nodes for stat point allocation, with the third and fifth nodes providing a special bonus - in the case of Luck, the PC gets a chance for chests to contain more items at the third node and a chance to not take damage from a magical effect at the fifth node.
The special, class related trees provide more powerful bonuses - in the case of the Rogue, the first node of one tree allows the PC to enter stealth. The first node of another increases both damage and critical strike chance for daggers. The first node of the third tree allows them to move and jump while aiming with the bow. The first node of the fourth tree allows the PC to roll, making them invulnerable while rolling. And there are five of those per tree!
The presence of so many options allows for some great build making. Maybe a dagger Rogue? Or a bow Rogue? Or a sneaky Rogue? Maybe a tanky Knight, or a damage doing Knight? Regardless of what is chosen, the sheer quantity of available nodes makes it clear that no one play-through will allow the Player to try them all out, due to the fact that there aren't thirty floors.
Some more intel on the floors themselves - they are littered with hazards, be they the spikes or pressure plates + boulders I mentioned, or enemies. However, they also feature hidden doors that are accessed by destroying walls, shops that allow the Player to spend their gold in exchange for items, odd shrines that take items and maybe provide the Player with beneficial effects, big chests with many items inside, requiring a key to unlock, and bosses who posses the keys to unlock the big chests. The bosses in this game are really neat, as are most enemies, and provide a wondrous challenge, coupled with a great reward.
When the PC dies, however, which will inevitably happen, a separate bar, again associated with levels, starts filling up. It's based on how much stuff the Player has done with the currently deceased Character, so the more you do, the more experience you get. When that post-death experience reaches a threshold, the Player gets an "account(?)" level, which provides them with access to many new things, such as new music, Backgrounds (which are means to further customize a session/dungeon run, providing stat bonuses and negatives that can be incorporated into specific builds), and even new Classes.
Then there’s also a HARD mode, and there are also doors leading into floors that cannot normally be accessed, requiring that the Player forgo a big chest and instead uses the key to unlock those, which lead to a different set of floors with different bosses and some funky collectible items that lead to…
The replayability Vagante offers is immense, and the gameplay itself is very satisfactory, if a bit arbitrarily bothersome (due to the manner in which difficulty is done). Regardless, Vagante gives the Player all the Gameplay imaginable and does so at a very reasonable price. 3/3
Presentation
Vagante, unfortunately, has a major presentation issue. It does not inform the Player of almost anything, yet the Player needs to be informed of at least the bare minimum to be able to play the game and learn by themselves.
The very first thing that happens - aside from navigating the menu and clicking “new game”, as there is no “how to play” option - is for the Player to be expected to press the Spacebar. The Player must press the Spacebar to be able to start playing - which would be to select a Player Character - because, otherwise, the interface for the selection of the Player Character is not available. Literally no other button does anything (aside from Enter and Escape, but neither solve the issue) and there is absolutely NO indication that the Player must press that button (the Spacebar). That’s very problematic.
In addition to that, the tutorial does not begin until after the Player has figured out how to move (with no indication of how to do that) and how to interact with objects. This is incredibly problematic, because if the Player is not someone who has played many other games and might have some knowledge of the conventions that dictate which buttons do what, they are not going to be able to start playing the game at all.
Through navigating the Menus they might be able to find the controls, but those also fail to adequately convey what the buttons are used for - instead it simply says: “Up” as the “Up Arrow Button”, rather than informing the Player that the Up arrow button is for “interaction”. This is incredibly odd and somewhat conflicting with the rest of the game’s tutorial, which is, actually, incredibly good - though it does leave a fair number of things out, such as the fact that there is fall damage, the fact that there is identification of items, the fact that there are cursed items, and so on.
I must reiterate that the game leaves the Player in the dark in the first seconds of it, essentially preventing the Player from at all playing it unless they guess which buttons they need to press, only to then present them with a nearly perfect tutorial that does not simply showcase the basics, but also introduces the Player to some advanced controls that are useful only in very high-end play. This is obtusely contradictory with what the start of the game carries with itself, and I am baffled as to why things are so.
In addition to that issue, Vagante is very dark. A lot of things are very hard to make out, and there is no brightness slider in the options which makes for some unfortunate occurrences, though, overall, the darkness does not truly impede the Player’s ability to deal with the game.
However, with that said, everything else about Vagante’s presentation is perfect. Well, maybe not totally perfect, but it’s almost there!
The visuals are based on pixels, so pixel-art (my love), but it is high fidelity pixel art. Well, not exactly “high” high fidelity, as the character sprites are a lot blockier than in some other pixel based visuals in games recently reviewed by yours truly, but the work done by the artists here is very clear. I would not go as far as to call it crisp, but the backgrounds are very intricate and wondrously picturesque - so much so that they are reminiscent of paintings that depict landscapes.
Alas, not everything is as magnificent as the backgrounds of Vagante, but even then it is still very good. Enemies in the game are depicted by animated sprites which move about and perform attacks, and said sprites are very distinct from one another and clearly discernible from the Player’s Character. However, due to the fact that they are quite small, they are a lot blockier and a lot more pixel-y than the backgrounds.
The same applies for the PC, as well as all other units that might be encountered, or any objects that might be discovered. There is a slight exception when referring to big enemies - such as bosses - who, based on their increased size, get more pixels allocated to them, rendering them slightly less cubic.
Even so, that squaredness of the visuals does not impede them at all. They are still very pleasant and enjoyable to observe, and they give off a specific vibe - that of a story, of some folk tale, of some funky legend. That vibe is only further strengthened by the wonderful music, which is very enchanting and a bliss to listen to.
THOUGH it is very loud, by default. That’s a trend I keep noticing with games - they are very, VERY loud, far louder than they need to be. Ah well, at least there are settings allowing one to lower the volume. In regards to sound effects, the game also does a great job.
It has a very cute look. Well, some things have a very cute look to them, very reminiscent of the vibes one would get off of a studio Ghibli film. The fairies, the characters themselves, everything that is not an enemy and even some enemies, the locations, the music - it’s all a fairytale and it has this cute appearance, this cozy, comfy look…
Overall, it’s fantastic, though it has some issues that I simply cannot look past. The thing with the tutorial starting after the Player figures out some of the controls, the fact that a large number of things are left obscured and are even obtusely esoteric is also very bothersome, especially considering there is no good indication of what can and cannot be done. 2/3
Story
There's… There's no story in Vagante. There is something that could be interpreted as a story, but it is more emergent than anything else. The PC being carted to the dungeon and entering the dungeon, going down the floors and uncovering the mysteries within… That's a story, but it's so rudimentary and lacking in, you know, story, that I can't say that this is Vagante's story.
It's the story the Player winds up telling about their experience as that one Character… At the same time, though, there is some kind of story. There is an evil bad guy waiting at the bottom/top of the dungeon who is doing something, and then there are two possible endings, and… Well, the entire thing is obscure. It’s not told to the Player. There is something that happens, there is evidently some motivation for the PC to be doing what it is doing, there is… There’s something behind the scenes but it is not, at all, communicated to the Player. That makes me unwilling to even give it a single point, because there could also be literally nothing. 0/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? Unfortunately, no matter how much I like this game’s vibes, I can’t give it the Legendary Point. It’s a no from me, because of the story, mostly, and because of this feeling I get from playing the game. It’s as if something is missing, as if something is not right, and I don’t think I can put my finger on it, so I’m attributing that to me not jiving as well as I would have wanted to jive with it. 0/1
Conclusion
5/10. I would say that this is a very good roguelike, especially when playing with friends, and I would recommend it to fans of roguelike games and definitely friend groups who are looking for games to play. Vagante allows for really quick play-throughs that can accommodate a friend group with limited time, and is also a wonderful cooperative experience. I might even say that fans of Dark Souls would enjoy it, though that’s me making assumptions.
I gingerly place it in the bag of mediocrity, for it lacked something I desperately needed. Alas.