Rodent Warriors

Review

(Early Access Review. As an early access release, you may experience bugs, content, interface and optimization changes. If you are not excited to play the title in its current state and to help support the title to full release by reporting bugs and requesting additional content, you may want to wait for further development).

Introducing Rodent Warriors: A sensational pixelated maze runner. Take control of your rodent warrior & battle hoards of animals from spiders to elephants; as you progress you will unlock other rodent warriors, each with their own abilities. You will enter each maze with a set quest to earn your prize. As you play you will collect materials from slain enemies for crafting, which allows you to upgrade your equipment at a steady pace as you play. These can also be upgraded with symbols you receive for beating some enemies. You will also collect the bones of the fallen, which are used in upgrading one of your four attributes. You will want to choose these wisely; as you progress through each level the animals become increasingly stronger. Low on health? A health upgrade will raise your max health and refill it instantly. Perhaps you need to increase weapon power instead, or increase your critical shot chances, or decrease the time for your powers to reset. Make your way through the mazes checking every area for containers of magic juice that will increase your power levels on one of your stats depending on its color. You are now prepared, it's time to battle!

Released on Feb 8, 2019, by the developers Kevin Smeltzer, Azucena Nuñez & published by Rodent Warriors, this is a 2D, retro, pixel graphic, action, rogue-like, RPG. It is the developer’s and publisher’s first release on Steam. There are 6 playable characters, each with different abilities; you start out playing as the mouse and unlock the others as you play. Death may be the end for your present character. With every death, stats are added to your new characters, according to which one you are playing at the time of death. Engaging gameplay against a slew of critters that are out to get you as you find your way through the mazes. The cutest background audio ever of all the critters in the game. With a gear-crafting system that allows constant upgrading, infuse your gear with symbols to increase their stats. In strategy mode you can customize the gameplay to suit your taste (additional features for this are still being added). Along with 6 skills you will unlock as you level, which require mana and have timed usage. There are currently 50+ enemies (including bosses), with 7 quest areas to play through. With much more content planned, you are sure to get plenty of bang for your buck here!

For Settings.
There are not a lot.  The basics are covered with a sound and music slider, fullscreen/window, language selector (currently only English), and the keyboard configuration, which is re-bindable. There is no reset to default in the keybinding configuration though. You will find the quit button here as well.

Impressive indie game for being early access, with a fair amount of content already in the game, and lots more still to come with updates. I have had a lot of fun during my time with the title. It is a somewhat challenging title at times; I would rate it between casual & difficult. I simply adored all of the animals in the game; for a pixel title they are all done quite well. And those cute noises they make in the background was a wonderful addition to the title; I rather enjoyed listening to them as I played. It doesn't take too long to get used to the mechanics of the title. It did take me a little while to get used to how the navigation worked in the mazes. Once I grasped how it worked it was a lot easier to manoeuver through them, of course. The RPG elements and questing are cleverly designed, along with the crafting and XP systems. I still have lots of game time to go before I finish the title. There is a lot of gameplay for the price. It also has plenty of replayability. If the title is of interest I would recommend you pick it up while it is in early access, the developers have stated that the price will be rising as more content is added and it reaches full release.

Review written by DamageInc.for Zeepond.com!