Soulslike Roguelike
HIGH The combat system is responsive.
LOW Repeating enemies and sometimes easy-to-dodge bosses.
WTF Why is there an enemy that eats a fish raw mid-attack.
If I had to think of a word to describe current trends in game development, it would most likely be fusion.
Most developers, at least in my opinion, have never been better at genre-bending and blending two or more subsets of games that work together well. Think Neon White combining a deckbuilder and a time-attack shooter, or the developers of Nine Sols making a Metroidvania soulslike.
Tyrant’s Realm mixes it up and it just makes sense — it’s a mix of roguelike and soulslike, and with art seemingly transported from the PS1 era, it straddles both genres to great effect.
The player begins in a dank dungeon as a decrepit-looking prisoner, trapped in a cell which they eventually escape. Armed with nothing but a long stick and a sorry excuse for a shield, I had to travel through this dungeon full of mazelike rooms while looking for an exit. I then journeyed through five different dungeons with a boss at the end of each across tenor so attempts before beating my first run, and collected new weapons and armor while doing it — all while possessed soldiers and enemy fighters tried to kill me.
The combat of Tyrant’s Realm is a strong point. Fairly standard for a third-person soulslike, it has a clear emphasis on attacking at the right time during an enemy’s attack pattern, and dodging, parrying, or blocking in all other instances. My character had a stamina meter and a health meter that I could refill with a set number of healing flasks.
It might not sound like I’m praising Tyrant’s Realm by writing that the combat is “fairly standard,” but for a title in this genre, the perfect combat loop would be one copied from Dark Souls and its sequels, and Tyrant’s Realm executes its own version of this system to a T. Dodges are responsive, blocks are effective, and I never felt like the game was cheating me.
It also visually molds with the character animations — it would seem like it’s a graphically wonky roguelike, but it runs smoothly. Even when combat was a bit repetitive towards the end areas, it still clicked.
Yet even within combat systems as tight as soulslikes, there will be some problems. The only two minor knocks that I will give Tyrant’s Realm’s combat both come with the lock-on system — making the camera spin out of control when locking on to a group of enemies, and trivializing boss combat by allowing the player to infinitely walk in one direction around the boss.
The story? It mainly takes a backseat in the overall experience. My job was to try to make it to the final room in the entire “realm” ruled by an evil wizardly tyrant. After beating him, I was returned back to the start to try to beat the tyrant on a harder difficulty.
Forgetting combat and story for a moment, there’s one more portion to Tyrant’s Realm — the roguelike. Nothing exemplifies this genre’s inclusion so much as the physical layout of the dungeons. There are distinct regions all over the map that I went to, but each one was a randomization of room layouts, enemy placements, and loot chests. It provided a new-ish experience to each area, but nothing groundbreaking by any means.
Similar to the room layouts, each larger area would have around two chests in each room filled with a random assortment of weapons, armor, and shields. The weapon variety was a major reason why I wanted to keep playing once I’d beaten my first run. Outside of the typical sword, axe, and spear lineup, there were hidden gems like the trident, the Wolverine claws, and the gigantic wooden mallet. To be expected, the shields and the armor yield less eye-catching items, but some had immense buffs compared to others.
Apart from item variety, Tyrant’s Realm also offers a decent amount of replayability. After beating the final boss, players can up the difficulty on each subsequent run. Level II includes “elite” enemies on each level that do more damage and move faster. Level III makes all enemies elite enemies, but with this increased difficulty comes increased rewards.
Unfortunately, the roguelike aspect of Tyrant’s Realm suffers a bit from lack of options, consequence-less randomizations for shields and armor that only express themselves in how fast the character moves, and a difficult means of progressively unlocking new gear on the lowest difficulty — collecting coins from defeating enemies.
On the lowest difficulty, every dungeon results in about 50 coins collected, and bosses give 100. Some of the cooler gear costs up to 400 coins, and more significant upgrades like additional healing flasks cost even more. Granted, these are minor complaints from someone who beat the lowest difficulty quite easily within a few tries, but the pace of unlocking might be significantly slower for players who have a tougher time with the content.
Ultimately, Tyrant’s Realm executes a gameplay loop that’s rewarding enough to render its minor inconveniences just that — minor inconveniences. It’s another successful, joyful genre-mashup that anyone looking for a retro-inspired soulslike will have a good time with.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Buy Tyrant’s Realm – PC
Disclosures: This game is developed by Team Tyrant and published by Skystone Games. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PC. Approximately 5 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: This game is not rated by the ESRB, but this game is not made for kids. It involves slashing, stabbing, and killing with digital weapons and there is blood visibly represented as well.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.
Dear & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There is no dialogue in this game, and the only “story” bits are told through pop-up text on the screen. The game is fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: The game’s controls are fully remappable.
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