Are we the goodies?

The opening theme ofMythforceis a wonderfully observed 1980s positivity ballad in the style ofJayce and The Wheeled Warriors.

This song believes in you, aggressively so.

The four lead characters from Mythforce

Everyday people become heroes!

You and me, we can defeat evil!"

The roguelike dungeon dallying that follows doesn’t take that “you could do it!”

The player fires a fireball at a skeleton in Mythforce

Like I say, the focus of the marketing seems to be “relive your childhood!”

but the game’s moving parts are all focused on making a dungeon-runningco-oproguelike that conforms to player expectations.

The procedurally generated crypts and courtyards are full of the stuff.

An orange, horned demon pounds the ground in Mythforce

Barfing out from chests and spilling out of smashed pots.

As for the rooms and corridors themselves, there’s some noticeable repetition of memorable segments.

But that’s part of the whole deal with this sort of game.

The player chucks fire at two spore warriors inside a barrier in Mythforce

(Perhaps the thing these games have most in common is the joyfully synthy 1980s soundtrack).

In other words, it’s grand.

But it could use a bit more pizazz of its own.

The player fires a fire spell inside a tomb in Mythforce

The combat is at its best when something unexpected happens.

Mushroom enemies who suddenly shrink to dodge your arrow.

What’s less pleasing is some of the melee combat.

The player fires a golden bow at a monster in Mythforce

The strict tracking of enemy area attacks, for example, feels a bit odd.

In short, the parry mechanic is a little too hard to read to make it truly satisfying.

I always ended up favouring ranged attacks offered by bows and magical tomes.

A man readies a bow while a woman casts a spell from a book in Mythforce

Even a failed run nets you some gold to pump into making perks and items stronger.

Again, this is by-the-book rogueliking, the classic incremental character improvement over many runs.

In the downtime that follows, the menus turn out to be fairly unintuitive.

Mushroom warriors approach the player in Mythforce

and then the item’s effect, then “Minimum drop rarity of common/rare/etc”.

Only one of these sentences is really needed - the item’s effect.

This is the word butcher in me talking.

A skeleton merchant leans against a log in Mythforce

It doesn’t kill the game, obviously, I’m nitpicking.

But some more tidiness under the roguehood goes a long rogueway.

All in all, I haven’t been blown away by Mythforce.

I was expecting something a little funnier and self-deprecatingly daft.

But it isn’t a badly crafted boney boy basher.

A single solo run often left me murderizing for a happily thoughtless 30-45 minutes.

In this sense, Mythforce is less “Saturday morning cartoon” and more “Sunday evening co-op”.

I believe in you!

This review is based on a review build of the game provided by publishers Aspyr.