Full Mojo Rampage Preview

I wish there were more rouge likes, I found myself thinking this about half a year ago, there is quite a lack of them on the market at this time, and I do love a good rouge like. Now all of a sudden there are so many new dungeon crawlers I can barely keep up with them, over the last few month there has been a small boom, not all of them are good, but most satisfy that rouge like itch.

Full Mojo Rampage is one of those games that I class as, well not really a rouge like but at the same time it is, it is a dungeon crawler sure, it’s difficult in some parts yes , but I wouldn’t say it’s a true rouge like, more just borrows elements.

For those who have never played any rouge likes or dungeon crawlers, part of the game is in the name, you’re usually in a dungeon, and well you don’t crawl in that sense, you go through procedurally created maps and it’s hard as balls. You are usually extremely weak and need to quickly acquire weapons, which are usually completely down to luck. Which is something most games refuse to give players of this genre, ever.

Full Mojo Rampage is, well, if you like rouge likes, modern or old, one thing you’re used to is dying, a lot, hell usually within the first door you die, you never expect to finish the first floor, first time unless you are extremely lucky, which is why I was surprised the first time I played this. I mean it’s easy, very easy, even on hard I found myself breezing through levels, and finding new weapons were less of a happy experience, and more just reducing the time I sat there holding attack on bosses. These mojo differ from giving you faster attack speed or completely changing how your weapon attacks, to basic of making you deal more damage or taking less damage.

For this I think this game will really put some fans of the genre off, sure some people enjoy an easy game and enjoy the story, there isn’t much of that here, and it was a game that just felt a little boring. There are traps that are easily dodged, but hell it doesn’t matter if you walk through most, doing little damage, bosses are nothing more than a slight annoyance throughout the level as well. This might seem like a trivial complaint to some but I just couldn’t enjoy this game as a dungeon crawler when I expected a much harder difficulty.

In the game you have to pick up Mojo’s, which are this games version of equipment, I found a few in the first level and breezed through it, it made me near invincible, sure this is an early access but I do hope some balancing is made.

The theme of the game is nice though, from the title is might give you a clue, but the game is very much about voodoo, you are a little tiki make wearing character as you progress throughout the game. As you play you get to meet Baron Samedi, who is extremely drunk, he’s drunk too much and your tasked with closing a load of portals, which is done by blowing up some tiki towers. It’s a basic story but it is early access at the moment so it’s what you would expect.

When you level up you can unlock new items, masks or guardian’s as it seems, I always stuck with Baron Samedi though, and you unlock these as you level up, though you can do more levels repeatedly, with no level scaling some are less repeatable.

Now one part that makes the procedurally generated more enjoyable is that throughout the game you get different missions, your basic one is to close all the portals, but you can extra that help that feeling of randomness each play through. Usually when you play a dungeon crawler, each of the levels are different but they all feel the same, same objective, so it is nice to see a game that takes the randomness aspect and give it a little twist.

Graphically the game is nice, the style of the game works well and it was always enjoyable to look at, the small file size of the game of 300mb means you shouldn’t expect amazing graphics, but enjoyable none the less. The voodoo style is nice too, graphics are something that you shouldn’t expect to be fantastic in this type of genre, but what is done here is nice.

Controls are simple, walk with WASD and point where to aim with the controller, if you’ve played any ARPG or MOBA aiming will seem second nature to you, but you might need to take a while to get used to the WASD control. I found though that it is much more enjoyable to use with a controller, and I found it easier as well, this game has partial controller support, and by this it means there are a few menus that won’t work.

The game overall is a nice game, it’s one of those, I can sit in front of my PC for a few outs and play it, graphically and gameplay are enjoyable. If you are someone who enjoys the higher difficulty found in rouge likes, this game may feel a bit simple for you, but if you want a slow introduction to the genre, this game manages that well too. For its more simple take on the rouge like genre.