He is Coming
Last updated: 2025-07-19
- Highly addictive roguelike auto-battler
- Rich build variety and item synergies
- Excellent roguelike experience
- Excessive RNG and luck dependence
- Negative progression and item dilution
- High difficulty and lack of depth
Emotions
Players are highly satisfied with the game's overall quality, especially for an early access title, highlighting its enjoyable and addictive gameplay loop, strategic depth, and replayability. The variety of items, build customization, and well-executed design contribute significantly to this positive experience, along with good value for money and consistent updates.
Frustration primarily stems from excessive randomness (RNG) in item generation and boss encounters, leading to difficulty in getting builds going and frequent, quick deaths. Players also express annoyance with item bloat, small inventory, balance issues, and a perceived lack of strategic depth, compounded by poor translations and missing features like a save option.
Excitement is driven by the game's addictive gameplay, interesting item combinations, and the potential for future content and updates, including new game modes. Players are also thrilled by the game's overall quality, depth, and performance on platforms like the Steam Deck, anticipating its full release and continued development.
Disappointment arises from the perceived lack of player skill impact due to over-reliance on luck for item drops and boss encounters, leading to a feeling of unfairness. Players are also let down by the lack of external or permanent progression, limited build flexibility, repetitive gameplay, and poor translations, which collectively diminish the long-term enjoyment.
Players express hope for the game's future, specifically for potential improvements, new features, and additional content, particularly in modes like Kingmaker. This indicates a belief in the game's underlying potential and a desire for continued development to address current shortcomings and expand on its strengths.
Verdict
Mostly positive
Summary
Positive 76% · Negative 24%. Score: 24 / 100
Positives:
- Players find the game highly enjoyable and addictive, often leading to extended play sessions. Its core gameplay loop is described as simple yet compelling, making it hard to put down.
- The game excels in offering a vast array of item and build combinations, encouraging experimentation and strategic thinking. This variety ensures that each run feels fresh and rewarding, with many hidden synergies to discover.
- The game is praised as an excellent roguelike/roguelite, effectively capturing the essence of the genre with modern mechanics. Its minimalist yet effective retro aesthetic is also a significant draw.
- The game's retro pixel art style, combined with its fitting and often praised soundtrack, creates an appealing and cohesive aesthetic. This presentation significantly enhances the overall player experience.
- The auto-combat system is well-received, allowing players to focus on strategic build crafting rather than manual combat. This design choice contributes to a relaxing yet engaging gameplay experience.
Negatives:
- Players consistently report that the game's excessive reliance on random number generation (RNG) for item drops, boss encounters, and overall progression makes runs feel unfair and unrewarding. This randomness often leads to 'dead runs' where success is impossible without specific, lucky item combinations, diminishing player agency and the satisfaction of building a strategy.
- A significant issue is the 'negative progression' where unlocking more items actually dilutes the item pool, making it harder to find useful items and assemble viable builds. This counter-intuitive system, combined with limited inventory space, makes the game feel like a grind and reduces the enjoyment of discovery.
- Many players find the game's overall difficulty to be unreasonably high, leading to frequent frustration and a lack of satisfying progression. The game is perceived as shallow, repetitive, and lacking in depth or meaningful content, especially after the initial hours, which detracts from long-term engagement.
- Players note significant balance issues with items, where many are underpowered or lack meaningful synergies. The item combination system is also criticized for not providing sufficient rewards or feeling intuitive, leading to a sense of stat juggling rather than powerful upgrades.
- Multiple players have reported serious translation errors, particularly in Chinese and Japanese. These inaccuracies significantly impact gameplay by misrepresenting item effects, conditions, and other crucial information, making the game difficult to understand and play effectively.
Gameplay:
- The game is primarily a roguelike with auto-battler elements, emphasizing strategic build experimentation and adaptation. It features a core loop of exploration, item collection, and preparing for boss fights within a day/night cycle.
- Bosses have unique mechanics and their abilities are revealed in advance, allowing players to strategically tailor their builds. This requires constant adaptation and finding synergies to counter specific boss challenges.
- Runs are short, typically lasting 5-20 minutes, making the game quick to pick up and play. Each run has a time limit that progresses with player movement, forcing quick preparation before boss encounters.
- The game features a vast array of items and combinations, including set items, which ensure high replayability and unique runs. Players are encouraged to experiment with different builds and item synergies.
- An asynchronous PvP mode, 'Kingmaker', has been added. In this mode, players can challenge AI embodiments of other players' builds instead of traditional bosses, offering a different competitive experience.
Performance:
- Players report a stable and optimized experience across various platforms, including the Steam Deck. This indicates good technical performance and a lack of significant bugs or crashes.
Recommendations:
- Many players express optimism for the game's future, anticipating content updates, balance changes, and new features. They believe the game has significant potential to improve and become more engaging with ongoing development, with some even stating they would revise their reviews based on future changes.
- Many reviewers highly recommend the game, often praising its value for money, especially when on sale. They describe it as a solid, enjoyable experience, with some even calling it their 'Game of the Year' or giving it high scores.
- The game is highly recommended for fans of specific genres, particularly roguelikes, auto-battlers, and turn-based RPGs. Reviewers suggest it will appeal to players who enjoy challenge, luck-based elements, or methodical exploration and object combination.
- One reviewer suggests that players who find the initial area uninteresting should persist and try to reach the second area, implying that the game's appeal or depth increases beyond the starting zone.
Miscellaneous:
- Players are highly anticipating the game's development through Early Access and its eventual 1.0 release. They expect more content, features, and balancing, and are keen to see how developer feedback is integrated.
- Players frequently request a 'backpack' or temporary storage system for items, especially for duplicates or food. This would help manage inventory and prevent items from disappearing due to bugs.
- Players are looking for more control over build randomness and greater viability for mixed builds. They also suggest mechanisms to ban certain items or combine them, especially rare ones, to prevent meta dominance.
- The game's heavy reliance on text-based elements means players spend significant time reading. There's a suggestion to make combat more rewarding, perhaps by offering more substantial item drops instead of just currency.
- The game is frequently compared to other popular titles like Loop Hero, Vampire Survivors, and Tiny Rogues. While similar in style, players note it offers a distinct experience that still satisfies a similar gameplay itch.
