Dragon is Dead Preview: Just One More Run...

ign.com:

I beat Dragon is Dead’s first boss at 5 AM. I died about 3 seconds later. I thought I was in a cutscene, watching him die, and I was - for about three seconds. Then the cutscene ended, and one of his little skeleton minions whacked me in the face, and I was back to the start. But I knew I had a build that worked. I felt lucky. Twenty minutes later, he went down again, and I kept going. When I finally bought it and respawned at the Fountain of Life, I was happy to drag myself to bed… but I was also already planning the next run.

What I’m saying, then, is that Dragon is Dead is a game for sickos (complimentary), and I’m sickos. Developed by Team Suneat, who you may know as the team behind Blade Assault, Dragon is Dead is part Castlevania, part Diablo, part roguelite, all pixel art hack-n-slash glory. Throw in some unique RPG and progression elements, and Team Suneat’s latest dish is shaping up to be finger-licking good.

Let’s get it out of the way: whether you’re traipsing around the corrupted, skeleton-infested remnants of a once-sacred forest or just walking through a camp of tired, worn-down, hopeless soldiers, Dragon is Dead features absolutely stunning pixel art. You can practically hear these brittle tree branches swaying in the wind and smell the desperation of the small groups of soldiers working to keep the monsters at bay. Combine that with some excellent and atmospheric music, and Dragon is Dead is selling an aesthetic - and a mood - from the word go.

But mood, tone, and aesthetics are only part of the package. Dragon is Dead plays well, too. It’s a side-scrolling hack-n-slash with an obvious reverence for Castlevania - the Spellblade’s dodge animation is a very clear callback to Alucard’s dodge animation in Symphony of the Night - but it marries that with a Diablo-esque UI and loot system that allows you to re-roll individual stats on weapons and armor. The leveling system resembles Diablo IV’s - spells and abilities are segmented into tiers like “Basic