Traditional jRPG combat has seen a resurgence of sorts in recent years, though it may be more accurate to call it a repurposing; roguelite games like Sin Slayers (and before it, Robothorium) take the familiar turn-based system most prevalent in 90s-era console RPGs and combine it with gameplay more befitting a modern indie title. Primarily, that means incorporating random events that have elements of choice and consequence.

Apparently, what Sin Slayers‘ Steam page means by “partial controller support” is that you use your controller as a mouse cursor. My mouse and keyboard aren’t very accessible on the computer I’m using, so I guess we’ll see how usable this control scheme ends up being.

My first impressions of the story aren’t fantastic. For one thing, the voice acting is questionable (I’ve noticed that having inexperienced people from Slavic countries do English voiceovers can sometimes result in voiced lines that sound like drunken rambling), and the plot’s emphasis on oppressive manifestations of sin known as Sinlords is undermined by the writing’s matter-of-fact tone. Gameplay-wise, though, things are looking good. You’re given access to three characters—a healer, an archer, and a tanky melee unit—who you send out into the forest to find and beat a boss. Dungeons are grid-based, and it looks like each map will have sub-bosses that have to be defeated before reaching the actual Sinlord.

All three characters have their own unique in-dungeon abilities. The healer has a full-party heal, the archer allows you to run from enemies, and the melee guy can show you which tiles have events on them. These abilities have a cooldown, however, and the only way to recharge them is to explore unvisited tiles. Most of your exploration is blind, with the locations of the boss and various events (mostly corpses, graves, healing fountains, prayer shrines, and enemy encounters) being uncertain. Basically, you explore, beat enemies, and eventually level up in your search for the boss. Health is persistent, so keeping your party at their best is crucial in case you come across a difficult fight. Each character also has armor that can be increased as they find and equip items into their two available slots, and this armor is restored for each fight and absorbs damage. There’s also rage, which is required to perform certain attacks. This seems to become more of a factor as you unlock each character’s skill tree.

I’m enjoying the gameplay overall, and dungeons do indeed appear to be broken up into a minor boss and Sinlord, but the Sinlord Gluttony has a status effect that makes him invincible, and that’s just stupid. It feels like I’m always playing catch-up in Sin Slayers, with enemies throwing around new status effects that the player hasn’t been eased into. I don’t mind that difficulty, though, especially since everyone dying doesn’t appear to have any negative effects outside of resetting some minor in-dungeon quests. Character items and experience appear permanent, so this should be a game where everyone is constantly becoming more powerful and versatile regardless of how well or badly dungeon attempts go.

You know, the early gameplay was brutal thanks to characters not having much armor. Enemies would tear through their armor within an attack or two and leave my healer scrambling to keep up (since she healed less damage than enemies inflicted). Now that my characters have equipment that increases their armor, defense, and power, it’s considerably easier to end normal combat encounters with full health. Even bosses are largely a non-issue right now, though they’re often damage sponge-y. For example, one boss prioritized attacking my healer who had the only attack he was vulnerable against. Since she was my only healer, I was left with two options: waste consumables to speed up the fight or resign myself to a battle that lasts minutes longer than it should. I decided to go with the latter; it’s never prudent to waste healing items that might be needed later.

Anyway, I’ve taken down two Sinlords already. The dungeons are becoming larger, which is kind of tedious (especially given the sin mechanic that makes enemy fights harder if you loot corpses—these events don’t give you good equipment often enough to be worth the hassle, so most events you don’t walk away from are same-y combat encounters), but I’m still finding Sin Slayers to be a decent diversion. Here’s hoping that lasts.

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