Pixel Heroes: Byte and Magic

Roguelikes are my thing, I will always preface these particular reviews by saying. and I'm very picky with my rogues, but when I started playing this little cutie, I was instantly hooked.

Though very cute, and very friendly looking, Pixel Heroes is an 8 bit chihuahua that bites like a 50 pound Rottweiler.

It's essentially a randomly generated Dungeons and Dragons like experience, where the player starts by selecting a campaign that, upon completion, unlocks far more brutal ones. Once selected, you'll find yourself looking into a tavern full of colorful 8 bit characters of various classes; from the highly suspicious Human Priest, to the hard to understand, but well meaning Elephantine Hammerguard, all  eager for you to choose them for your adventure.

Upon picking three hapless heroes for your quest, the others will scold you and abruptly leave the tavern, wherein your adventure begins. Your home point will be the town of Pixton, where you'll find a variety of "helpful" townsfolk and shops; a library for spells and incantations, and  your trusty blacksmith for weapons and armor. The player picks up one of two random quests that change every playthrough to complete that send you on a journey to the far reaches of the world, where you must fight through several stages in turn based combat, and resolve randomly generated events. Upon completion of the quest you return to Pixton to turn it in. Where you'll be rewarded with money and the occasional loot haul.

The player must go through this process a grueling seven times before the main objective of the selected campaign can be given to you. But travelers beware, if one or more of your heroes die during a quest, they'll stay dead until you can revive them back in the town, and you can only go back once the objective of whatever quest you're on is complete. Even then, you must have the money to revive them. If all of your heroes die, the game is over, and you must do it all over again.

Which is not to say the aforementioned is a particularly bad thing, frustrating? Yes. But it also gives you a chance to try on different classes and make them synergize well together. And the events are random enough to keep you thirsty for more the first couple of playthroughs. Though they tend to get repetitive after 15. (I've an impressive 86 party wipes to my name, so I know)

All in all, Pixel Heroes was one of the few rogues that really took me to task in a way that only further increased my fervor to complete it. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and even if you get bored. At some point it feels like eating french fries, where you KNOW you lost the flavor five fries ago, but you still have 33 more to scarf down JUST because.

 I know, I've been there.