It’s absurd to me that we don’t have more games trying to match the combat that Mega Man Battle Network laid down. Fighting over a grid with different attacks having different patterns and effects was a blast then, and it was an even bigger blast when One Step From Eden came out. Heck, you can even throw down in PvP now, thanks to Duelists of Eden, which is a massive amount of fun. The latest in this line of spiritual successors is Chivalware, which casts you as a Disk Knight trying to overcome a corrupt king and the horrible effect he’s had on the lands.
You take on this adventure by moving through rooms, fighting off enemies and coming across different events, and getting stronger as you go. You’ll always have three weapons equipped, and each one will be blue, orange, or purple, with swapping them as needed. You then need to match tiles on your 4×4 side of the grid to get energy for them.
This means that, not only moving around to dodge enemy attacks, but you’re also moving around to make sure you can match three or more tiles at a time, keeping in mind the weapon that colour is tied on top of that. It’s pretty hectic, but it does mean that the enemy attacks tend to be a little slower than something like One Step From Eden, at least to begin with. It is, however, incredibly fun to wrap your head around and put builds together.
Unlocks for this roguelite are tied either to achievements, or to your total score on the King’s Leaderboard. It means you’ll get stuff every run for the most part, and slowly claw your way up to new characters and more as well. It’s a decent way to do things, especially as you find more and more achievements for kills with specific weapons or ways of interacting with different events.
Chivalware is, for the most part, an immensely entertaining roguelite with a fun combat system and a great big dollop of that “one more run” feeling. However, it’s also one that lacks some of the variety needed in a roguelite. There just aren’t that many bosses in this game, nor that many enemies to fight off. It’s quite likely you’ll hit that every boss defeated achievement within a handful of runs, and that’s not a bad thing, but if you like a bigger world, it’s going to grate.
Once you’ve finished a run, you unlock new difficulties with new challenges, and things change a bit, but you don’t get a new boss until difficulty 2 (which is the 3rd one). It’s not a bad way of doing things, but it means that unless you’re really going for the challenge of it all, it doesn’t always feel worth chasing. It’s all still great to play, but I don’t feel like Chivalware has the same level of longevity as many other roguelites. That being said, not everyone wants a game they’re going to sink 1,000 hours into, and in that case, Chivalware could be the perfect roguelite for you.
