Wayward Souls (Mage Gauntlet spinoff by Rocketcat)

I've had the honor of spending the last few hours with Wayward Souls and can honestly speak nothing but good about it. I dunno what it is about Rocketcat, but they've got a knack for creating instant classics. Whether it was the Hook series, Punch Quest, Mage Gauntlet or now Wayward Souls...bloody hell, these guys are truly a force to be reckoned with, not just on mobile, but gaming as a whole.

First things first, it need not to be said that the game is a total package. It's a universal app with retina graphics, no advertisements, no visible in-app purchases, achievements and is polished up the wahzoo. It's what we've come to expect from these guys and is nothing short of stellar. As NEG mentioned, everything (including the kitchen sink) can be found in the game, whether it's control options, screen rotation, etc. Oh, and hats...lots of delicious ****ing hats.

I don't want to call Wayward Souls a spin-off of Mage Gauntlet since this game was the original idea behind MG, but the first thing you'll notice is that they look extremely similar. Now, the same thing could be said for all of Rocketcat's titles, but if you're a long-time fan, you wouldn't want it any other way. Even on a 3GS, Hook Champ's pixels were popping with so much life and that trademark style is still present in Wayward Souls in full retina and it's still unmistakable and still oozing character. There's so much attention to detail in the characters, the backgrounds and foregrounds are equally as gorgeous and the lighting is a pixel-junkies wildest dream come true. I could spend hours and hours talking about how great this game looks, but I'm sure everyone reading this has already had a taste of Rocketcat, so there's no point in that.

Now, considering the majority of my time has been spent in the first area of the game, I'm not sure how much variation there is in the music, but it's another highlight so far. The narrow, deep and dark corridors are matched with an equally dark, moody, yet atmospheric and catchy soundtrack that, also something WS has in common with Mage Gauntlet.

I realize by now you're wondering when the hell I'm going to stop comparing Wayward Souls to Mage Gauntlet...but, I can't really. Let's just say Wayward is Gauntlet's younger, much, much, much more sinister brother. The following is going to seem like Wayward Souls 101, but I'm writing it so that even someone who's net yet familiar with the game can understand. While it may look pretty much the same and has the same absolutely flawless controls, gone is all "linearity" from MG. Even though you have 3 checkpoints/areas, everything is procedurally generated. That means no two games will be alike...which in turn means infinite replayability, even if there is an endgame. Not only that, if you take Gauntlet's difficulty and turn it up to 11, you get Wayward's difficulty. Right from the ****ing start. The game can be relentless if you're not familiar with rogue-likes and permadeth means you're going to be cussing a HELL of a lot right from the start. I'll be completely honest and say that I was expecting less from the game and thought I'd be able to complete my challenge right from the start. I purposely avoided watching any recent videos of the game, so booting it up for the first time truly felt like booting it up for the first time. EVER. I've already said it once in this thread, but I'll say it again...I got lucky beating the first boss with the skin of my teeth. I could've STILL been at it.

Also, unlike Mage Gauntlet's one main character, you've got six here. Whether it's a warrior, mage, rogue, etc, the first feel you get for the game is that each character could have had their own separate game. No two play alike, and the fact that you have separate progression (unlockable areas), upgrades and medals for each means you'll be playing this game for a long, long, loooooooong time (especially since there's a massive update due soon which expands the world considerably [yus, tenk u TA pewdcast]). Not only that, just going by the first area and a little bit of the second, you can see a ton of enemy types, each with their own beautifully animated/gorgeous/horrible/annoying/bad-ass/varied attacks and attack patterns and I can't wait to see what Wayward Souls holds within it's devious, deadly, dangerous, dastardly halls...

...so much that I think I'm going to cut this short (heh, is anyone still reading this? ) and get right back to playing this awesome, awesome, awesome game.

PS: If this "review" comes off as a little "kiss-assy" towards Rocketcat/Kepa, forgive me. It has nothing to do with the fact that I got a promo code, but for one reason and one reason only: PLAY THE ****ING GAME AND I DARE YOU NOT TO TURN INTO A GIANT FANBOY!