With a development time of five plus years, Below is a Steam-downloadable roguelike game that more than a few people have been very interested in. Well now it is here and the tagline is very intriguing. Below tells you that you have three goals, explore, survive and discover!
How to Download Below
You can download Below by following the Download link provided below the review.
The Game Review
The Premise
The basics of Below are that you are a little explorer (and I use the term little literally) who arrives at an island on their boat, heads up to the dark and mysterious cavern and then decides to explore the below!
Your goal of the game is to get as far as you can, get as much loot as you can and of course kill anything that comes in your way. Before you head in, the surface world does have a few basic items, like food for example that you can pick up to give you a small fighting chance. Once you head inside, you never know what is being thrown your way.
The Dangers in Below
Everything is trying to stop you in your quest to get lower. I am not just talking about the hazards, creatures and the environment itself, even your own body!
You have to keep an eye on your cold, hunger and thirst. No matter what you do, Below always has some way to keep you on your toes. The combat is very basic, which I do think works for this game as the last thing you want is some convoluted combat system. The crafting is also rather basic, but again it works.
Loot
Speaking of different areas, the different areas have different loot for you to collect. You need to learn pretty early what materials are useful for making it deeper. One little bit of advice I can give you is to have a stock of meals and bandages as these can be a real lifesaver.
Permadeath in Below
This is a permadeath style game and this is what is even going to make or break it for you. When you die, another explorer will arrive on the island and start their journey.
Where your last explorer fell all of their items will be there, which on one hand is great, but if you got super deep it can be very frustrating and soul destroying to have to go through all that again just to get to the point of where you were before. Some people like this kind of thing and some do not.
I tend to like games like this, but Below does feel rather harsh in the way it punishes you when you inevitably die, they could have had better checkpoints and I think the game would have reached a broader audience.
The Bottom Line
Below is the kind of game that is not for everyone. Some people will love how hard and punishing it is. There is fun to be had here and when you just scrape past another level, you do feel like a million bucks.
However, the extreme difficulty and the way you can lose everything when you die may turn some players off. In some ways, it feels like a 2D version of a game like Dark Souls so that could be the best way for you to look at it.
