What is the appeal of a roguelike? This is a genre I have watched evolve significantly since a little game called The Binding of Issac. I know the genre has technically been around for a lot longer if you want to argue the semantics of rogue, roguelike, and roguelite (I don't), but Issac is when it went mainstream. I still see it hailed by many as their #1 recommendation when it comes to the genre. But, it's blown up a ton in the past decade, and now there's even multiple sub genres.
You've got your card based/deck building games like Slay the Spire and Monster Train.
You've got your action shooty stabby based roguelikes - Hades, Rogue Legacy, Enter the Gungeon, Dead Cells, Curse of the Dead Gods.
You've got your party based roguelikes, such as Darkest Dungeon, Wildermyth, Banners of Ruin, Mystery Dungeon?
You've got your hybrid subgenre games, like Hand of Fate 1 and 2.
And with Returnal, our first AAA roguelike. Great game, although the co-op is buggy. I was playing with my friend Mark and the game bugged out and stopped our progression. It wouldn't let us enter the boss room. Worse, it happened on 2 different bosses. At least the single player is still great. Update 7/8/22: Mark and I were finally able to beat Returnal in co-op. Great game.
There's even more sub genres of roguelikes but you get the gist. It's a huge selection of games valued by their replayability thanks to variety in the moment to moment gameplay.
But, one thing missing from a lot of these games is a good story, or at least a good narrative presentation. Really, I'd count Hades, Returnal, Darkest Dungeon, Hand of Fate to an extent, and the star of this article, Wildermyth.
In Wildermyth, the story is just the setting, and its the random events that happen along the way that make each run feel unique. Darkest Dungeon and Hand of Fate are similar (and to an extent, Rogue Legacy due to the randomizations in its characters)
In my last session of Wildermyth, one of my warriors (named Adolin Kholin) was a part of the defense force when one of my towns was assaulted by the Morthagi. He was already severely weakened from a previous battle (and honestly should have not been a part of this fight) and so I tried to keep him hidden. Unfortunately, he got caught in the crosshairs of an enemy unleashing a fire breath attack with a wide cone AoE. I was worried this would be his end.
But! His sword, Grimblade, begins trembling. I am offered a choice that I hadn't seen before when a character lost all their HP. I can sacrifice my artifact weapon to preserve Adolin's life. It was either that, or have him become permanently wounded and take a penalty to max HP. I decided it was worth it to sacrifice the weapon to keep Adolin healthy, because our very next fight was the last one of the chapter, and I wanted everyone at full strength.
We move to the final battle, and the NPC Ryvena, who had been researching a way to stop the Morthagi, had crafted a new weapon. A beautiful battleaxe called the Clockstopper. Behold its glory!
It was serendipitous! Adolin now had an even stronger weapon than before, and none worse for wear.
We went on to clear out the infestation, and brought on another 10 years of peace.
The downtime in Wildermyth brings a number of events. You get resources from all the towns you built up, can change out your equipment, and watch events. Relationships may develop or progress among your party, children may be born or grow up and join your party. Some amount of calamity cards are also removed from the deck.
One of my favorite aspects of Wildermyth are the random events which permanently alter your character's physical appearance, which also tends to change up how they play. For instance, one of my early characters, Sark Malark (named after one of my DnD characters) lost a leg very early on in the campaign, and had reduced speed for the rest of the run. He was a melee class, but it was still better than losing him.
My current campaign has had several transformations. Kaladin Stormblessed had a run-in with a strange being in a cave, and now has permanent crystal growths all over his body. This provided additional abilities, such as raised defense, and an ability to shoot out crystal shards from his body that damage all nearby enemies. Kaladin also lost an eye at some point and replaced it with a crystal gem that can shoot out a laser as a bonus action every other turn.
Shallan Davar encountered an ice deity which changed her bright red hair into ice white, but she gained a freezing breath attack in return. Jasnah lost her arm and got a hook in replacement. Fortunately, she was a mage using a 1 handed wand, so she wasn't terribly impacted. This may actually be from a mod, I'm not sure if the main game has full body transformations. You should check out the mod, though. If anyone wants it I can give you the full list of mods I use.
