Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 02/May 05:03

Dialoop -Roguelite Puzzle- – Review

Long gone are the days of popular spin-off arcade puzzlers like Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo or Puzzle Kombat, which offered fast-paced head-to-head puzzle combat. These games did have a fairly big following back when they came out. Still, the genre was often overshadowed by more traditional match-three games, which eventually became even more popular on mobile platforms. In comes Dialoop, which looks like a proper blast from the past, offering many playable characters, original mechanics, and additional mechanics centered on deck-building and equippable relics. While we had some fun with this one, we felt it missed a ‘certain something’. Story While Dialoop offers a small story for each character, they all boil down to the same thing: you enter the tombs of different monsters to hunt for relics. Each character has their own motivation(s), and they’ll meet some of the other characters on the way. The story presentation feels a bit lacking, however, as you’ll have to read a lot of text to know what is going on. While this by itself isn’t necessarily a huge issue, it just doesn’t suit the format of Dialoop, where it’s all about quick puzzle action. Graphics Dialoop doesn’t look bad at all if you’re a fan of the retro voxel-based graphics. The character and monster designs wouldn’t feel out of place in a Minecraft-like inspired experience, and we quite enjoyed the diversity of all of it. There are quite a few different characters, each with different skins, as well as several different monsters, bosses, backdrops, and so on. The developers clearly put in some effort to ensure there was enough variety, and when looking at a lot of the designs, they also had quite a bit of fun with creating the Dialoop ‘universe’. Sound While the overall sound design wasn’t necessarily bad, we quickly turned off most of Dialoop’s audio to just play our own music or to have the game running in the background. We often found ourselves playing through the solo mode with the auto mode on, making it more of an interactive, explosive screensaver than a game we’d actively spend a lot of time on. We’ll delve more into this below. That being said, the music or SFX aren’t bad, but they’re nothing to write home about either. Gameplay Dialoop is pretty much an arcade puzzle game with a roguelike undertone. You’ll either be battling monsters in the solo mode or other players in the multiplayer mode. For the most part, everything feels straightforward, even with the game’s twist on the classic match-three formula and its inclusion of deck-building and equippable relics. In the solo mode, depending on which character you choose, you’ll have different passive abilities and a different story to play through. These passive abilities can range from getting better score multipliers to getting more turns to reach your goal. It’s fairly standard stuff, but you’ll notice that some characters perform a lot better than others. We did enjoy trying out the different characters, seeing how far we could get, but eventually we started playing through the solo mode by using the ‘auto’ mode. Here, the game pretty much does everything for you, and often a lot more efficiently than a real player would. After a while, the game felt more like a glorified screensaver where we simply needed to purchase relics or cards in between levels. Don’t get us wrong, what’s present in the game is good, and the new system, where you have to move around one tile freely across the board, felt innovative. We simply felt the game was best enjoyed in short bursts rather than lengthy sessions. As mentioned above, there is also a multiplayer mode. In this mode, you’ll be battling seven other players. You’ll have five turns each round, and if you are among the bottom two scoring players, you’ll be eliminated. It’s a fun change of pace, where you’ll have to do everything manually. The slower you play, the more you’ll also get punished, as in between each round, you can purchase an item from the shop. If you’re the last to finish your five moves, you’ll only get the leftover item(s). Conclusion Dialoop -Roguelite Puzzle- is a fairly entertaining arcade-like puzzle game that does have a lot of charm. Sadly, we found the game best enjoyed in really short bursts in between bigger titles. Nonetheless, what’s present is fun, albeit a bit bland. The new twist on the genre works to a certain extent, and the roguelike core behind the solo mode does motivate you to try again to beat your previous score. Even so, the story portion was a bit lackluster, and having to read huge chunks of text in an arcade-like game broke the overall fast-paced flow of the game. If you’re looking for something casual to play from time to time, this one might provide some entertainment.