Ex Sanguis Review Summary

Its appealing art, atmosphere, music, and fun timeline system shine, but poor numerical balance, bland animations, and sparse Early Access content hold it back.

Appealing Visual and Artistic Style: Many reviewers praise the game's eye-catching and innovative art style, describing it as beautiful and visually striking. The distinctive aesthetic is a major draw for players.

Impressive Visuals, Atmosphere, and Music: The game excels in creating a somber and powerful atmosphere through its visuals, sound design, and music. The soundtrack is particularly praised for enhancing the mood.

Inherits Othercide's Gothic Aesthetic: The art style is heavily inspired by Othercide, featuring a black, white, and red gothic color scheme. Reviewers note the visual and thematic similarities.

Strong Foundation in Early Access: Despite being in Early Access, the core mechanics are already solid and show great promise. Players feel the game has a strong foundation for future development.

Unique and Fun Timeline System: The timeline mechanic is a standout feature, allowing players to manipulate turn order in innovative ways. It is described as well-integrated and a fun strategic element.

Numerical Balance is Poor: Enemy scaling is excessive, making player upgrades feel negligible and turning battles into frustrating grind fests; early access balance is especially painful with dominant strategies and unreasonable numbers.

Bland Animations and Visuals: Animations lack grace and style compared to Othercide, with low-poly models, minimal character detail, and a monotonous art style that causes aesthetic fatigue.

Early Access Lacks Content: The game is in early access with very limited content, including only two biomes, three classes, three bosses, and few skills, resulting in runs that feel like an extended demo rather than a full game.

Bugs and Glitches Abound: Numerous bugs are present, including crashes, display issues, skills not working, and progress loss, making the game feel untested and unstable.

Combat Feels One-Sided and Oppressive: Enemies have oppressive abilities like infinite reactions, long-range sniping, turn delay, and high damage, while player units feel underpowered and combat becomes frustrating.

Turn-Based Tactics with Roguelike: The game is consistently described as a turn-based tactics or tactical RPG that incorporates roguelike or roguelite elements. Clusters highlight turn-based combat, tactical positioning, and roguelike structure as core features.

Timeline-Based Action Order: A distinctive timeline mechanic dictates the order of actions for both allies and enemies, and players can manipulate it by delaying, accelerating, or swapping turns. This system is frequently mentioned as a key strategic element.

Meta-Progression and Permanent Upgrades: Resources gained during runs are used for permanent upgrades via a skill tree or similar system. This meta-progression persists across runs, providing long-term advancement.

Three Character Classes with Synergies: Players choose from three distinct classes (e.g., Blood Blade, Storm, True Word) that have unique abilities and can synergize with each other. Class-based team composition and skill synergy are emphasized.

Roguelite Runs and Memory System: Runs are structured as 'memories' with a limited number of battles (about 8) and memory points consumed per battle. The roguelite loop involves resetting after each run while retaining meta-progression.

Positive performance experiences: Some players report stable 60 fps on DirectX 11, minimal loading times, and smooth performance. The game also runs on low-end PCs with low settings.

Resolution and display issues: Players report the resolution changing after the first launch, and no in-game option for 3440x1440 resolution. There is also no option to reset settings.

Game-breaking bug after victory: A bug causes the screen to stay red after victory, preventing further play. This is a critical issue that blocks progress.

Blood attribute strengthening broken: Strengthening attributes by consuming blood does not work, wasting players' time. This core mechanic is non-functional.

Character strengthening time displacement ineffective: The three-choice character strengthening time displacement has no effect, making the feature useless.

Mixed Early Access Recommendations: Many reviewers recommend the game for its promising framework and tactical depth, but only for players who are willing to support an Early Access title with limited content. They often suggest waiting for future updates or a discount before committing.

Not Recommended At Current State: Several users advise against purchasing now due to the game's unfinished state, warning that it is not worth the current price. They recommend waiting for improvements or a sale before considering it.

Appeals to Niche Strategy Audience: The game is specifically recommended for fans of hardcore strategy, tactical roguelikes, and players who appreciate the distinctive art style. Those unfamiliar with the genre may find it less appealing.

Fans of Othercide Should Support: Reviewers who are fans of the original game, Othercide, are encouraged to buy and support the developers. However, some suggest that newcomers play Othercide first instead.

Positive Support for Developers: Some reviewers give a positive review to support the developers and wish them success, even if they are not fully satisfied with the current Early Access version. They hope to see the game improve over time.

Game completion: 5.0h.

Story completion: 5.5h.

Session length: 0.3h.

Endgame: 50.0h.

Some players find Ex Sanguis addictive at first through its timeline combat and run loop, but many report the experience becomes repetitive and boring after a few runs.

Friction: Combat feels extremely one-sided.; Starting a new memory run is tedious.; Memory-system progression is repetitive and monotonous.; Rewards are not fun enough to motivate play.; Meta progression and material enhancement are cumbersome and grindy.; Unlocking a boss requires a slog through simple fights..

Unlock drivers: Discovering the timeline mechanic and using it to reverse doomed fights.; Getting into the addictive run loop that encourages one more round.; Selecting easier early difficulty levels.; Activating accelerated mode when content feels empty..

Timeline Tactics Veteran: Calculates turn order, positioning, and attack sequencing on the timeline, chaining hits like a 'damage Tetris' puzzle and burning through content quickly. Motivation: Solving the deterministic, timeline-based combat as an optimization puzzle and achieving fast, efficient clears. Stance: sale.

Presentation and Polish Enthusiast: Plays for mood and spectacle, valuing art direction, music, and technical finish over grind or min-maxing. Motivation: Immersing in the striking gothic black-white-crimson art, atmosphere, and overall execution quality. Stance: buy.

Early Access Watcher: Samples a few intense hours, evaluates the systems and potential, then holds off for future updates. Motivation: Following the game's promising framework and roadmap, planning to return once more content is added. Stance: deep sale.

Frequent Othercide comparisons: Reviewers repeatedly compare the game to Othercide across visuals, pacing, healing, run structure, storytelling tone, and replayability. Most agree it is similar but with adjustments such as healing between battles and shorter campaigns.

Spiritual successor to Othercide: Many reviewers describe the game as a follow-up, spiritual successor, or iteration of the developers' previous title Othercide, noting a similar plot and overall structure. Some frame it as a more roguelike take on the same formula with shorter runs.

Game is in Early Access: A large share of feedback notes that the title is currently in Early Access with a roadmap for future updates. Reviewers mention it may still have bugs and that the exit from Early Access could resolve existing problems.

Limited Early Access content: Several reviewers note that current Early Access content is small, with only desert and city biomes and an ending after three bosses. Some say it is not much more than the demo and can be finished in under five hours by tactics veterans.

Roadmap and future updates: Feedback highlights a roadmap that looks fantastic, with planned additions such as mission objectives, interactive objects, environmental mechanics, enemy types, passive abilities, and character appearances. Reviewers expect roughly two quarters of updates.