SpiritsRL by Xecutor
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Guest reviewer Darren Grey (http://gruesomegames.com/blog)

SpiritsRL is a turn-based tactical game rather in the style of UFO Enemy Unknown and other such classics. You control a main character and 2 supporting ?Guardians?, and each round you can move them a certain number of squares and give them two commands (such as attack, pick up energy, use an ability, and so on). After you give your party their commands the enemies all have their turn, and then the cycle continues. Though not a traditional roguelike game (in fact without the ASCII symbols one might question if it?s a roguelike at all) the gameplay is very solid and there is a huge amount of depth to it.

What?s really impressive is the huge list of customizations you can choose from. There are 7 guardian classes and 10 player classes (you choose 2 classes for the player and 2 guardian types), and each class has 2 associated abilities and varying stats. Abilities range from direct damage, to protection abilities, to invisibility, blinding, trap creation, and so on ? the variety is astounding! What?s more, every ability and many of the stats have around 5 upgrades you can purchase between levels, leading to thousands of permutations of character detail. How Xecutor managed all this in 7 days I don?t know ? most likely he did a lot of thorough and well-thought design beforehand.

Also nice is the game?s streamlined interface. It auto-targets enemies, and you can use tab to cycle between targets, whilst menus are quickly navigated with +/-. Mouse control might be nice to quicken up the menu interface and to choose movement locations, but it works well as is. Other features like the highlighting of areas in ability range and the little pop-up damage and status text on the characters show some real care for detail in what is an incredibly polished interface.

The game is won by fighting enemies ? generally there?s quite a few on each map. There is only one general enemy ?type?, and harder enemies are just more beefed up versions of the initial foes. AI is also basic, as enemies will simply rush you en masse. There are numerous tactics you can employ in the game, like opening and shutting doors to control rushes, going to an enemy?s rear to deal higher damage (yes, every enemy and character has a facing based on their last move which affects damage), and of course using the various abilities effectively. When enemies die they drop spirit energy which can be used to recharge your energy, which is then used to power your abilities. If your guardians die in battle then you can easily revive them by sacrificing some energy. Between levels any leftover energy you have can be used to pump stats and upgrade abilities, and you have the choice as to what areas to specialise in and what to neglect.

Any fan of turn-based strategy games will love this title. It has a tactical depth and degree of customization far beyond most roguelikes. There are a number of flaws, such as balance issues with some easily exploited abilities and lack of enemy variety, but for a 7drl this really pulls off a lot. Hopefully the developer will spend some time fleshing out and tweaking the game a lot further.

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Read more reviews from the 2009 7DRL challenge