If I had to describe Ex Sanguis with a single word, it would be “stylish.”
Were I to go into a bit more detail, I would call the game an XCOM-style roguelite wearing the skin of a brutal metalcore opera. Doing so would probably do a lot to justify the aforementioned one-word description, as the imagery that evokes cannot be called anything if not stylish.
Ex Sanguis is a roguelite title set in a world that I would describe as having the aesthetics of religious horror, with a large emphasis on the importance and symbolism of blood and memories. Leading a small strike team of your own design, you engage in a series of turn-based battles on your path towards the boss, growing stronger as you collect gallons upon gallons of blood.
“Roguelite” rather than “roguelike” is an important distinction. While the game does somewhat follow the formulaic design of the roguelike genre, with you choosing from a series of procedurally selected rewards after clearing procedurally generated levels, the game doesn’t follow the formula exactly. A major separation from the formula is the fact that you have only a limited number of battles, represented by a currency called “memories,” to defeat the boss before you are forced to restart. While these memories can rarely be restored through events on the map, you are more or less tied to a limit of six encounters before you’re forced to start over.
I wasn’t really a fan of this aspect of the game, since before facing the boss you have to collect a certain amount of blood, which is also used as a currency to purchase upgrades from event tiles. It felt unnecessarily limiting, and being forced to restart and forfeit my build in order to take on the next boss felt like being punished for doing well. On the plus side, the game doesn’t end simply because you lost a battle, and your health is not persistent from fight to fight, so the resource management side of the roguelike formula is far more forgiving and generally less emphasized.
What I did appreciate was the game’s turn-based combat, which puts a heavy emphasis on spatial awareness and strategizing around tiles and enemy movement before they actually move. These are both things I usually aren’t a fan of, but Ex Sanguis does them in a way that kept me much more interested than I normally would be. Perhaps it is because of the generous amount of action points, or how short missions can be, but I found the flow of this sort of combat a lot more appealing than it is in other similar titles. It helps that the attacks of our strike team of blood-born battle-girls feel powerful, punchy, and generally really fun to use.
The addition of an awesome heavy metal soundtrack made combat even more fun, and it complemented the setting really well. Again, if I haven’t emphasized it enough, Ex Sanguis has a supreme sense of style, which really stood out to me while I was playing it. I loved the game’s creative use of a very limited color palette, and the sort of “biblically accurate angel” theme that seemed to permeate across the cast of enemies.
The fact that missions can be completed so quickly may actually be, for some, a detriment to how you play the game. See, combat encounters, at least in this current version of the game, are finished by killing a preselected group of one, three, or four enemies. Because of this, the game can easily become one of rushing the enemy down and hitting them hard before the rest of the map has time to wake up and swarm you with enemies, which can really incentivize builds that rely on movement and damage. While this should obviously be one of several valid ways to play the game, it felt a little too strong in my runs, to the point where I opted not to use the support class and instead took the melee/tank with two of the ranged DPS classes.
Speaking of classes, there are currently only three, and while they’re pretty versatile, I would really like to see more come as the game exits Early Access. What these classes might be, frankly, I’m not super sure, but it would still be great to see more, as my build paths quickly became the same for each run once I found an effective combination.
More variety is something the game needs overall: more abilities, more upgrades, and more enemies to flesh out the roster. That is, of course, to be expected, considering the game is in Early Access, but I hope the developers keep this in mind as they move forward, if they haven’t already.
Ex Sanguis is in a very promising state for an Early Access game, so much so that I at times forgot that I was playing one. It only becomes obvious when you analyze the game’s somewhat limited amount of assets: The same abilities show up often, there aren’t a lot of enemies, and the three starting classes start to feel limited once you unlock everything they have to unlock fairly early on. Again, however, all of this should be expected for an Early Access game, and if this is the foundation Ex Sanguis is building on, then I’m very excited to see where it goes next. I highly recommend giving the game a try and supporting its development, because it already has a lot to offer.
Pros:
- An incredibly interesting setting, presentation, and soundtrack
- Fun turn-based combat with XCOM-like strategic depth
- Roguelite progression and level design give the game a lot of replayability
Cons:
- Somewhat lacking in content in the current Early Access build
- Some design choices fight the roguelite systems and make progression feel a little restrictive
Try Hard Guides was provided an Ex Sanguis Steam code for this PC Early Access Review. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page!
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