It Lurks Below , Survival RPG in the Underground
0Disclosure: This game copy was bought by the reviewer.
Dive into the underground to destroy a prevalent evil as one of six classes. Build up a home base made up of rooms housing supporting NPCs such as the banker or general store manager. Survival is also an important role, so you must sleep when tired and farm tasty veggies to keep your belly full. Level up, loot items with randomized stats, and dive into randomly generated levels.
I understand there will be a lot of people comparing this to Terraria, but this game lacks most of what made Terraria bearable in terms of digging and exploration. You start on the surface and complete some intro-quests for starting items and a basic tutorial. Once you get past the introduction to farming and crafting, you begin the spelunking phase and discover how bland the experience is going to be. There are a few shrines and crystals to discover, but the majority of the time you will see ore and monster filled rooms. Digging is also very slow, especially when mining ore. The AI for monsters presents little danger (since melee can be stopped by a few blocks and the rest won't shoot if you are mostly hidden). The addition of the fatigue and hunger system also puts a timer on your time spent below ground before you need to eat food and sleep. The last problem comes in the form of death, which will force you to drop a few items (including CLASS items) and possibly create a spiral of attempting to retrieve the items and dying in the attempt. At least the Homestead teleport makes returning to your home base easier than the idea of climbing back up to the surface. Just do not accidentally reset your teleport port or you will need to dive back down the long way.
Given the lack of weapon types (just a ranged weapon with different shot patterns), basic combat and the narrow form of progression with little variety, this game doesn't offer anything you wouldn't find in similar games. The price point alone makes it a hard sell at $20. I just don't recommend it when the game play doesn't evolve and the progression offers nothing spectacular. Random item stats can be a fun idea if the animation reflects the possible combinations, but it is just a different spread or color. Hopefully it improves down the line, but for now, give it a pass.