Survivors-like games must have been designed by the people behind social media, as they’re insanely addictive. Fortunately for me, I’m not on social media, so I can’t say I go weak at the knees for doom scrolling and selfies with lattes, but I do have a penchant for the infamous marginal gains in the rogue-like genre. Thus, we have Lunar Tide, a game from whipli, and one such title in the shape of seemingly endless enemies with increasing loot.
Lunar Tide is a mad rogue-like of seemingly endless swarms of enemies that you auto-attack based on vicinity. Your role is to survive the duration, collecting as much loot as possible, levelling up and selecting an ability path that complements your play style, and being able to pull this all off before the moon ‘drops’. Then you’re in for it.
You start with two characters: melee and ranged. The difference between the two is significant, as the first will be about taking as much damage as giving it, while the ranged approach does the damage, but has the tenacity of a teapot. Suffice to say, I ended up going with the latter as it was fundamentally more impressive with its ‘run and gun’ approach.
For each kill you make, you earn an XP orb that will, in turn, unlock one of three perks. These vary quite a bit and will typically be randomised, meaning you can’t always max out your favourite one. Staples such as health regeneration speed, overall health and lifesteal make a welcome appearance, as too does armour – pretty key early on, or at least when you encounter projectile enemies.
The perks make it, and being rewarded with a spinning weapon called the bone wheel, which increases in speed and then numbers was an absolute winner. Then again, as is often the case with games like Lunar Tide, you try a different strategy, such as wielding flame, dark arts, or even just becoming a tank and being the Pied Piper, picking off enemies slowly.
Slow is the key to a stable victory in Lunar Tide, as the waves aren’t endless, despite their initial appearances. You effectively have 20 minutes to survive until the boss comes, and you can theoretically pick off all the enemies in one big clump without them respawning. That said, the bosses are massively overpowered; doing that classic rogue-like trick that makes you feel empowered, only to get one-shot when the boss goes to its second phase. It’s utterly unfair and demotivating. As is the nature of the rogue-like, you’ll be back. Why? Permanent perks.
In addition to orbs, gold can be carried over after each run and squirrelled away to earn permanent upgrades such as health increases, damage, speed, XP development and more. Depending on your strategy, you can effectively become OP yourself through repeat runs, or try something different and unlock new characters with your gold for a different approach. On top of that, there are four main areas to explore (pending you beat the missions that precede it).
Lunar Tide is definitely not the best-looking game. In fact, I’d say it’s bloody ugly and even when the screen isn’t too overpopulated, the janky animation and graphics make it an assault on the eyeballs. Factor in the levels of addictiveness, where you will end up playing repeated runs (as I did), you might be booking in a quick power nap, as it induced a bit of eye strain and a mild headache due to all that was going on. To rectify this, there are scanlines available through the options list, and that’ll always win me over. Also, there are daily challenges, but so far, they’re bloody hard. Still, if you’ve got what it takes and are ready for a grind… It’s dirt cheap, too, so totally worth it.
