Jupiter Hell

It is supposed to be a turn-based, classic style Roguelike, in reality is a high octane boomer-shooter. There are no words to describe how fluid the action of this game is, all the weapons feel powerful, each level-up upgrade marks a difference in power and playstyle, and the same applies to each class. You are free to play it slowly like a fine game of chess, but are totally encouraged to act fast in order to improve your immersion and experience. Many builds encourage you to play boldly in order to hit hard, others help you to quietly guide your enemies into a fatal trap, others help you to blow your enemies head from a different room, others help you to flank them while keeping yourself safe behind covers. Every approach is valid, every approach has the potential to destroy everything in your path, but they also have the power, they definitely have the numbers, and you are veeery easy to kill. The aim, dodge and damage system of this game is so elegant that at every moment of the game you know exactly when is the best moment to pull the trigger, when is wiser to seek a cover, the best moment to escape, or quite literally charge into your enemy's face. A recommendation on my part would be to change the voice acting profanity to "Clean", "Serious", or "Serious/Clean". The default voice acting feels waaaaay to cheesy, it feels out of place with the aesthetic of the game, and in comparison with voice actors of the boomer shoote protagonists from whom this game took inspiration (Duke or Caleb), the voice actor doesn't manage to create an interesting personality. I would even recommend to disable the music volume (At least on the early levels, later in the game it gets better)

Buy this game! Jupiter Hell has been one of favorite games for the last two years and continues to amaze me with each patch. Even if you do not have a lot of background with roguelikes, this game will pull you in and you won't regret it. At only $20, this game is an absolute steal. I would happily pay $60 for a game like this, and just to support the developer I'll gift some copies. I've been disappointed by enough early access games to generally steer clear of them, but I jumped on this one immediately because I had already been a huge fan of the predecessor (Doom Roguelike) and then spread it around to my friends and family. The developers have always been thoughtful when reporting the (very few) bugs throughout the earlier versions or balance changes and listening to feedback, without ever just bending blindly to the will of the community which many other roguelike games have had problems with. The game has been incredibly well polished even from the first days of early access, and it has been amazing to see their progress over the last couple of years.

As a 90s kid I played classic Doom and a little Rogue. Recently I have been addicted to XCOM, XCOM 2 etc. and have been looking for something to scratch that itch! Having played a couple of Rogue-likes/lites I’ve never been very impressed with the genre until now. Jupiter Hell is old-school in that it’s challenging, requires you to genuinely pay attention and get skilled (no character traits carry over when you die). The retro UI is perfect as is the tongue in cheek tone and the funny and arguably realistic level of profanity the Marine spits out while spraying Demons against the walls. I bought the game because a turn-based, adrenaline-packed Roguelike (that’s the most true to its roots I’ve ever seen) with a 90s Alien/Doom theme and XCOM-style TBS cover/gunplay mechanics sounded too good to be true, but it wasn’t and I’m hooked and I wholly recommend it! Turn-based/adrenaline-fuelled sounds like an oxymoron, but the controls are so streamlined and the pressure mounts up that it works well. Kudos to the developer for making something so satisfying to play that also captures that cheesy and grungy sci-fi aesthetic. There could be a little more explanation about the multiple paths, but it rewards exploration and it’s nothing a quick google can’t explain. Sometimes the RNG screws you over by piling all the enemies on top of you, but as an XCOM fan that’s just par for the course and it’s so quick to pick up and play again it’s part of the fun when you got oh so close but wiped out. It looks great on my gaming PC and even runs fine on integrated graphics on my i5-1035G1 thin and light. If you’re curious, give it a go!

I came to love AliensRL, then the D**mRL. Jupiter Hell took some from both, and has added a new mechanics. As of now, 0.8.5c version, it's also scratching a Diablo itch with its rare weapon perks. Fun fact: the same author has created a DiabloRL, a faithful recreation of the game balance in roguelike setting.

Well, nothing exceptional to be honest. The game start with very high potentials but become soon a borefest due to a number of reasons. The game does a really poor job in trasnferring to the player if you are shooting, to who you are shooting. If enemies are shooting at you but do not hit you. Why they don't hit you. Where is the cover. How you are in cover. When they are in cover. What weapon you are using. The interface is quite nice in terms of graphics but is tremendously confusing and poor in telling what is going on. Nice the idea of using the keyboard only. All in all the game is really not that fascinating and just a grind fest with a bit of swaring and some nice graphics.