Summary
Developer: moi rai games
Publisher: offbrand games
Platforms – PC (Reviewed)
Review copy given by Developer
NOTE:
The following game is being reviewed in an Early Access State, the game may change after the release of this review, this review reflects the game at the time of publishing
Games in the creature collector genre live and die by their roster, and few look as promising as Aethermancer, not only due to its top-notch creature designs and pixel art, but also because it attempts to bring depth to a genre that often lacks complexity with its turn-based battles.
The game puts us in the shoes of Siriux, an aethermancer tasked with stopping the void from swallowing the town of Pilgrim’s Rest. To do that, Siriux bonds with the souls of sinners, now reborn as monsters, so they can break out of their cycle of death and rebirth by performing good deeds.
Aethermancer allows you to tame every single enemy in the game, including bosses, who retain their immense power after being added to your roster. It feels quite meaningful to play a game where you collect creatures because they bring new mechanics and skills to your party, and not simply for the sake of completionism.
All of Aethermancer’s monsters have a cohesive kit of two skills and a unique trait, serving as the basis for their build. Your goal is to exploit each monster’s trait as much as you can, creating long chains of buffs, debuffs, attacks, and anything else that can give you an advantage. If your monsters are simply acting alongside each other without interacting, then you probably already lost that run.
It’s quite gratifying to find that one feedback loop that works, especially because the game emphasizes quality over quantity. The monster roster isn’t very large, there aren’t many items, and you are bound to see the same skills showing up after a while, but everything that you collect and upgrade during a run truly makes a difference in your build, which should always be a roguelike’s priority.
Aethermancer’s early access release is surprisingly packed with quality-of-life features that make your monster-hunting adventures smoother, like an inspection menu that provides detailed info about each monster and its skills, as well as an in-game glossary that highlights each keyword’s function when you inspect an ability. This is a game where every turn is important, so being able to double-check what an ability does before committing to it is extremely helpful.
Unfortunately, Aethermancer does suffer from a couple of issues, specifically related to its pacing and unlocks. You can get very far in a run and only have enough currency for one or two upgrades, which doesn’t feel like much when Aethermancer’s runs can go on for nearly an hour.
It doesn’t take much grinding to defeat the game’s current final boss, but you do have to spend your crystals on quite a few underwhelming upgrades before the interesting ones actually start showing up. Getting +10 gold at the start of a run isn’t nearly as meaningful as getting extra XP at the end of each fight, or even being able to save one of your monsters from death.
Each monster also has a worthiness level, which is upgraded as you bring them into fights and carries between runs. It’s easy to understand why the game would want to create another layer of progression, but it incentivizes you to keep using the same monsters rather than trying out new team compositions, something a roguelike should avoid doing.
While it does suffer from some early access growing pains, Aethermancer is definitely worth checking out because of its combat system. This is a game where having a 20% chance to receive a buff twice can actually make a huge difference, and it’s exciting to find the item and skill interactions that can create an overpowered build. The monster designs are also a highlight of the experience, and they even have shiny versions with different attributes to allow for more build diversity.
The last update even added a new class that gives you more control over your creature’s traits at the cost of corruption, so it does look like the game is shaping up to be more player-friendly instead of taking its balancing too seriously. If you don’t mind long runs and slow meta progression, Aethermancer is a very satisfying roguelike to play through, even though it takes a bit of grinding to get going.
