Otherworld Legends by Chinese developer ChillyRoom is a roguelike RPG that mashes the satisfying pound-and-dodge mechanics of your favourite beat-em-up with room-by-room exploration a la Zelda. Fun, challenging, and severely stylish, this indie gem is perfect for core gamers who want on-the-go gaming with depth.

The game begins with a short cutscene that provides some (threadbare) context to the face bashing. Your character wakes up in a strange place and is immediately attacked by an armoured warrior. After defeating this warrior, you meet a strange young man in glasses who explains that you’ve been transported to an alternate dimension and must fight your way back to your world.

The gameplay revolves around exploring the rooms of a dungeon in the style of classic 2D Zelda or The Binding of Isaac. The rooms are set up in a grid, and you must make your way through them one at a time until you find a portal to take you to the next level. Most of the rooms contain monsters that you have to defeat before you can choose the next room to explore, others contain treasures or shops where you can obtain buffs that give your character passive stat boosts or new abilities.

Otherworld Legends is Button Mashing with Finesse

Combat is simple enough, and the virtual joystick controls should be familiar to anyone who’s played a mobile action game. Much of the game is spent mashing the attack button, but due to how the combat works, careful positioning is key to a successful run. With the default fighter, your attacks hurt any enemy unit within a certain distance in front of her. Attacks and combos don’t lock you into this range; you have to carefully consider how many attacks you can string together before adjusting your position with your dodge and going again. This isn’t God of War -- you’ll find more success jumping in and out of fights than you will just straight-up brawling.

There are some particulars to the combat that perhaps could have been touched on in the tutorial. For instance, there’s a loose targeting system that allows you to lock onto enemies using the joystick. Also, tapping the attack button causes the default melee fighter to leap at the targeted enemy, and holding the attack button will unleash a combo. I wrongfully assumed combos were executed by quick consecutive taps of the attack button, which resulted in my character hopping unpredictably around the fighting area.

Picking Favourites

Gamesforum Review Otherworld Legends

There’s an item-based buff system at play that helps add variety and depth to the beat-em-up action. You begin each run empty-handed, but as you explore rooms, you’ll pick up buffs or weapons that can transform how you move and fight. Your character can have four items equipped at a time, so as you advance deeper into the dungeon, you’ll have to switch your buffs out with new ones if you want to survive the tougher baddies. You can also equip one weapon that will provide a special passive ability; weapons can be upgraded in a special room that occasionally appears during runs.

Picking and choosing buffs that synergize well is half the fun in a roguelike, and Otherworld Legends is no exception. Since shops and treasures are random, you’ll have to learn to think on your feet and craft a build out of the options you’re given. This means one run you might focus on combining chance-based damage bonuses with increased attack speed, while the next run you might build a hero with aura buffs and animal companions to supplement your damage output.

While most of the buffs in Otherworld Legends offer interesting effects or a satisfying power boost, too many of them are similar to one another. There must be three or four different variations of the “chance to deal bonus damage on strike” effect. This means once you’ve obtained one, you can safely ignore any buff similar to it, especially in shops where buffs can get incredibly expensive. In deeper runs, I found myself spending far too much money just resetting the shop’s selection because most of the items on sale were too similar to what I already had equipped. Still, slight balance issues aside, the gameplay in Otherworld Legends is incredibly addictive and satisfying, and there’s endless fun in the challenge of thinking on-the-fly and building a powerful buff loadout from the options given to you.

No Handholding

Gamesforum Review Otherworld Legends

Otherworld Legends refuses to explain anything to you, to its own detriment. There are half a dozen mechanics that affect how combat works, yet none of them are explained in-game, like upgrading and purchasing weapons, gaining new skills, picking an active skill (I learned the hard way that you shouldn’t put points into multiple skills at once), or even how the game’s pick-up buffs work. It took me five runs before I realized the lobby where you respawn is also the character selection screen. I’m all for figuring things out as you go, but I pity anyone who goes into Otherworld Legends without some experience in the roguelike genre.

Otherworld Legends Monetisation Model

Otherworld Legends Monetisation model

You begin the game with only a single selectable character, though you can unlock more from the in-game shop. Most of the characters can be bought with the game’s regular currency, Diamonds, though there are a few exclusive ones only obtainable with a real-money purchase.

The game has three currencies: Diamonds, Sapphires, and Rubies. Sapphires and Rubies are used to upgrade skills or purchase raw components for the game’s drinks, which give permanent buffs that carry from run to run. You can find Diamonds during runs, though they’re quite rare; they can be converted to Sapphire from the in-game shop.

If you’re a free-to-play gamer, prepare to do a bit of grinding if you want to max out all of the upgrades and abilities available to you in Otherworld Legends. Thankfully, maxed out upgrades aren’t crucial for a good time -- you can get quite deep into the dungeons with a bit of luck and some clever buff synergizing.

A Rare Cut Indie Gem

It’s sad to say, but there aren’t many games like Otherworld Legends for mobile platforms. I know it’s cliche to say it, but it really does feel like a fully-fledged console gaming experience for your smartphone.

By Andi Nuruljihad for Gamesforum