The rise of the indie game has been incredibly beneficial to the gaming industry. Game development has become more accessible and indie games have steadily been building market share over the last decade. One result of this has been the growth of the roguelike gaming genre, and more specifically, deckbuilding.
Deckbuilding roguelikes are games that focus on playing through encounters with a deck of cards that have various effects. As you progress you acquire more cards that can greatly alter your playstyle and chance of success. Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles takes this concept and switches it up by using dice instead of cards, as the name ”Six-Sided Oracles” would imply.
Now, I may just be a sucker for games that open with serene music and beautiful mosaic slideshows, but Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles sets the bar high with the opening sequence. Immediately you can see the pride and quality that has been put into the game, just by the care that has been injected into the opening.
A short tutorial sequence introduces some NPCs and goes over the very basics of the game. At the start of each turn, several dice are drawn and rolled to determine the player’s hand, as well as that of the enemy. Die can provide buffs, debuffs, and can have either corrupt or purify damage. Corruption damage hurts you but heals enemies, while purify damage has the opposite effect.
Enemies also have an over-corruption meter. When this fills up, the enemy receives a permanent boost to their damage through the rest of the encounter. This fills up whenever corruption damage is dealt to them, and they will choose to attack themselves to boost their damage as well.
Astrea forces you to interact with this system by implementing the condition that the only way to end your turn is to play all of your corruption dice. This means choosing to either damage yourself, or power up your enemy. However, as opposed to most other games in the genre, instead of a single life, you have three lives per run and a set amount of health per life. This gives some flexibility on how much you can gamble with your own health when left with corruption dice in your hand.
A big concern when first reading Astrea’s description was how much RNG was going to be a factor in being successful, but in play, it never really becomes a concern. There are several ways to improve your odds of rolling what you want. One of the encounters in each stage is a forge, which allows you to modify some of the outcomes of your dice. This means you can replace a corruption action with a purify action, or some other buff. There are also blessings that allow you to reroll dice.
Each character also has “virtues”; special abilities that can be used after taking a certain amount of damage. One of these virtues is the ability to reroll dice, which can be used very frequently.
There are even Sentinels that can be acquired during your playthrough which will roll dice that can be used to attack or heal, as well as take advantage of special abilities that make life easier. All of these factors together make it very easy to get around the negative rolls that your dice may have.
That being said, at the end of combat there is the option to pick between a safe, balanced, or risky die. So players with a tendency to pick just risky die are going to be more likely to be responsible for their own downfall. However, being timid and only picking safe dice means that a deck is underpowered and won’t be able to survive until the end of the run.
Mechanically, Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles succeeds in being a unique and fun addition to the deckbuilding genre. There are several characters to play with, each with their own styles and mechanics. Enemies are varied and encounters can be unique between runs.
However, it’s not perfect.
Some of the dice effects, both for the player and enemies, can seem overly complicated. Status effects can also pile up that make it confusing to know exactly what the outcome of playing a die will be. A couple of times I almost lost a run because of damage effects that were compounded by status effects that had accumulated. And further, the colour palette, while beautiful, doesn’t always have the best contrast and can make it easy to lose track of those effects.
Oddly enough, even when making these mistakes, the game doesn’t do much to punish the player. This is the first roguelike I have played where I have won more games than I’ve lost. In fact, after losing my first two games, I started winning every subsequent game I played, even when switching between new characters.
Part of the fun of roguelikes is the challenge; expecting to lose and unlock new abilities that allow you to come back and succeed is part of the fun. Astrea doesn’t quite deliver on that front. There are difficulty modifications that can be unlocked, but players looking for a real challenge right out of the gate won’t see it right away with Astrea.
I’d compare the difficulty to Monster Train, another deckbuilding game that is incredibly accessible for players new to the genre. It’s certainly easier than Slay the Spire and it’ll be a walk in the park for anyone coming off a harder roguelike like Darkest Dungeon.
That all said, Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles is a game that has been made with care. The world, art design, and music all come together for an extremely enjoyable experience. The gameplay mechanics work well, and the RNG of using dice in a deckbuilder is handled in a way that doesn’t feel unfair. It does hamper the difficulty of the game, especially if the mechanics click early on, but there are challenge modes for players looking for more.
Overall, if you love roguelikes and want an accessible game in the genre, Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles is a worthwhile look.
Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles Rolls onto Consoles with a Twist! – https://www.thexboxhub.com/astrea-six-sided-oracles-rolls-onto-consoles-with-a-twist/
Buy Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/astrea-six-sided-oracles/9PB4BBK7C5J9
