Dandy Ace

Dandy Ace delivers as challenging roguelike, with difficult enemies and bosses galore. The use of cards allows players the freedom to fine-tune their loadout to be the most efficient for their respective playstyle. Add on top of that the visually pleasing art style and use of color, and you’ve got yourself one magical roguelike.

Dandy Ace perfectly embodies the typical mechanisms of roguelites, focusing on direct, fun and captivating gameplay. The combinations that can be made through the numerous cards present push one to vary one's approach to the adventure more and more. The only pity is a not always excellent artistic compartment and a mechanic that gives too much incentive to skip portions of the game, distorting the genre.

Built on a rich setting, challenging combat and very well developed progression elements, Dandy Ace delivers a fairly firm palace of cards, proving to be one of the best roguelikes of the year and easily one of the best independent games of that last quarter.

It would be entirely understandable for a person to come into this review thinking that roguelikes are a dime a dozen these days and that this particular game is no different from the rest of the lot. However, between the traits mentioned above and the card attack system, I feel that Dandy Ace does enough to be a good game in its own right and to be a game that makes for quite the showstopper to stand out from amongst the crowd. I had a great deal of fun navigating the world of Dandy Ace, seeing what each new area had in store for me, and seeing what card combinations I could come up with. Hopefully, upon taking your own trip into the world of the Magic Mirror, you will also come away feeling a touch of magical delight as well.

Dandy Ace nails all its main concepts and ideas. It has a balanced difficulty at all levels, with a very satisfying learning curve and a replay factor that shows that Mad Mimic knows exactly where to go. The theme make the scenarios and characters wonderfully captivating, with emphasis on the PT-BR dubbing, which has known Brazilian youtubers and streamers, such as BRKsEDU, Gabi Cattuzzo and Patife, who add an extra touch of personality to this national indie scene surprise.

Dandy Ace is a great first roguelike and a fun take on the genre. Its very fun combat, not too sharp too fast difficulty, quick load times, and lack of central hub or anything to drag the time between runs on makes it extremely playable and very easy to get sucked into.

While I’ve been a fan of roguelikes for quite some time it’s only been in the past few years with top-tier titles the likes of Dead Cells, Hades, and more that they’ve really been catapulted into more mainstream gaming circles...

Overall, I like Dandy Ace a fair bit, but the story doesn't do quite enough to drive you to do more runs, and there were a few times when things felt grossly unfair due to the sheer volume of enemies that some rooms spit at you. The card combination system is wonderful to use though, and that'll keep mechanically-minded players involved for a fair while with Dandy Ace.

Dandy Ace is a colourful carnival ride full of brisk action and glitz that you'll want (and need) to play over and over again - whether that's a positive or not is for you to decide. If you're a serious fan of the rogue-lite genre, a devotee of dandyism, or looking for a title that will last you a long time, then this game is the right choice for you... otherwise, just watch someone else's gameplay on Twitch for the desired aesthetic experience.

I found the game to be well worth the $20 price tag given its polished story with voice acting and extreme replay value but you don't have to take my word for it; you can find a free demo on the Steam page and give it a go for yourself. You won't be sorry.