Requiem of Reuinis

Magic Tower games are a unique, and rather niche genre that blend RPG, puzzle and strategy together, often forcing you to calculate the most optimal order of choices possible across floors which are populated by locked doors, stat upgrades and enemies. Every fight is instant, and the result is decided purely down to your ATK and DEF, and the enemy's ATK and DEF. Can you make it to the end by being optimal enough? Or will you keep bleeding unnecessary HP, keys, or upgrades, and eventually fall short, unable to finish? I really enjoy these games, and always keep an eye open for new ones. This little niche gaming sphere is a lot bigger in China to my understanding, but there are a whole bunch of quality ones out there, and Requiem of Reuinis was the latest to catch my eye, particularly due to a unique design approach whereby failure is not just expected, but also part of your progression! The game is built upon a day-based system. Each day, you'll set out by picking a new area on the map (a magic tower, if you will), and you'll get as far through it as you can before you eventually teeter out and run out of resources, and either die, or choose to retreat. The magic here, is how progression is built into each tower, and how you grow stronger and stronger with each new exploration. Whilst the towers are flooded with temporary upgrades that you will lose (and will respawn) upon each new day, there are also plenty of chests with permanent upgrades! Permanent ATK or DEF gems, new powerful equipment that you can choose to bring with you in following expeditions, new knowledge that lets you craft more resources in order to pursue other means of upgrading your power via the alchemy research system - the list just goes on... There's just always something to aim for, and multiple goals and targets to shoot for, which leads to an experience that becomes very easy to get invested in. To touch on the alchemy research system a little more, each day after finishing your exploration, you'll start the following day by tending to your alchemy lab, where you're essentially choosing which materials and resources to "grow", so that you can use these to craft consumable potions to take with you, or perhaps increase the % of materials you find in the towers themselves, or even powerful combat-related upgrades such as more equipment slots and base stat upgrades. This starts off relatively basic, but as the resources and options grow and grow, this becomes a minigame in of itself that you'll start thinking about more and more, and considering what your priorities are. This back-and-forth cycle of exploration -> alchemy/base-preparation -> exploration etc. is really fun, and alongside multiple other systems like skills (spells, of which there are many!), multiple shops and even some rather cryptic and zany secrets, the overall volume of the content of the game grows to be pretty crazy. I personally found a ton of fun in trying different builds from all the equipment and skills that I had learned over the course of the game, and seeing what synergizes best, what might work better in some towers over others, trying fun gimmick builds (and maybe failing, but when they work, it's so cool...) - the player freedom is just really appreciated, and helps keep the core gameplay systems from ever feeling stale. I played a little of the developer's previous magic tower game, Soulestination, which I had a really really fun time with. Sadly I never did finish it, as I started getting a little stuck and just losing motivation, but the creativity in that game is just as apparent with a ton of cool design decisions with how you tackle the maps, creative boss fights and just unique spins on the niche genre, so consider this review also a recommendation to check that game out as well. Despite really liking magic tower games, I don't really consider myself to be all that great at them, so perhaps that's a factor as to why I enjoyed this one so much. I would sti…

A solid rpg/puzzle game full of content, with an absurdly high number of unique items and abilities that will shape your playstyle. If you enjoy at least one of the following: challenging RPGs, loadout customization, puzzles, maths, resource management - then you are likely to enjoy Reuinis, regardless if you played any Magic Tower-likes before. Demo has about 10-20 hours worth of content depending on your playstyle so it's worth trying to see if this is your kind of game or not. As an example, I had a mid-late game build with an item that makes all killed enemies shoot magical projectiles at 4 nearby living enemies. Then I added an item that makes all killed enemies die 2 more times (essentially tripling the amount of projectiles), as well as a whole bunch of stuff to boost magic damage. Nothing quite beats the feeling of killing a single enemy and starting a chain reaction which fills your screen with projectiles and particles - tanking your framerate and maybe even freezing your game, and obliterating every enemy on the map in the process...

Similarly to what others might say, this plays more like a Rouge-like game with Magic Tower elements. It's 1000% more accessible to causal players due to the fact you don't need insane run optimization to beat the game or even avoid a soft lock. And Rouge-like because you can create really stupid synergies that'll make you either god or blow your pc up with action queues. A Rouge-like puzzle game I guess, What is lacking to me is the story and character building. The world building could be alright due to the fact the Calamity is destroying information linked to it therefore would be removing history books and whatever. Therefore the lack of worldbuilding. I just wish I could've learnt a little bit more about the present society. Else than it being a generic medieval fantasy world with magic and a collapsed hyper advanced civilization. But that's me. What really sucks is the characters. Soulestation, the previous game (not connected to this), has more characterization for its protagonist than this game for its characters. Yes, there are many games that do not have story or lore bits or whatever to them, but Requiem of Reuinis has a very little amount of character interaction. just enough to maintain the plausibility of the story, that it becomes a detraction from it. Soulrestation, although it's ending a bit abrupt and rough, had me satisfied for Rovia. Requiem of Reuinis ending had me feeling like 'oh that's interesting/cool', or 'that's it?'. I would've felt more sad to finish the game if I had been more immersed in the characters. An outside hub from the main base screen with the difference protagonist character you chose to play as would've maybe been sufficent. In the end, I'm just an autist for characters and worldbuilding. The game was really fun, and trying to solve the ARG puzzles in game with a friend was also very fun.