Vagante is exactly what I think of when I picture a roguelike. For better or for worse.
When it comes to roguelikes and roguelites, certain ideas come to mind, things that are vital to the idea. Levels that feature procedural generation and permadeath, with your character from that run staying dead, are both staples, for example. It can be interesting to see how the roguelike formula has been played with over the years, with the variations in how designers implement these features making for quite a genre.
Vagante is one of those roguelikes. Developed by Nuke Nine and originally released on Steam, Vagante has recently been ported to the Nintendo Switch and offers a wider range of players some sweet roguelike action. As a preface, this review only covers the gameplay of Vagante’s single-player mode. There is a multiplayer mode as well, both local and online, though both of those options play mechanically similarly to single-player.
And to start things off quickly, Vagante is a 2D roguelike platformer. You take the role of a simple adventurer, delving into a cave system, its depths, and the environs beyond to… attain some loot. That, as far as I was able to discern, was the extent of the story provided to the player. Even though an expansive narrative is not necessary to many games, it is still slightly disappointing that Vagante gave me nothing. Not even something along the lines of ‘you’re here to obtain a valuable treasure’, or ‘these caves are filled with riches that you simply must get your hands on’.
But the presence of the story isn’t the only thing to focus on here. Vagante has some extremely solid controls. Perhaps this is to be expected, but when it comes to games like this, tight and responsive controls are exactly what is needed, and a lack thereof can break an otherwise strong and charming concept. Vagante features your character in a 2D dungeon, with a randomly generated map that you must navigate through in a sidescrolling fashion.
In terms of combat, Vagante took a hot second to get used to, but once I did, I found myself liking the way it flowed. You have three ‘weapon slots’ to make use of: one melee, one ranged, and one magic. On the switch, you use the ‘Y’ button to melee, the ‘A’ button to aim and fire ranged attacks, and the ‘X’ button to charge and release spells.
In my adventures, I found myself sticking mainly to melee and ranged abilities, and more or less ignoring the magic unless it was something of a utility spell, such as a dash or teleport, or if I was playing the Mage. The reason behind this is that I felt like the spells were a lot less flexible than physical weaponry could be.
All spells have a preset way that they are cast, in that damage spells will always go a predetermined distance in front of you and do a set amount of damage. This is compared to melee, which has a lot of different weapons that you can find and equip easily, which always have a variety of effects and modifiers, and ranged weapons, which can be aimed at different angled and charged up for quick or powerful shots, in addition to the ease and variety of weapon types, like with melee.
Speaking of modifiers, Vagante uses them to shake up gameplay and make runs feel different. Strictly speaking, this works.
First, Vagante starts you out with basic equipment relevant to your chosen class. There are three starting classes, with a couple of extras unlocked later on. These three starting classes are Knight, Rogue, and Mage, each corresponding with a specific weapon type. Knight starts with a sturdy sword, the Rogue with a bow and a dagger, and the Mage with a weak staff and a couple of basic spells.
To obtain new equipment, you will need to loot chests found within the dungeon, which contain a variety of things to use, from new weapons to armor to consumables like potions and scrolls. Magic spells are entirely separate, being found on distinctive pedestals around the dungeon. Every single piece of equipment you pick up (again, save spells) begins as ‘unidentified’.
When you first put on a piece of equipment (or, in the case of potions and scrolls, use it), it immediately identifies it. For weapons and armor, this immediately reveals their modifiers. Modifiers can be changes to stats, both positive and negative, and special effects, such as poisoning targets or reflecting projectiles. Potions can change your stats as well, or give you boosts, while scrolls can pull off special effects like mapping the entire floor or uncursing your weapon.
Yes, your equipment can be cursed. This renders the piece stuck to you, and cannot be unequipped until you find a scroll that removes the curse. It’s majorly inconvenient and even more annoying, but can be circumvented with the proper scrolls.
Moving on to the combat, this is where I felt like Vagante hammered home the ‘roguelike’ feel. Each stage has its assortment of signature enemies, all with their own attack patterns. In classic roguelike fashion, the game becomes far, far easier once you learn how to deal with these enemies and how to dodge their attacks while weaving in your own. It might take a couple of runs, but eventually the knowledge comes, and with it, success.
In the same vein, I am conflicted on bosses. On one hand, they serve a classic role, being the often final enemy on a floor that you need to slay, and bringing with it goodies in the form of a key that can unlock a large chest with some extra loot, or a passage to an alternate route.
However, the bosses are not identified differently from regular, run-of-the-mill enemies, and on my first couple play playthroughs, I didn’t even realize I’d been fighting a boss until it dropped the chest key. Still, they provide all the challenge you need to cap off a level, and offer that same sort of success through learning that regular enemies offer as well.
In addition, while I enjoy the combat and the platforming, there are two things related to them that I thought were more frustrating to deal with, and felt less like a test of my knowledge and skill and more an extra annoyance to deal with. These two things are block traps and spike traps. Block traps are triggered by a pressure plate and drop a large boulder onto anything that triggers it, instantly killing anything that isn’t a boss. Spike traps are on the ground, and anything that falls onto it, from any distance, is instantly killed, save for bosses.
Now, I don’t mind traps and terrain that force you to focus and punish you for letting your guard down. I think it’s a good way to make sure the player is engaged. However, I feel like it’s the opposite of engaging to get forced off of a platform by an enemy or tossed around the room by a boss, only to land on spikes and have your run end due to a single randomly placed spike pile. I feel like that kind of trap, one that instantly kills you for a single mistake, is far more punishing than necessary, and does more to discourage continuing than it does encourage you to go back in.
Of course, to get to this stage where you worry about enemies and traps, you have to be able to play the game. While this might seem natural, it runs into one of my major problems with Vagante: it has some occasionally obtuse and somewhat inconsistent UI.
While in dungeons, you can press the plus button to pull up your stats, inventory, and levels. This is all well and good, and the game even shows you how to navigate this menu during the tutorial. The thing it doesn’t tell you how to do? Navigate any of the menus outside of the dungeon sections.
When you’re outside of the dungeon, the plus button… does nothing. You cannot open up the menu outside of potential danger, which means you can’t do things like look at your starting stats, read the default attributes of your weapons, or check up on what your options for leveling up are before going in. Sure, you could just go into the dungeon and look before you encounter any monsters, but I don’t understand the reasoning behind being unable to look at things like that before you dive in. It doesn’t really punish pertinence, but it certainly does dissuade preparation.
In addition, I feel like the character selection is needlessly complicated. To select a character, you need to select whether you’re playing online or solo. Then, you need to press L + R to start selecting. From there, you can pick your class, appearance, and background. Then, you need to hit the plus button to play. In order to change your character after picking, you need to press L + R again and start from the beginning, which was not communicated to you. Perhaps it’s just me, but I feel as though there’s room to streamline this process, even accounting for multiplayer.
Still, if you can get past the annoying UI and dive in, Vagante offers a tight, sharp experience that values your time and experience (unless it decides to throw a spike trap at you).
And that’s the end of our review for Vagante. You can check out Vagante here on Steam or here on Switch.
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