Ritualist
- TheAwakening
- Mar 31
- 4 min read
Overview
Ritualist is an isometric roguelite dungeon crawler where you are charged to perform dangerous rituals by defeating several minions and guardians at the end. Several upgrades involve runes, power cards, and up to three skills in any run. Your starting weapon changes your playstyle and moveset; this can also be upgraded with unique skills. Currently only three biomes (30 levels) are playable in early access.
Gameplay
Starting in your shrine, you can choose which weapon you’ll play with. A set of knives that can be thrown in bursts of three, ideal for ranged combat; a sledgehammer that is slow but very powerful; and a glaive that rewards precise hits with lethality. These three weapons can be upgraded separately on one of two sets (only one can be active at a time), modifying their attacks. You can also upgrade your character with one of three stats or passive abilities and further increase them with shards.
The first level is a ritual that grants up to three of the four active skills in the game, with a max of three that can be carried. Power cards increase stats; the rarer the card, the more powerful it will be, and you get some degree of choosing what stat it will have (health, armor, attack, spell power, etc.) with a second stat being chosen at random. If you don’t see the card you want, you can absorb one of your cards to free up space while retaining their stats (this will skip the reward) or skip and get coins for the shop.
Runes will grant different triggers or marks that synergize with your regular attacks or ritual spells. Several elemental attacks (lightning, fire, poison, and bleed), marks (warrior, sorcerer, and wealth), or additional spells (explosions) can be applied to runes and be triggered usually by attacking or moving through the field. Some will only trigger if conditions are met, which means you’ll need another rune that triggers the condition: A rune that will apply bleed will trigger if you apply burn or poison, or vice versa. A rune that increases your stats will trigger if a lightning rune activates. A lot of synergies and combos can be built with runes alone.
Enemies in Ritualist are numerous, with ranged and melee moves that will keep you on your toes. Dashing will grant you full invulnerability over a short distance. Some attacks can hit you multiple times, and projectiles are persistent. As you will get hit, there is little self-healing in the early game. With the proper runes, you can earn shielding points, and the warrior’s mark will heal you as well. You can heal in shrines and buy in the shop. The shop contains runes, random powerful cards, and healing, all costing coins that are earned through combat or skipping rewards.
Rooms can also contain shards; these will improve your weapon and yourself permanently back at the lobby. At the end of a region, you will face a guardian; it has powerful attacks that you must dodge and a lot of health that will require a good build of damage. If you win the battle, the next biome is in sight. Enemies scale stronger with each level; on further levels, new foes bring up different attacks, and a few have better ranged attacks. Telegraphic attacks from bigger foes are dangerous if you don’t dodge them in time. Watch your health and plan ahead of time; if you are inexperienced and take lots of damage you will need more health.
It isn’t a very difficult roguelite if you know what you are building. The difficulty will change if you use a different weapon, with the sledgehammer being more difficult to use as you cannot move or dodge when attacking. The throwing knives are a slower damaging weapon, but they cover a lot of range. The glaive offers a neutral speed and damage playstyle, with precise attacks becoming more powerful. Collecting shards of weapon and character will make things easier. Remember you can change the style of attack of a weapon.
Bugs Found
When entering the shop, the screen sometimes goes black in transition and remains that way. The game doesn’t freeze, you can still move, and moving to the next area fixes the problem, though you can't visit the shop.
You can body block the first guardian when he moves to the middle for his next attack. This delays the boss for free attacks.
Audio & Graphics
The isometric camera is a refreshing style for the game; the performance was okay too. The music matches with the atmosphere, though more soundtracks could be awesome. Sound effects are the only inconvenience; the volume is too low and barely audible. There is an indicator when the enemy will shoot a ranged attack, but it’s barely visible.
Pros & Cons
Pros-
Several weapons that change a run’s playstyle.
At least 20-minute runs.
Easy roguelite.
Cons-
The sledgehammer is very difficult to play with at the beginning.
Needs a compendium of what certain marks do in runes.
Rating: 7/10
Will look forward to more content in the future, the game has potential.
