Ring of Pain
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for Ring of Pain
Ring of Pain can be frustrating in its difficulty, but more often than not, it's satisfying and wonderfully creepy.
Ring of Pain is an excellent concept which is almost perfectly executed, but falls flat at the final hurdle. The gameplay is as engaging as it is moreish, which is why it's such a shame that the difficulty spike at the end ruins the experience. Hopefully this is something that's amended after today's release.
There's certainly room for improvement in Ring of Pain, but what is here is an intriguing step forward for the genre that's just in time to celebrate the Halloween season. With a few content updates and a rebalance that lets players experience more of the game's arsenal more consistently, this could be a real contender. As it stands, it's an engaging mystery waiting to be solved, a gameplay loop that's perfect for shorter play sessions interspersed with more in-depth dungeon dives done elsewhere.
All in all, Ring of Pain is a different enough take on the card game genre that it’s definitely going to be a good time. While not perfect, it has enough lurking in its depths to keep you thinking “Okay, well just one more run!”
Ring of Pain shows creativity and promise, but all to little depth to carry those qualities through. The choices presented by the game are interesting in principle, but in practice your success or failure are determined by luck more than anything else. The result is a game defined by repetition, which struggles to justify the time it asks of you. That said, for a minor price and a fun few runs, you could do far worse as a distraction.
Ring of Pain is an immensely enjoyable experience that can be monumentally frustrating due to its luck-focused nature. It has excellent mechanics and really has a way of worming itself into your brain. But it can be horribly aggravating all the same.
Ring of Pain has some slight issues that hamper its replayability but, overall, its a dark, atmospheric and well rounded addition to the card rogue-like genre
Ring of Pain probably isn’t something you’ll sit and play for hours at a time. It’s the sort of thing you’ll enjoy a few rounds of before turning it off, more than likely feeling defeated. But it won’t be long before you’re itching to jump back in and try again. There’s something infectious about its simplicity; it’s a roguelike dungeon crawler like no other, and despite the lack of action or actual dungeon-crawling, it’s huge amounts of fun. Even when you’re exploding left, right and centre.
