Riddled with Grinding?
Riddled corpses EX is a twin-stick shoot ‘em up that challenges players to survive through story levels wherein hundreds of demons will slowly rush the player, with some having projectiles. In this 16-bit themed shooter, avoiding hits and killing in a quick succession will maintain a combo, which increases damage, and hopefully gives the player some room to breathe.
Riddle Corpses came out on Steam in 2015 and this “EX” version is the first time it’s hitting consoles.
Price: $11.99
Platforms: XB1 (Reviewed), PS4
Price I’d Pay: $11.99
Copping that gold…
Even at the start, dozens and dozens of enemies will litter the screen and the player might not last very long. Luckily, there is a roguelike system that will eventually make those levels easier as gold is accrued from dead demons. It’s not a true roguelike though, because when a level is completed it’s possible to start at the next one.
Gold can be spent to level up the characters, to acquire new characters, and there are also a few upgrades that can be purchased that apply to all characters. The characters have varying movement speeds, health and damage output. Some have unique attributes like gold magnetism or double gold.
Before entering a level, gold can also be spent on consumable items like extra health, a screen-clear bomb, and a temporary time-stop (max of nine for all). Any unused items upon death are lost, so those should really only be purchased if the player is confident that the investment will be worth it. These consumables randomly drop from enemies as well.
…More like grinding that gold
For 99% of players, the best character and every upgrade needs to be purchased to beat it. Getting to this point will take a lot of grinding, especially if you invest gold into characters that won’t help out too much (*raises hand). Instead of replaying the just-ok story levels, I spent a good amount of time grinding in survival mode.
Survival mode, with a stationary play area, traps the player to see how long they can survive.
It is extremely fast-paced, and therefore, a great way to get gold fast. Survival mode distills the game to its essence, cutting the fat from the story levels. There’s also an arcade mode that is one life through the story, with level-ups along the way. This mode doesn’t contribute to grinding gold though, so I played it through only once.
Verdict
The pairing of fast-paced combat and using skill to acquire as much gold as possible was an enjoyable and challenging gameplay loop – but – the progression was uninspired in its scope and outright disappointing at times. Spending A LOT of gold on 2 useless characters was a bummer. Luckily, the grinding became much faster and more fun when I discovered the survival mode, which let me just enjoy maneuvering around, getting a crazy combo, and hitting everything as quickly as possible to make space.
Riddled Corpses’ solid gameplay and faithful “retro feel” mostly make up for a limited and sometimes disappointing progression system. It’s likely to please those who don’t mind grinding as well as those who enjoy a challenge – superficial and linear as it may be.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
