Loot River

You know that moment in a good roguelite where you've overextended yourself, but you've also won riches that you don't want to lose before you can bank them? This is what Loot River is built for, ultimately: I race around the world, dashing from one tile to another, breaking off from a little continent, an archipelago of burning wood and then searching, searching for the level's exit as I eye my tiny health gauge with fear. A procedural dungeon-crawler where you can rescramble the once-scrambled levels? Gary Chang would be proud.

It took me a little over six hours to get my first victory screen, but that wasn’t the end of the game. Unlocking everything, uncovering secrets, and piecing together the lore are all a part of the almost inexhaustible experience. It can be acutely irritating to fall victim to a first-level foe after nearly making it to the last boss in the previous run, but the game is hard to put down. Loot River reimagines some of its inspirations' best elements, offering players a chance to sail cleverly through each environment, grow powerful enough to slice up once-impossible threats, and unravel a story that smartly weaves into its gameplay.

Even occasional bugs and minor inconsistencies on challenge do little to sully a terrific first try for straka.

With unique ideas, Loot River is an interesting roguelike with a distinct personality. Straka Studio effectively combines action, RPG, and puzzle elements, but the challenge level is too unbalanced, and the progression feels sparse. It's suitable for those who love worthy challenges and have a lot of patience.

Loot River, with its unique approach, offers an attractive concept, especially for challenge and puzzle enthusiasts. However, issues related to combat and the game's price on PlayStation consoles may be factors to consider when deciding to try this labyrinthine journey on Sony consoles.

Loot River has addictive gameplay and you'll want to play it again. However, there isn't much story, which is a shame for the interesting world I found myself in.

Loot River has the potential to be a spectacular roguelike experience with its interesting idea of controlling the platforms. However, the application of basic aspects of the experience wasn't done probably and the game feels like an unfinished product.

Unless you’re someone who really enjoys roguelikes as a genre. Then this would be something you could spend a weekend on. Otherwise if you’re only a more casual fan of the style of game, then look at the one that reach a higher standard.

The overall experience of Loot River is somewhat conditioned by the not too deep content which does not help it reach its full potential, but the result is still distinctive.

Perhaps the game should have stayed in the early access format as long as possible, rather than rushing to release in the Xbox Game Pass collection. Probably, after a year of patches it will be a completely different game.