Ziggurat

Fantasy Serious Sam with roguelike formula - that and the che cartoony graphics charmed me. The game threw me into action in less than two minutes, but after 30 I don't feel a need to return for now. I died once and defeated a boss once, and was not hooked by the gameplay. Specifically, the promise of more enemies and items and skills does not offset the floaty feel of movement and the early, simplistic gunplay.

I like fast-paced and it has a little Doom vibe too. Rogue-lite is essentially a good idea, but comparing this to Binding of Isaac make this game end up in "Ocean vs Lake". Could be fun for a couple hours but it already feels repetitive right at the first floor. All weapons feel similar, all rooms feel similar. There are too little differences to notice that don't add much to every run. Pretty much a mediocre game.

Levels and enemies are bland and repetitive. Action is smooth if you just want to shoot at things, but there's not really any depth to the gameplay beyond strafing around in circles.

The game engine is nice, player action is fluent. But the content is just miserable poor, you will get bored in about 1 or probably some more hours later. Boring enemies types ,weapon choice, and all those room types is just not interesting enough. The dying experience level gain reward is also not exciting at all. If you really have no other games to play then this will be fine.

So Ziggurat 1 is a fun enough Roguelike RPG/mostly first person shooter. However, besides unlocking some characters, weapons and perks, there isn't much else to do. There's isn't a ton of permanent game progression. You don't unlock minor passive upgrades or slowly strengthen already obtained characters or items. There's also only 3 difficulty settings, the hardest one just seeming impossible to me. I felt like I "beat" the game after completing a full run on a few characters. Yes, there is more to do, but the game didn't compel or strongly incentivize doing anymore than that. Ziggurat 2 has NONE of these problems in my opinion. All the characters are vastly different, passive upgrades are available, but also subtle enough not to trivialize the game. There's even a little campaign in the sequel with 5 different difficulty modes. There's not much of a story or anything, so I'd personally suggest hopping right into Ziggurat 2. The first game was enjoyable enough, but the sequel is just way more fun in my opinion.