Runers (PC) Review

A modern take on the classic Dungeon Crawler, reminiscent of a Roguelike, but with just the right amount of difficulty and replayability– This is Runers.

 

Runers is a top-down perspective dungeon crawler whose only goal is to beat down your character as you try to survive the randomly generated dungeons, as they spawn vicious elementals, the undead, and occasionally, terrible Dungeon Bosses that are sure to introduce players to the ‘Game Over’ screen… a lot. Runers has a classic levelling system wherein you kill monsters or accomplish certain challenges such as ‘Kill the livingstatues while avoiding the dormant statues’ in order to ‘level up’. And while leveling does help increase your damage output and the efficiency of your spells, it is your skill (or luck, for that matter) and your quick-wits which will inevitably keep your character alive, at least for a while longer.

The spell-crafting system is definitely amazing and worth completing. The system works like so – the player picks up runes in the dungeons and the player may then directly equip the rune or combine it with another type of rune to produce a significantly more powerful spell. These can give you added effects such as knockback, persistent damage, or enemy debuffs. There are over 280 spells in total to collect and discover in the game, making the spell-crafting system one of the most arduous yet fulfilling features of Runers.

There are over 20 character classes to, each with their own special skills (such as additional knockback damage) and over 20 passive abilities to help the players survive the dungeon- all of which you’ll need. Exploring what character fits what passive spell is a wonderful aspect of the game, and will definitely keep gamers interested for a long time, as I had a great time playing around with it.

In terms of music, the game sounds wonderful, though it contrasts with the tension and the atmosphere that developer LGK has otherwise done a good job building. The music gives a sense of being attacked on all sides and close to death while listening to the relaxing and comforting tones of something along the lines of the Resident Evil Save Room (I remember that, easy listening -ed). It doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t feel right. The soft and ‘mysterious’ tone of the majority of the tunes in the game’s soundtrack have their own charm, don’t get me wrong – unfortunately that charm does not fit the game.

The game doesn’t look all that impressive graphically, but what comes to mind are the spells and their different effects. For a retro-like game, the various effects and colors of the spells invoke a feeling of nostalgia while satisfying current-gen graphical needs. The dungeons look bleak and colorless, as they should, and the spells and monsters look pretty awesome.

Controls feel… alright, with WSAD as the movement keys and the mouse itself controlling the crosshair. You click the left and right mouse buttons to unleash spells – what feels weird however is placing 2 additional hotkeys for spells so far away from the mouse, specifically the number 1 and 2 keys in the keyboard. For a game requiring the player to constantly run around while avoiding enemy attacks, placing additional spell keys right on top of the default movement keys feels wrong, but it doesn’t break the game however. Runers also features an auto-fire feature for the mouse keys so the player can focus on avoiding enemy attacks and surviving, which is an extremely helpful addition.

Final Thoughts

Runers is an amazing game despite its flaws, and will satisfy even the most hardcore players.

There’s a lot to like honestly, but the most impressive feature here is its difficulty and the amount of challenges and spells to complete and discover. This author highly recommends Runers for anyone interested in having a downright surprising amount of fun… while dying a lot.