Developer: Sengi Games
Publisher: Team17
Platform: PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series S/X
Tested on: Switch
The Serpent Rogue – Review
Sengi Games is an indie developer whose self-proclaimed mission is to make unique experiences with their projects. Their first game is an action-adventure game that has elements of crafting, survival, and exploration mixed with a pretty solid storyline. The Serpent Rogue is all about alchemy and how it can be used to save the world, though its inherent gameplay does contain a ton of grinding – something you should be aware of when heading into it. We decided to brave the wasteland and take a peek.
Story
An opening cutscene lays out this medieval fantasy setting for us. All things in this world are in balance, and they are kept this way by the ouroboros. This word might not be familiar to you, but you’ve definitely heard of the symbol that is a snake biting its own tail. Sometimes, this natural order gets unbalanced by people looking for power. When that happens, it’s up to Wardens to step in. Wardens are mysterious creatures who look like humans in a plague doctor getup. They’re not even entirely mortal though, and they can use their arcane knowledge to restore balance and save the world from decay.
The game has a journal mechanic that has entries on places, creatures, and items you find across the world. A lot of it is filler text and not relevant to the gameplay itself, but if you’re a fan of worldbuilding and lore, there are a lot of additional details to discover in these entries. Aside from that, the plot is delivered mainly through character dialogue.
Graphics
The Serpent Rogue has a pretty 3D art style that probably looks best on a bigger screen. Playing this on your Switch in handheld mode is not advised, as the UI and other details get so small the game becomes almost unplayable. Even on the big screen, you’ll notice the animations are rather simple and unrefined. Overall it’s not a bad look though, and the developers utilize a lot of clever 3D elements to make the world feel more dynamic. For example, when you enter a building, the game becomes almost more like a side-scroller with the wall and ceiling becoming transparent. Then when you exit again, it goes back to being a static set-piece.
Sound
One thing this game can be complimented on is a stellar soundtrack. You’ll be grinding and exploring a lot, which can become tedious (which we’ll get into below), but at least there’s a large soundtrack of great music to keep you company throughout. There are also some nice sound effects for the creatures you encounter, and while the characters aren’t properly voiced, they do that thing where there’s a grunting sound as they’re speaking, with each character sounding slightly different.
Gameplay
While the devs described The Serpent Rogue as an action-adventure, it can be hard to know what that actually entails, since the genre is pretty wide. Mostly, the gameplay revolves around exploring ever-changing maps in a semi-open world setting, with collecting resources to finish quests being your main goal. To start with, there’s a sort of hub map which has your house, and it is the place you’ll keep returning to. Your ultimate goal is to clear out the dark rot that has taken over the wasteland and build your way up to defeating a final boss and restoring balance. This is easier said than done, however, and to complete this main quest, you’ll be doing a lot of side quests.
Side quests come in the form of requests people leave at your kiosk, asking for specific potions. It’s up to you as a Warden to go out and collect ingredients, research those, and brew them with alchemy into all sorts of concoctions. While you’re out there, you can also discover creatures and research those, even giving you the option to befriend them and later transform yourself into them. For each request you complete, you’re rewarded with gold, which you use to hire NPCs and further your efforts of working on the main quest. We probably don’t need to tell you again how grindy this game can get.
To complicate matters, the maps are not completely open for you to explore. Dangerous storms across the land pop up occasionally, and being caught in them would be lethal. This essentially puts a timer on any exploring you do. This is more annoying than anything though, since the timer is so short and interacting with items or crafting takes a long time where you’re just holding down a button. This combined with a rather shoddy AI where your allies will just stand on poison or go into deep water to drown for no reason, and the fact that the melee combat is tedious at best, detract from an otherwise fun experience.
Conclusion
It’s clear the devs had a lot of ambition going into this project and some of it shines through, at least when it comes to The Serpent Rogue’s interesting setting and base mechanics. Sadly, the game is rather short and the gameplay has too many little faults to be ignored, meaning that overall it fails at being the fun experience it clearly sets out to be. Fans of games in which grinding is key might have an entertaining time with this one, but for those who are doubting picking this one up, we recommend waiting for a sale.
The Serpent Rogue - Review,
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