Brut@l
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for Brut@l
Brut@l is a clever homage to old-school ASCII dungeon crawler games, but its stiff difficulty, cheap deaths, and repetitive gameplay limit its appeal.
The rest of Brutal doesn’t live up to its inspired visuals but it still makes for a good time
People can argue the merit and worth of roguelikes until the sun goes down, but while they’re not the most assorted or varied of role-playing experiences, what makes Brut@l work is the very procedural nature of its design.
A neat dungeon crawler offering some fluid combat, with tough challenges wrapped up in an art style straight out of Tron.
When it comes to gameplay, Brut@l may not be very innovative to the rougelike genre at its core; it’s actually pretty standard as those kind of games go. This game has its artstyle and inspiration to thank for adding tons of charm to what would have been a pretty by-the-numbers entry into the genre. If you love roguelikes, or have fond memories of the old ASCII games, you will absolutely enjoy Brut@l. Even if it lacks the depth of some of its competitors, it makes it up in spades in old-school retro charm, and will hook you for hours.
I can’t recommend this to all but the most diehard of genre fans. Even then, the art style may be lost on people who aren’t old enough to remember MS-DOS or a ZX Spectrum. That seems to be the most unique feature of the game.
Brut@l is certainly a punishing experience for those not used to Rogue-like tropes. Yet it’s a visually attractive game that pays tribute to Rogue in its ASCII style that’s genuinely appealing, as well as having a clean interface and enough flair in the combat to not be devalued as a button masher. A few issues rise when it comes to cooperative play, which make this a harder sell, but Brut@l is otherwise a fitting tribute to Rogue and the genre that came from it that dominates the indie scene.
The visual look of the game is novel and fun, but underneath it is a shallow and only intermittently enjoyable dungeon crawler.
