Fun, but not related to the zodiac signs."
Roguelite games can be said to be the most favorite genre of independent games in recent years, in addition to "Killing Spire", "Dead Cells", "Hades" and other games that have led a wave of trends, there are many masterpieces worth trying, which players are talking about.
Its "permanent death" and "follow-up cards", as well as the characteristics of different gaming experiences in repeated play, have a high degree of fit with almost all mature gameplay, which is a big reason why players always look forward to a new Roguelite game - you can always see a lot of creative and fresh game experiences from these works.
And "Rising Constellation" is such a game, which has both the coolness of playing and can still bring players a lot of surprises.
The choice of theme is the first difference that "Rising Constellations" makes people notice. Although the "constellation" is an ancient and widely spread metaphysical culture, in the field of games, there are few elements used as the main theme, such as alchemy, tarot cards and other elements, obviously much more popular, let alone the most universal "magic" setting. This is a myth in the field of games, and "Rising Zodiac Signs" also makes people look forward to it with the choice of this genre.
It's just a pity that the content of this work doesn't fit this theme well. The visual elements such as the scene, text and special effects of the game itself are not much different from ordinary fantasy works, and the display and utilization of the "constellation" culture are still in a very superficial stage in this work.
For example, at the beginning of the game, the player will be carefully asked to choose his own constellation, but in the subsequent process, the impact of this choice is basically not seen.
The most important "zodiac" in the "zodiac" of the "constellation culture" only exists as a separate BOSS most of the time. Although these bosses can see some details in the design and style of action, they are still isolated from the rest of the game.
In the extreme, these constellation-related elements can be completely replaced at will in the work, and there is nothing wrong with upgrading the spell level of The Peacock constellation to "Magic Teacher Serraine"; the strong boss Taurus at the end of the level, renamed "Muraguchi Arrogant Old King", is actually not abrupt.
Fortunately, this work has a very good art design, whether it is close to the European and American oil painting style of character standing painting, or quite retro but the use of excellent color collocation, to enhance the overall look and feel of the pixel style, all bring excellent visual experience. Therefore, after the player lets go of the obsession with the subject matter, he can still have a pleasant mood to play.
In terms of gameplay design, "Rising Zodiac Signs" has brought a lot of surprises, which is enough to make players accept the flaws caused by the improper use of the theme.
Due to the fact that it is still in the early access process, the content of this game has not yet been fully developed, and players can currently control only two characters, and the flow of the game is only the first two levels. But only in terms of the current content of this part, the playability of the game is already quite high.
The action design is a very remarkable part of this game. The silky smooth combat experience it brings is reminiscent of "Dead Cells" of that year. In the game, each character has a separate set of action modules, not only the action switch between ordinary attacks, jumps and sprints is very natural, but also the action derivatives such as this falling attack. Coupled with the fact that the air attack to the target can refresh the two-stage jump mechanism, each player can easily play a rather "fancy" action combo.
It is worth mentioning that each character's normal attack has an additional judgment range, and the player launches a normal attack within a certain range, which can automatically adsorb to nearby enemies. This design can make up for the experience gap caused by different characters due to different attack distances, and at the same time, it can also amplify each character's own fighting style.
Around this action system, Constellation Rising uses a rather well-matched ability system. Each character in the game has four spell slots, and the spells loaded with them need to consume mana points to release, while mana points need to be accumulated by the player through normal attacks.
Spells themselves also come with four different slots that allow players to further enhance and change the effects of individual spells through enchantments.
Players can adjust the order in which spells are used before they can be used, but each spell will temporarily become unusable until the player has used all four spells in the round before they can be reused.
The design of this system makes it very important for players to pay attention to the management of resources during the battle - not only to pay attention to the consumption of mana points, interspersed with ordinary attacks in the gap between spell use to restore mana, but also to pay attention to the linkage that may occur between the two spells.
Unlike the cooldown resource management system, a fun set of combat gameplay has been built for Constellation Rising. Players who are more involved in the game should find that this more emphasis on the recycling of resources and the experience of energy endurance is somewhat similar to DBGs such as "Killing Spire".
Four different spells make up the player's "deck", each spell is a "card" with different performance, they have different damage, attributes and action mods, in addition to the simple output damage, but also often bring about position changes. The circular mechanism of the spell itself is "shuffling" and "drawing".
While other Roguelite games have more or less of this feature, Constellation Rise amplifies the existence of this experience with its special system design, making its combat system refreshing and unique.
In addition to the interesting battle system, The Design of The Rising Signs for the Growth System also manages players' growth expectations during the game.
In the past Roguelite games, it was easy to get players into the embarrassment of being difficult to form a routine and running all the way to nothing because of the problem of randomness. "Rising Constellations" controls the negative impact of randomness in a reasonable range through room design and the arrangement of resource placement. In simple terms, it is that the player can have enough rewards for each choice in each game flow, and there are few invalid choices.
In the game, each room not only has resource rewards such as keys, crystals, spells, slots, etc., but also provides another resource called "Stars" in the room itself. Among them, the key can open the "Constellation Chest" encountered on the road, the crystal can buy enhancements from the merchant, and the "Star" provided by each room can be exchanged for stat boosts in the "Medusa Tavern", or in exchange for other resources at the Chameleon.
The release of different resources forms a complete closed loop in the player's adventure process, no matter how the player chooses, whether he encounters the desired resources, he can get a good improvement in the process. This is a strong support for the excellent combat system of Rising Constellations, and players can expect to get a kaleidoscopic experience in each game, or they can not worry about the problem of bad luck that will lead to the collapse of the game.
In addition, in Rising Zodiac Signs, you'll also find some of the rather elaborate designs you won't see in every Roguelite game.
The room design of this game obviously absorbs the characteristics of many platform jumping games, and the room itself has great differences in structure in addition to different rewards. When designing these maps, the developers obviously designed more diverse templates, traps, movable platforms and other elements to add, so that there is a considerable gap in the terrain of each room, and these elements can also constitute the most basic box-like map structure, bringing players a unique adventure experience.
For example, you can see rooms where none of the monsters are available, traps designed entirely of traps to challenge the player, and such rooms are often placed with treasure chests out of view as a reward for exploratory players.
Jumping platform to hide from the mechanism to find rewards is completely the gameplay of the platform jumping game
The different room types make Constellation Rising a richer game experience, and there are more diverse game drawings on the scroll canvas that carries its game content, which is not necessary for Roguelite games, but it obviously makes the game more interesting.
Hidden in the invisible place is the altar of the upgraded attribute
It is worth mentioning that there is also the boss design of this game, in the four major levels, each level will have three different "Golden Zodiac" sitting. The design of these bosses is excellent, not only does each boss have at least five or six output modes, but each corresponds to a different solution. For example, Taurus's sword qi tests the player's most basic jumping ability, while Capricorn's magic book requires the player to quickly solve the summons that bring additional attacks.
This makes the boss in this game not only test the player's character strength, but also test the player's mastery and operation of the character performance. Roguelite games emphasize the gameplay experience of players and characters growing up in adventure, which is vividly reflected in the boss challenge of "Rising Signs". Therefore, although the BOSS battle of "Rising Zodiac Signs" is essentially a pile-up confrontation of "one-two-three-four", players can indeed get the wonderful experience of "dancing with bosses" in this process.
However, since Rising Signs is still in early access, there is still a lot of content that has not yet been implemented into the game, and there are still many problems to be solved in this early version.
First of all, there is something inherently wrong with the battle system of Rising Constellations. This game places great emphasis on the diverse experience of using spells, but it is somewhat conservative in spell design. These diverse spells provide only basic damage and action templates, but they don't have any additional effects on their own. Genres that focus on anomalies struggle to gain support from these spells, and can only try their luck in the acquisition of slots, defense skills, and auras.
Thunder attacks without inductance are a bit unspeakable
In addition, in the current version, the defense skills seem a bit too chicken. Not only is it less effective than entering normal spells, but its cooldown is also too long, and as a skill that can be used without consuming mana, it should have more possibilities.
Finally, the ordinary mob design in the map, compared to the BOSS design, the mob design of this game is a bit too simple and rude.
It is worth affirming that each level has a variety of mobs with different actions, but these mobs are too thick in health and too difficult to fight, and the other is that the AI is too monotonous, much like a simple stake, with a thick amount of health to pose a threat to the player.
This numerical-based design is too deliberate, and the firepower network composed of a variety of mobs can bring enough combat intensity most of the time to force the pace of the battle.
Overall, "Rising Zodiac Signs" is a game that can be expected in the future, although it has certain flaws, but it is not hidden. The fun-filled combat system and well-controlled growth expectations make each round a fulfilling experience, and the coolness of the excellent action design is also the best in recent Roguelite games. If you are a fan of Roguelite games, then quite recommend it.